Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Shapiro group develops molecular technologies for noninvasive imaging and control of cellular function, and uses these technologies to study basic biology and create cellular diagnostics and therapeutics.
Many important biological processes occur deep inside living organisms. Their study requires technologies to image and manipulate cellular and molecular function non-invasively. To develop such technologies, the Shapiro group pursue fundamental advances at the interface of molecular and cellular engineering with various forms of energy: magnetic, mechanical, thermal and chemical. Their work takes advantage of naturally evolved biological structures with unique physical properties, which they use as starting points for engineering.