A University of Maryland study to advance fundamental science that will drive targeted nanomedicine for a wide range of human health indications has received $2 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.
The project will focus on studying biological processes associated with the mucosal barrier in the human body—key to the development of specialized formulations that improve the efficacy of treatments with minimal side effects.
“If we can better understand how nanoparticles interact with mucus barriers, we can improve treatments for women’s health, lung diseases, and gastrointestinal indications,” explains Zierden.
The five-year investigation will focus on understanding how the biomolecular corona—a collection of proteins, lipids, and other molecules present in bodily fluids that absorb in nanoparticle substances—occurs in mucus. Fundamental knowledge of the corona in the mucosal barrier will reveal insights of how it forms, which proteins and lipids are found, and how it influences drug delivery.
In the human body, local drug delivery means direct delivery via vaginally administered medicines, inhaled medicines, or orally administered medicines.
Previous work by Zierden’s research group involved engineering nanotherapies that penetrate the mucosal barrier, which resulted in improved treatment efficacy for women’s health and inflammatory bowel disease. However, her team has identified the mucosal biomolecular corona as a key gap in improving the design of nanomedicines for local drug delivery. The goal is to advance treatments with increased drug concentration for higher efficacy, while reducing medication side effects.
The project is funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators, a program that supports the institutional goal of increasing the understanding of biological processes to lay the foundation for disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
Dr. Katharina Maisel – Bioengineering Department, University of Maryland
Alan P. Santos photography
Katharina Maisel, an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of Maryland (UMD), has been named the 2025 Outstanding Young Engineer by the Maryland Science Center, a nonprofit based in Baltimore. Established in 1988 to recognize the important contributions of Maryland’s young engineers, the award annually honors one professional aged 35 or younger in academia, or 40 or younger in other sectors, who have made exceptional contributions to engineering.
Maisel’s research focuses on the intersection of engineering, biology, and medicine. Her lab uses in vitro modeling, nanotechnology, and immunoengineering approaches to study diseases at mucosal surfaces and develop new treatments. By examining the role of stromal cells in disease progression, her work identifies new therapeutic targets and design strategies that could improve how diseases are treated.
One area of particular interest for Maisel’s team is the lymphatic system, which plays a central role in shaping long-lasting immune responses. Her team investigates how to deliver therapies directly to lymph nodes, a method shown in preclinical research to improve the effectiveness of treatments such as cancer immunotherapy.
Maisel’s path to biomedical engineering began with a love of math and physics, but not a clear vision of an engineering career. Encouraged to “just try it,” she discovered biomedical engineering as a way to combine her interest in the human body with problem-solving skills from engineering.
Her graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in drug delivery introduced her to nanoparticles and strategies for targeting drugs to specific sites in the body. During her postdoctoral work as an NIH Fellow at the University of Chicago, she shifted into basic immunology, gaining expertise in the lymphatic system and respiratory immunology, knowledge she now integrates into her current research.
“Since I volunteered at the Maryland Science Center when I was a graduate student, winning this award feels like coming full circle with some of the work I did during that time,” Maisel says. “It also emphasizes that I am looking to grow the next generation of scientists. That is why I am an academic, to inspire the next generation.”
—Story by Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices
Reza Ghodssi, the Herbert Rabin Distinguished Chair in Engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD) and Inaugural Executive Director of Research and Innovation at the UMD MATRIX Lab, has been named a Distinguished University Professor. The title is the highest appointment bestowed on a tenured faculty member, and recognizes the excellence, impact, and significant contributions to the nominee’s field both nationally and internationally. The highly selective honor is given to just 7% of UMD tenured faculty.
“Thank you, University of Maryland, for being my home institution for the past twenty-five years and providing me with fantastic opportunities for research, education, innovation, and outreach,” said Ghodssi. “I proudly share this significant honor with my current and former undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral associates, and excellent collaborators.”
Ghodssi’s research interests are in the design and development of micro/nano/bio devices and systems for chemical and biological sensing, small-scale energy conversion, and harvesting for healthcare applications. He holds nine U.S. patents, with nine applications published and nine pending, and has authored over 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 370 conference papers. He is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Last year, he won the Gaede-Langmuir Award from the American Vacuum Society for his pioneering MEMS research.
Ghodssi has held several leadership roles throughout his tenure at UMD, including directing the Institute for Systems Research from 2009-2018, where he helped establish the Maryland Robotics Center, and the Brain and Behavior Institute as founding co-director.
