Sunitha Nagrath elected fellow of AIMBE

Sunitha Nagrath, associate professor of chemical engineering, has been elected to the College of Fellows at the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). The AIMBE College of Fellows comprises the top 2% of medical and biological engineers in the country.

Nagrath, who is also a member of the U-M Rogel Cancer Center and the U-M Biointerfaces Institute, is recognized for her pioneering work on microfluidic technologies for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) isolation and genotyping leading to novel cancer treatments.

Nagrath’s research lab designs and develops smart chips using microfluidics and nanotechnology that can detect and isolate a single cancer cell from amid 1 billion blood cells. Once isolated, Nagrath’s microfluidic technologies allow scientists to analyze cancer cells at the single-cell level to better understand these cells’ specific characteristics.

In 2019, Nagrath was named to the inaugural class of Rogel Scholars, which provides 14 University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center researchers with the opportunity and freedom to pursue new directions in their work. She also received the 2018 Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award from the American Chemical Society, which honors the contributions of an individual who has demonstrated exceptional technical advancement and innovation in the field of microfluidics or nanofluidics in his or her early career.

Nagrath is also the Co-director of the Rogel Cancer Center Single Cell Analysis Shared Resource and the Associate Director for Community in the U-M Single Cell Spatial Analysis Program. She is a named inventor on a patent for Microfluidic Labyrinth Technology granted to the University of Michigan and is a co-founder of Labyrinth Biotech Inc.

She will be inducted into College of Fellows during AIMBE’s virtual 2021 Annual Event on March 26, 2021.