معرفی
Marjan Rafat is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, with secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Radiation Oncology. Her research focuses on understanding how tumor and normal tissue interactions drive cancer recurrence and metastasis after therapy. She develops bio-inspired hydrogel materials and in vitro tumor-on-a-chip models to study radiation and surgery effects on tumor microenvironments.
Education: Ph.D., Engineering Sciences (Harvard University), S.M., Engineering Sciences (Harvard), S.B., Chemical Engineering (MIT). She is affiliated with the Program in Cancer Biology, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and multiple interdisciplinary institutes at Vanderbilt.
Research interests include tumor-normal tissue crosstalk, radiation biology, biomaterials engineering, and immunotherapy. Her lab investigates biomechanical changes in tissues post-therapy and their role in metastasis, using multimodal imaging and microfluidic systems. Recent work explores how normal tissue damage from radiation influences immune cell dynamics and tumor cell migration.
Lab members include postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates working on projects like radiation-induced metabolic reprogramming, extracellular vesicle communication, and focused ultrasound applications. Dr. Rafat's work has been featured in Biomaterials, Clinical Cancer Research, and Nature Communications.
Awards and recognitions include NSF Graduate Research Fellowships for her students and collaborations with institutions like Stanford University and the National Cancer Institute.
