Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic is a bioengineer appointed University Professor, the highest academic rank at Columbia University, as the first engineer in the history of Columbia to receive this highest distinction. She is also the Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Sciences, Professor of Dental Medicine and a faculty in the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Center for Human Development. She directs the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, the NIH-funded Tissue Engineering Resource Center, and Columbia’s Center for Dental and Craniofacial Research. The focus of her lab is on engineering functional human tissues for use in regenerative medicine and patient-specific “organs-on-a-chip” for studies of human pathophysiology. From these studies, she published 3 books and over 450 journal articles, including those in Nature, Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, Science Advances, PNAS, Cell Stem Cell, Science Translational Medicine. She has mentored over 150 trainees. With her students, she founded four biotech companies: epiBone (epibone.com), Tara (tarabiosystems.com), Xylyx (xylyxbio.com), and Immplacate (immplacatehealth.com).
Among her many recognitions, she was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the National Academy of Engineering (the first women faculty at Columbia University), the National Academy of Medicine (the first engineer at Columbia University), the National Academy of Inventors, the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