Ghodssi is also president of the Transducer Research Foundation (TRF), an international body fostering innovation in sensors and microsystems. In addition to his organizational leadership roles, Ghodssi has mentored more than 130 students and postdocs, and has produced academic leaders and industry innovators now at institutions such as Georgia Tech, Meta and the Army Research Lab.
Ghodssi and other academic and service honorees will be recognized for their awards at the 2025 Faculty & Staff Convocation on September 17 from 2–4 p.m. in the UMD Memorial Chapel.
—Story by Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices
The University of Maryland will host an international conference this week that explores the latest in computational tools and methods used for research involving genomics and systems biology.
The 25th annual Wonderful Algorithms for Bioinformatics conference (WABI 2025) joins 65 researchers from around the world for a series of talks and networking events focused on discrete algorithms and machine learning tools that can address important challenges in molecular biology.
Held every other year in the United States, this year’s conference will take place in the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering from August 20–22.
Mihai Pop, a UMD professor of computer science and the local chair for the conference, says that as the volume of biological data continues to expand due to modern sequencing technologies, discovering newfound methods of collecting, processing and analyzing that data have become imperative.
He notes that current bioinformatics research may easily involve petabytes of data (1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes), with other computing challenges arising in the form of capturing genomic diversity within human populations, as no existing solution effectively handles both vast amounts of data and genomic variation.
“Talks at WABI present potential solutions to these challenges by describing new methods for managing large datasets through advanced data structures and models for storing and analyzing pangenomes—collections of closely related genomes such as those from multiple humans,” Pop says.
Pop also acknowledges WABI’s value for students and early-career researchers.
“Science is a team sport,” he says. “Graduate students will learn to engage in scientific dialogue, expand their professional networks, and present their own research while receiving feedback on future work and career plans.”
The conference’s keynote speakers are Christina Boucher, an associate professor of computer and information science and engineering at the University of Florida, and Benjamin Langmead, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University.
Langmead’s talk, “We Are What We Index: A Primer for the Wheeler Graph Era,” will explore pangenome graphs—network structures that compress multiple genomes—and new methods for their indexing and representation.
“Pangenomes are collections of genomes from many individuals that avoid the biases of relying on a single reference genome,” Langmead says. “It’s like training a computer to recognize dogs—you need many pictures, not just one, because breeds vary widely.”
Boucher’s presentation, “Recursive Parsing and Grammar Compression in the Era of Pangenomics,” will highlight innovative algorithmic approaches that enable the simultaneous analysis of thousands of genomes. She says she looks forward to engaging with the WABI community to explore the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Both Patro and Pop are active in CBCB and Pop is the co-director of the microbiome center.
Patro says that WABI 2025 marks a milestone for UMD and the broader research community.
“WABI was one of the first conferences I attended as a graduate student,” he says. “Bringing it here is an honor and a great opportunity to showcase our leadership in this dynamic field.”
—Story by Melissa Brachfeld, UMIACS communications group
Cronobacter sakazakii has made international headlines following recalls of powdered infant formula. To better understand the pathogen’s persistence and transmission, UMD researchers used AI to conduct the first genomic meta-analysis of strains from all over the world.
University of Maryland researchers are shedding new light on how a dangerous foodborne pathogen may have adapted to thrive in dried and powdered foods across the global supply chain. Their study, recently published online in the International Journal of Food Microbiology, could transform how we monitor and prevent contamination in critical food products like powdered infant formula.
Cronobacter sakazakii has made international headlines in recent years following recalls of powdered infant formula and has been linked to life-threatening infections in premature infants, the elderly and other vulnerable populations. Although infections are rare, the consequences can be devastating—ranging from meningitis to long-term developmental issues.
To better understand the pathogen’s persistence and transmission, the researchers conducted the first genomic meta-analysis of C. sakazakii bacteria strains from all over the world. Using an AI large language model (LLM) to standardize data from massive and inconsistent collections, and machine learning to identify potentially significant genes.
“We’re seeing how certain accessory genes—those not essential to survival but beneficial under specific environmental conditions—could confer advantages that help Cronobacter sakazakii persist in food systems and possibly even resist sanitation protocols,” said Ryan Blaustein, an assistant professor of Food and Nutrition Science and senior author of the study.
