Michael King, Ph.D.

Two national leaders in the biomedical engineering field, Michael King and Cynthia Reinhart-King, whose research programs have advanced the understanding and treatment of cancer and other diseases, will join the Rice University faculty next year.

“Both are established leaders in bioengineering,” said Gang Bao, department chair and Foyt Family Professor of Bioengineering (BIOE) at Rice. “Cindy has been doing outstanding research on understanding tissue formation and tissue disruption during diseases such as atherosclerosis and cancer. Mike’s research aims to understand important processes in the blood, including cancer metastasis, inflammation and thrombosis… Continue reading.

As a child, Jenna Dombroski was at her grandfather’s bedside when cancer took his life. A scientist, he was her inspiration. Years later, the Vanderbilt University Ph.D. student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow is honoring him by leading the development of what appears to be a promising treatment for breast cancer metastasis, and potentially other types of cancer.

“He encouraged us to pursue exciting and interesting careers, and I always liked science and engineering,” says Dombroski, whose field of study is biomedical engineering. “His death to cancer had a lasting impact, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to combine science and engineering in research to fight the disease, and hopefully save lives.”

The research led by Dombroski in the lab of Michael King, J. Lawrence Wilson Professor of Engineering and chair of the biomedical engineering department, has found that vaccinations of tumor nano-lysate (TNL) – cancer cells broken up into thousands of nanoparticles – delay primary tumor growth and metastasis after being challenged with a tumor cell implantation… Continue reading.

With a surprisingly simple approach in which cancer cells are first grown, ruptured and converted into nanoparticles, and then used as a vaccine, Vanderbilt researchers have developed what appears to be a promising treatment for breast cancer metastasis.

Research led by Jenna Dombroski, Ph.D. student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the lab of Michael King, J. Lawrence Wilson Professor of Engineering and chair of the biomedical engineering department, has found that vaccinations of tumor nano-lysate (TNL) – cancer cells broken up into thousands of nanoparticles – delay primary tumor growth and metastasis after being challenged with a tumor cell implantation. The research was published online in the journal Langmuir on June 5.

The study builds on years of King’s research on circulating tumor cells (CTC) – how cancer cells travel throughout the body in the bloodstream – and the initiation of apoptosis by the protein TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL). TRAIL, combined with fluid flow, acts as a stick of dynamite, rupturing individual cancer cells into a thousand nanoparticles… Continue reading.

COVID-19 is predicted to overwhelm healthcare capacity in the US and worldwide. The cellular and molecular bioengineering community has a history of innovative approaches to address pressing biomedical challenges. As a voice for the this community, the journal Cellular & Molecular Bioengineering (CAMB) welcomes commentaries, reviews, and original research articles that reflect the ways in which we continue to contribute to fields that have become central to understanding, treating, and managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Some examples include:

• On-a-chip platforms for diagnostics, drug screening, toxicology, and basic research;
• Innovative approaches to reduce cytokine “storms”;
• Technologies to understand, diagnose, and treat cardiovascular and other COVID-19 comorbidities;
• Understanding sensory function of taste and smell;
• Platforms to understand, diagnose, and treat zoonoses;
• Commentary from trainees, faculty, and administrators.

A team of physician-scientists have volunteered to help refine and provide constructive feedback to encourage contributors who may not be content experts in virology or patient care. These articles will be free for download at CAMB thanks to the generous support of publisher Springer Nature… Download the full document.

Cellular soldiers created using the body’s own defenses can track down and kill escaping cancer cells during surgeries, preventing metastasis and saving lives, a Vanderbilt University biomedical engineer has discovered, particularly in cases of triple negative breast cancer.

Michael King, J. Lawrence Wilson Professor of Engineering and chair of the biomedical engineering department, and his team attached two proteins to the surface of lipid nanoparticles: TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand – or TRAIL – and the adhesion receptor E-selectin. The injected nanoparticles then adhere to white blood cells, and the introduction of these TRAIL-coated leukocytes into the bloodstream before, during and after tumor removal kills all cancer cells loosed as a result… Continue reading.

