Lisa A Flanagan

Lisa A. Flanagan, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She holds joint appointments in the Anatomy & Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering (BME) departments. Her research focuses on neural stem cell biology, exploring how glycosylation pathways and biophysical cues influence cell fate decisions during brain development and repair.

Dr. Flanagan’s lab investigates glycosylation’s role in neural stem cell differentiation, particularly how N-glycan branching regulates astrocyte/neuron lineage choices. They also develop bioengineering approaches like dielectrophoresis (DEP) for label-free cell sorting and study neurovascular interactions using 3D human cell models. Key projects include applying DEP microfluidics for progenitor cell enrichment and investigating glioblastoma stem cell resistance mechanisms.

Her work bridges cell biology and engineering, with applications in neurological disease therapy and tissue repair. Publications span neural stem cell mechanics, biomaterials, and clinical translation of stem cell technologies. Collaborative efforts include developing novel scaffolds for CNS regeneration and advancing DEP-based tools for cell analysis at scale.