Navin Varadarajan

Dr. Navin Varadarajan is the M.D. Anderson Professor at the University of Houston's William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, part of the Cullen College of Engineering. His research focuses on engineering immune cells (CAR T/NK cells), developing vaccines, and advancing single-cell profiling technologies to combat cancer and infectious diseases. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (UT Austin, 2006), M.S. in Organic Chemistry (Indian Institute of Science, 2001), and B.S. in Chemistry (University of Madras, 1998).

Key research areas include:

• Immunotherapies targeting solid tumors and hematologic malignancies
• Development of mucosal vaccines for respiratory pathogens
• Mechanisms of T/NK cell dysfunction in cancer
• Single-cell functional analysis for immunotherapy optimization
• Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems

His lab's innovations include:

• Automated single-cell analysis platforms (e.g., TIMING 2.0)
• CAR T/NK cell engineering for enhanced tumor infiltration
• STING agonist-based antiviral vaccines
• Extracellular vesicle secretion profiling in metastatic cancers

His work spans over 50 peer-reviewed articles and several patents in biomedical engineering and immunotherapy. His lab is located in the Science & Engineering Research Center (SERC) at UH.