Research Focus Areas

Our research groups perform biological, materials, and computational and molecular modeling engineering, creating  scientific breakthroughs impacting health, energy, and environment.

Our Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering faculty and students focus on tissue replacement and regeneration. 
Our research in Nanoscale Science and Engineering focuses on nanotechnology, advanced polymers, innovative catalysts, electrode materials, colloids, and self-assembly and crystallization phenomena. 
Research in Computational Science and Engineering focuses on thermodynamic behavior, fluid dynamics, reaction mechanisms (both biological and chemical), bioinformatics, and modeling devices and systems.

Hear From Students:

Marie Beitelshees

Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering

Moein Mohammadi

Nanoscale Science and Engineering

Arpit Bansal

Computational Science and Engineering

Biological engineering faculty and students focus on tissue replacement and regeneration. Research projects and opportunities for collaboration are available in our labs in Furnas Hall, collaborator facilities on South Campus, and the downtown Buffalo medical corridor.

Projects include:

PhD candidate Mitchell Maloy from Parashurama research group is leading a project aiming to engineer a human pluripotent stem cells-derived pancreatic progenitor for Islet cell development.
The Pfeifer research group has designed multiple vehicles for vaccine delivery to enhance the final immune response. These delivery devices have included microbial cells engineered to trigger a strong and directed immune response.
Identifying new technologies to improve stem cell therapy for an array of cardiovascular diseases. 

Our research in materials engineering includes development of new catalysts, drug delivery carriers and systems, oil dispersants, semiconductors for solar cell and display advancements, and materials for electrochemical energy conversion and storage applications (e.g., fuel cells, water splitting, batteries, and supercapacitors). Projects in this area have applications across disciplines and researchers often collaborate with UB faculty from many other departments and industrial researchers and practitioners. 

Projects include:

New vehicle engines are more efficient, and engine exhaust temperatures are lower. Innovative catalysts are needed to control the engine pollutants

NGTs are used as an advanced support to boost Pt cathode performance for proton exchange membrane fuel cells, which holds great promise to meet the US DOE 2020 metric targets for fuel cell vehicle applications. 
The goal of this project is to develop facile miniemulsion-based approaches for the preparation of well-defined CPNCs for various applications, such as evasion of multidrug resistant cancer cells and drug-gene co-delivery.
Haiqing Lin, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is helping Helios-NRG develop efficient, long-lasting membranes for inexpensively separating algae and water.

We apply computer-based modeling and leading-edge data-analysis to understand behavior and solve problems rooted in  transport phenomena, thermodynamics, chemical transformation, and nanotechnology. UB CBE computational faculty and students work in collaboration with members of both the biological and the materials research communities to tackle problems in health, energy, the environment, and more.

Projects include:

"Next-Generation Materials for Energy, Environment & Water” will establish UB expertise and excellence in rational design of nextgeneration materials.

The Hachmann lab group aims to chart new paths in data-driven in silico research and a rational design paradigm.

There is broad interest in developing membrane systems for handling wastewater from a diverse array of sources (e.g., household wastewater, drainfields). The ideal membrane permits pure water to permeate through and rejects contaminants. The permeated water is then reused, reducing the impact of the wastewater on the environment.