Keywords: Inflammation, fibrosis, regenerative medicine, biomaterials, single cell, transcriptomics, tissue engineering, immuno-engineering, IPF

Daniel Abebayehu, Ph.D. (He/him)

Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Virginia

Daniel Abebayehu, Ph.D. is a third year postdoctoral fellow in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia in Thomas Barker’s lab. His current work focuses on identifying immuno-stromal axes that show how immune cells and inflammation alter fibroblast biology in the context of fibrosis and regenerative medicine and how to modulate these immuno-stromal axes with biomaterials (i.e. Immuno-engineering).

Daniel received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Virginia Commonwealth University. His graduate research in John Ryan’s lab focused on altering scaffold architecture and polymer composition in order to modulate innate immune cell responses to dampen inflammation and enhance angiogenesis. He received his Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia.

Daniel received his B.S. from the University of Virginia where he did his undergraduate training with Dr. Edward Botchwey, where he was able to study how fiber orientation and incorporating basement membrane proteins into electrospun scaffolds altered the ability to promote neural regeneration. As a PhD student with Dr. John Ryan, his research focused on investigating how scaffold morphology and scaffold degradative byproducts can alter the response from innate immune cells. He published how IL-33 activated mast cells in the presence of lactic acid, a byproduct of poly-lactic acid polymer degradation, have a suppressed inflammatory and pro-angiogenic phenotype. After completing his Ph.D., he turned his focus towards investigating how chronic inflammation promotes fibrosis across biomaterial-mediated and lung fibrosis. His projects are highly collaborative and involve working lung transplant surgeons, polymer scientists, bioinformaticians, and molecular biologists. Daniel’s goal is to identify immuno-stromal axes in order to help create better biomaterials that promote tissue regeneration.