Dr. Jouha Min

Postdoctoral fellow

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) / Harvard Medical School

Jouha Min received her BS from Cornell University, and her PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT (Advisors: Paula T. Hammond and Richard D. Braatz). She then joined Dr. Ralph Weissleder’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) / Harvard Medical School in Boston, where she has made some exciting developments in translational research. Her research interests include the development of advanced therapeutic biomaterials, new tools for early disease detection and molecular profiling, and modeling methods for systems analysis.

Designer biomaterials and integrated platforms toward precision medicine

Precision or personalized medicine is an emerging approach that matches patients with the most appropriate treatment based on the precise molecular features of an individual patient’s disease. Despite huge advances in translational research, diagnosis and treatment continue to pose profound challenges in addressing significant health problems, including cancer and infectious diseases. I herein will discuss three research projects that demonstrate molecular engineering efforts toward precision medicine. Two focus on new developments in diagnosis: (i) bioanalytical sensing of plasma markers predictive of impending sepsis based on a magnetoelectrochemical approach, and (ii) molecular profiling of breast cancer assisted by deeplearning algorithms for global health and point-of-care diagnostics. The third utilizes a novel programmable multi-therapy release strategy for orthopedic implants, enabling both bacterial eradication at the bone-hardware interface and accelerated bone tissue regeneration. These studies highlight the potential of integrating materials science, molecular engineering, and clinical science approaches to develop advanced molecular diagnostics and innovative therapies for precision medicine.