The Vanderbilt University School of Engineering announces the appointment of senior faculty to the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and four junior faculty members representing biomedical, mechanical and computer science and computer engineering departments.

Michael R. King will join Vanderbilt as professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Cynthia Reinhart-King will join biomedical engineering as professor and will direct new research initiatives related to the emerging area of regenerative medicine.

The Kings are currently at Cornell University where Michael King is the Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Cynthia Reinhart-King is associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Their appointments are effective Jan. 1, 2017, pending approval by the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.

Michael King is an expert on the receptor-mediated adhesion of circulating cells, and has developed new computational and in vitro models to study the function of leukocytes, platelets, stem and circulating tumor cells under flow. He has written textbooks on the subjects of statistical methods and microchannel flows, and he is currently the editor-in-chief of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.

The American Association of Clinical Chemistry is pleased to honor Prof. Michael King with AACC’s Outstanding Speaker Award for 2013. This award recognizes his achievement in earning a speaker evaluation rating of 4.5 or higher during a 2013 continuing education activity accredited by AACC. King earned this distinction for his presentation at the Upstate New York AACC Annual Spring Meeting, held May 9 – 10, 2013 at ACM Laboratories in Rochester, New York, in the opening talk entitled “Rolling in the deep: Tumor cell adhesion and treatment in the bloodstream.”

Biomedical engineers at Cornell University are turning sticky nanoparticles into “cancer-killing machines” to prevent cancer cells from spreading throughout the body. 

The groundbreaking research could one day pave the way for eliminating 90 percent of cancer deaths.

 The research team, which recently published its findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is led by Cornell professor of biomedical engineering Michael King. His team began their research about 4½ years ago.

 “About two years into the project we really realized what we’ve been sitting on and just how remarkable this approach was,” said King, of Ithaca. “Most drug delivery strategies, the easiest thing to do is kill cancer cells, for instance, that are sitting in a test tube by themselves. But we have a very different type of technology where we put these nanoparticles into the blood and it works far better in the complicated environment of flowing blood than it ever did in a dish or a test tube. It’s fairly unique in that respect.”

 The process is designed to combat metastasis, in which invasive cancer cells from a primary tumor migrate through tissue and spread to distant organs via the bloodstream.

By attaching a cancer-killer protein to white blood cells, Cornell biomedical engineers have demonstrated the annihilation of metastasizing cancer cells traveling throughout the bloodstream.

The study, “TRAIL-Coated Leukocytes that Kill Cancer Cells in the Circulation,” was published online the week of Jan. 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“These circulating cancer cells are doomed,” said Michael King, Cornell professor of biomedical engineering and the study’s senior author. “About 90 percent of cancer deaths are related to metastases, but now we’ve found a way to dispatch an army of killer white blood cells that cause apoptosis – the cancer cell’s own death – obliterating them from the bloodstream. When surrounded by these guys, it becomes nearly impossible for the cancer cell to escape.”

Cornell biomedical engineers have discovered a new way to destroy metastasizing cancer cells traveling through the bloodstream – lethal invaders that are linked to almost all cancer deaths – by hitching cancer-killing proteins along for a ride on life-saving white blood cells.

“These circulating cancer cells are doomed,” said Michael King, Cornell professor of biomedical engineering and the study’s senior author. “About 90 percent of cancer deaths are related to metastases, but now we’ve found a way to dispatch an army of killer white blood cells that cause apoptosis – the cancer cell’s own death – obliterating them from the bloodstream. When surrounded by these guys, it becomes nearly impossible for the cancer cell to escape.”

Metastasis is the spread of a cancer cells to other parts of the body. Surgery and radiation are effective at treating primary tumors, but difficulty in detecting metastatic cancer cells has made treatment of the spreading cancers problematic, say the scientists.

Michael R. King, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is editor-in-chief of the first scientific journal focused on nanotubes, nanorods and nanowires applied to medicine and biology.

The online, peer-reviewed journal Nanotube Therapy launched in March through the open-access publisher Versita. The journal publishes papers on the chemistry, biology and engineering involved in the application of nanotube technology for the improvement of human health. Material properties, novel devices and clinical studies are all within the scope of the journal.