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Emerging leaders in biological engineering 2024

Edited by:

Raj Raghavendra Rao, PhD, University of Arkansas, United States of America

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 24 April 2025


Journal of Biological Engineering is calling for submissions to our Collection on Emerging leaders in biological engineering 2024. This Collection in Journal of Biological Engineering highlights exciting new areas and emerging leaders who are addressing many of these challenges. 

Image credit: © vchalup / stock.adobe.com

New Content ItemThis Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3:  Good Health & Well-Being.

About the Collection

Over the past decade, biological engineering has promoted the convergence of themes from multiple disciplines and has gained significant promise in integrating the principles of biology and engineering methodologies to address grand challenges in human health and the health of the planet. This thematic series in Journal of Biological Engineering highlights exciting new areas and emerging leaders who are addressing many of these challenges.

Meet the Guest Editor

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Raj Raghavendra Rao, PhD, University of Arkansas, United States of America

Professor Rao received his B.E. (Hons) and M.Sc (Hons) concurrently in Chemical Engineering and Biological Sciences, respectively, from Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS), Pilani, India. He then went on to earn his M.S in Biotechnology from the University of Texas, and his Ph.D in Biological Engineering from the University of Georgia. He currently serves as Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Prior to that (2005-2016), he served on the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University, in the Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering, School of Engineering. He is a valued member of the Society for Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Society, Institute of Biological Engineering, and International Society for Stem Cell Research. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and elected Fellow of Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES); and served as the President of the Institute of Biological Engineering (2022-2023). Professor Rao has authored over 60 peer reviewed articles in a wide range of journals.

  1. Inducible gene expression circuits enable precise control over target gene activation and are widely used in direct reprogramming. However, their usability is often compromised by DNA methylation-induced silen...

    Authors: Tomoki Yanagi, Shean Fu Phen, Jonah Ayala, Deniz Ece Aydin, Susanna Jaramillo and David M. Truong
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2025 19:29
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Rickettsia is an intracellular bacteria transmitted to humans through ticks, lice, fleas, or their feces, causing acute symptoms such as fever, headache, rashes, and muscle aches. Detecting rickettsial disease...

    Authors: Negar Farhang Doost, Sai Deepika Reddy Yaram, Kayla Wagner, Harshit Garg and Soumya K. Srivastava
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2025 19:18
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. The successful production of industrially relevant natural products hinges on two key factors: the cultivation of robust microbial chassis capable of synthesizing the desired compounds, and the availability of...

    Authors: Andrés Felipe Carrillo Rincón, Alexandra J. Cabral, Andras Gyorgy and Natalie G. Farny
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2024 18:68
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Mesenchymal stromal cell derived extracellular vesicles (MSC-EVs) are a promising therapeutic for neuroinflammation. MSC-EVs can interact with microglia, the resident immune cells of the brain, to exert their ...

    Authors: Kanupriya R. Daga, Andrew M. Larey, Maria G. Morfin, Kailin Chen, Sara Bitarafan, Jana M. Carpenter, Hannah M. Hynds, Kelly M. Hines, Levi B. Wood and Ross A. Marklein
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2024 18:58
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original research articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Please note this is an invite-only collection. However, Guest Editor welcomes nominations and inquiries.

Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. Please, select the appropriate Collection title “Emerging leaders in biological engineering 2024" under the “Details” tab during the submission stage.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer-review process. The peer-review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.