Thomas Gaborski - Featured Faculty 2016

He received his BS from Cornell University, and his PhD form the University of Rochester. His research is at the intersection of nanomaterials and life sciences. Nanomaterials hold significant promise for revolutionary improvements in manufacturing, transportation and healthcare.

Thomas Gaborski and his team are working with a specific type of nanomaterial - ultrathin porous membranes - to improve life science research and medical devices. His research group, the NanoBio Device Lab, is conducting work not just on the application of nanomaterials, but also their discovery and scale-up. Nanomanufacturing research is critical because many new material discoveries are not easily transferred to traditional industrial and manufacturing processes leaving these discoveries to lie fallow in researchers' laboratories.

The development of laboratory physiological barrier models such the vascular wall, intestine or lung is major area of interest for the NanoBio Device Lab. Gaborski was recently awarded a 5-year $1.8M grant from the NIH to develop novel membranes to support these tissues in vitro for use in drug screening and stem cell differentiation. The porous ultrathin membranes that his team are developing allow the cells within these tissues to easily communicate and mature. These types of models will likely reduce animal testing, while at the same time provide more physiologically relevant results due to their use of human cell lines. Gaborski was named a Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) in 2014 for his early work in this field.

Gaborski and his team are also collaborating on the development of blood purification technologies using nanomembranes. The nanoscale thinness and efficiency of these membranes are enabling the development of very small and potentially portable dialysis machines that could revolutionize treatment of kidney and liver disease. His team has been funded to develop nanomanufacturing approaches that can scale-up the technologies needed for these devices. Animal trials are currently underway with a collaborating laboratory at the University of Rochester.

Thomas Gaborski
Assistant Professor
Kate Gleason College of Engineering