Other team members include two department colleagues, Professor Abani Pradhan and Postdoctoral Associate Maurui Gao. Their work was supported in part through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Individuals of a species carry a core set of genes that are shared across the species. But different strains or variants from different regions contain additional accessory genes unique to that strain. Blaustein and his colleagues analyzed 748 whole genome sequences collected from food, clinical and environmental sources across North America, Europe and Asia to identify the most complete set of C. sakazakii genes—also known as a pangenome—to date.
The LLM standardized inconsistent metadata about the origins and sources of each sample, among other things, making large-scale comparison possible.
“Everyone enters things differently, from the date and time to things like ‘powdered infant formula” using a capital “P” or lowercase “p” or just powdered formula or even PFI,” said Blaustein, who is a member of UMD’s Center of Excellence in Microbiome Sciences. “We used the language model to recategorize everything that was already in the public database and assign it with a very high accuracy. That hadn’t been done in this setting before.”
Once the team had standardized the data, it used machine learning models to identify core genes and paint a clearer picture of how the accessory genes varied among samples from different locations, environments and conditions. This helped them identify genetic signatures associated with where and how the sample was taken.
They found that samples from powdered foods (including infant formula and powdered milk) relative to other types had larger genomes, and a higher frequency of genes involved in DNA recombination, repair and desiccation resistance, all of which could contribute to the bacterium’s survival in dry conditions. In addition, there was a greater prevalence of genes associated with higher virulence in strains that were likely to persist in the food chain and cause illness.
The team also found correlations between geographic regions and genes associated with formation of biofilms and resistance to heavy metals like copper that show up in some food systems as a component of pesticides or as an essential nutrient, but can also act as an antimicrobial at high levels.
The presence of so many accessory genes with potentially adaptive traits may be what enables C. sakazakii to persist across a variety of ecological niches, including hospitals, food facilities and dried food products. Understanding which genes support C. sakazakii‘s survival in a variety of environments could help target sanitation measures and guide the development of safer processing protocols and technologies. The findings also raise important considerations for the food industry, especially manufacturers of powdered foods.
Importantly, this study provides a pathway to identify genes with key traits of interest for a variety of pathogens. The integration of AI models to clean, standardize and interpret genomic and epidemiological data could help create faster, more accurate molecular surveillance systems for emerging pathogens.
This research underscores the need for international cooperation in understanding how foodborne pathogens evolve and move through the food system, the researchers say. With food products routinely crossing borders and oceans, tracking genetic markers of virulence and resistance has never been more critical.
Launched in February 2023 with startup funding from the University of Maryland Grand Challenges Grants program, the center joins faculty, postdoctoral scholars and graduate students across campus in pursuit of a deeper understanding of complex microbial communities, and how those microbiomes interact with each other and with our ecosystem.
Yarwood’s research is focused on soil and how the microorganisms in it help carry out crucial processes to life on Earth, like releasing nutrients for plants to grow, filtering water, and composing antibiotics. She also examines wetland restoration from the perspectives of mitigating climate change and improving sustainable agriculture.
As someone who has been active in research related to the microbiome for 14 years since coming to UMD, Yarwood is pleased that the center provides a hub to build a consistent community of scientists across campus, collaborating on microbiome research and scholarship that was previously fractured among individual departments and labs.
Since measuring microbiome function requires expensive lab equipment, sharing infrastructure is a key part of that community building, says Yarwood. Now that equipment can be better shared among researchers in the center, plans are in the works to expand its capacity to help accommodate postdocs and early career scientists who might not be able to afford the lab equipment they need right off the bat.
“If there’s a piece of equipment that you just would like to try and see if it applies to your work, this is part of why we’re here, in order to share that equipment, knowledge and expertise,” she says.
Another one of the center’s strengths, says Yarwood, is supporting student researchers in a more purposeful way than just financially. For example, through its fellowship program, graduate students receive not only an $8,000 stipend, but also participate in hands-on workshops designed to train them to conduct research and communicate across interdisciplinary divides.
Since the center’s inception, faculty have curated a list of more than a dozen courses from across several departments that relate to the microbiome sciences, with discussions in the works to develop a certificate program at UMD.
Now that the community of microbiome researchers on campus is becoming more cohesive, the center is also looking to grow partnerships in the region, adds Yarwood. So far, the center has hosted two annual symposiums that have drawn more than 100 regional scientists.
Another goal on the horizon is to expand the center’s financial support.
“It’s been very generous that the University of Maryland has been able to support the center,” says Yarwood. “Now we have a desire to try to find sustainable funding going forward, potentially private donors to support our work to build the next generation of microbiome scientists.”
