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High levels of endothelial ICAM-1 prohibit abrogation of CD4+ T-cell arrest on the inflamed BBB by extended interval dosing of natalizumab

Modelling a Human Blood-Brain Barrier Co-Culture Using an Ultrathin Silicon Nitride Membrane-Based Microfluidic Device

A computer vision approach for analyzing label free leukocyte trafficking dynamics on a microvascular mimetic

A photonic biosensor-integrated tissue chip platform for real-time sensing of lung epithelial inflammatory markers

A tissue chip with integrated digital immunosensors: In situ brain endothelial barrier cytokine secretion monitoring

Professor McGrath graduated from Arizona State in 1991 with a BS degree in mechanical engineering. He earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1994 and a PhD in biological engineering from Harvard/MIT's Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 1998. He then trained as a Distinguished Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. Since 2001, Professor McGrath has been on the Biomedical Engineering faculty at the University of Rochester and served the department for over 10 years as the first director of the BME graduate program.

While historically, Professor McGrath's research focused on the phenomena of cell migration, since 2007 he has been leading the Nanomembrane Research Group - a highly interdisciplinary, multi-institutional team that is developing and applying ultrathin silicon ‘nanomembrane' technologies. Professor McGrath is also a co-founder and past president of SiMPore Inc. a company founded to commercially manufacture the nanomembranes. In 2019, he was also a recipient of the Edmund A. Hajim Outstanding Faculty Award, and in 2015 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

Tissue on Chip

Cell Motility

Nanomembranes

Quantitative Light Microscopy

Human Brain-on-a-Chip Reveals How Inflammation Breaks the Mind

Tissue-on-chip technology holds promise to reduce animal testing

People are protesting a Wayne County beagle breeder. They want to end animal testing

brainonachip-engineering-tomorrows-breakthroughs-today

Biomedical engineering expert demonstrates how healthy brains can break down.

William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences

A “brain-on-a-chip” technology might sound like science fiction, but it’s real-world hope. 

James McGrath, a biomedical engineer at the University of Rochester, leads a team that develops micro-scale tissue chips to study diseases in lieu of conducting animal experiments. The team’s “brain-on-a-chip” model replicates the blood-brain barrier — the critical membrane separating the brain from the bloodstream — to mimic how the barrier functions under healthy conditions and the duress of infections, toxins, and immune responses that can weaken it.

Recent findings from McGrath’s team show how systemic inflammation, such as that caused by sepsis, can compromise the barrier and harm brain cells. The researchers also demonstrated how pericytes — supportive vascular cells — can help repair barrier damage, an insight that could guide new therapies for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The research culminated in a pair of recent studies published in Advanced Science and Materials Today Bio. “We hope that by building these tissue models in chip format, we can arrange many brain models in a high-density array to screen candidates for neuroprotective drugs and develop brain models with diverse genetic backgrounds,” McGrath says.

McGrath aims to transform how scientists test drugs and predict neurological side effects before they occur — helping rewrite how we study, and one day safeguard, the brain.

Contact McGrath by clicking on his profile



'Brain-on-a-chip': Engineering tomorrow’s breakthroughs today

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