BIOENGINEERING DEPARTMENT 
SPRING 2018 SEMINAR SERIES 

Kevin Janes, Ph.D., 
Department of Biomedical Engineering, 
University of Virginia 

Topic:   Systems Bioengineering Approaches for Cancer Biology

Research Hall 163 
10401 York River Rd, Fairfax, VA 22030
February 15, 2018 
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Abstract:  There are exciting opportunities at the intersection of engineering, systems biology, and cancer. Systems bioengineers build predictive models, develop tools, or test mechanistic hypotheses depending on the cancer-biology question or application. To illustrate systems bioengineering in practice, my talk will summarize: 1) How feedback alters the susceptibility of cancer-signaling networks to drugs and genetic perturbations; 2) An image segmentation platform for bright field morphology to tumor spheroids and organoids; and 3) A novel cell-biological mechanism of tumor-suppressor inactivation in triple-negative breast cancer. The versatility and pragmatism of systems bioengineers make us complementary partners in the broader campaign against cancer. 

Janes KA, Chandran PL, Ford RM, Lazzara MJ, Papin JA, Peirce SM, Saucerman JJ, Lauffenburger DA. (2017). An engineering design approach to systems biology. Integr Biol, 9, 574-83. 

Biography:  Dr. Kevin Janes received his B.S. and B.A. degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Spanish at Johns Hopkins University in 1999. He was a Fulbright Scholar at La Universidad de Santiago de Compostela in Spain before obtaining a Ph.D. in Bioengineering at M.I.T. and completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. He joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia in 2008 as an Assistant Professor, where he was named a Pew Scholar, a Packard Fellow, and a recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Kevin was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 and served as Chair of the Tumor Biochemistry & Endocrinology study section at The American Cancer Society. He is currently on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science Signaling and an NCI-funded member of the Cancer Systems Biology Consortium.