(4ai) Engineering Models in Gut-Organ Axes: Immunity, Infection and Nanomaterial Therapeutics for Improved Healthcare

The central aim of my research lab is to investigate the in-host mechanisms of living and non-living entities, particularly, multicellular communities of microbiota, immune cells, viruses, and nanomaterial therapeutics at multiple scales of the biological system. I will focus on how the interactions of these components influence each other in health and disease. My research projects will highlight two key scientific questions. 1. What are the physiological and chemical processes that influence the local and systemic interactions of microbiota with viruses and immune cells to regulate the outcome of disease progression in infected individuals? 2. How can we improve the delivery efficacy of nanomedicine for clinical application? I will combine the techniques of systems biology and multiscale modeling with complementary experiments to investigate these questions. My research program will combine my expertise in modeling and experiments with my knowledge of process engineering to connect broader scales of biological processes and solve clinically relevant problems.

Biological processes exhibit dynamics over a wide range of interconnected spatial and temporal scales. The successful integration and investigation of biochemical and physiological properties at different scales will reward our society with improved healthcare and medical therapies. Multiscale modeling connects the behavior across broader scales to address the physiological, chemical, and phenotypic changes from healthy to disease states. The computational and statistical analysis of such models can identify the key biomarkers in the disease dynamics. It will give us a mechanistic understanding of the downstream processes and narrow the range for experimental studies. I am interested in modeling the multicellular communication in physiological and pathophysiological conditions, intervention with drug delivery, and how drugs will be distributed (pharmacokinetics), and act at different biological scales (pharmacodynamics) with clinical application. I will perform and integrate complementary experimental techniques (e.g., cell culture, microscopy, flow cytometry, microfluidic devices, western blot analysis) with mathematical modeling. I will also collaborate with other labs to collect experimental data at a wide range of biological scales for model validation.

My graduate training at the Missouri University of Science and Technology was interdisciplinary in chemical engineering, computer science, biology, and applied mathematics. Under the direction of Prof. Dipak Barua, I specialized in multiscale modeling of multicellular communication and nanomaterial therapeutics. I developed novel analytical, numerical, and computational methods to study the coordinated behavior for multicellular communication in bacterial quorum sensing, and the effect of physiological properties on the penetration efficacy of nanoparticles in tissue. I also designed and performed experiments to investigate the motility and physiological properties of bacterial cells using microscopy and flow cytometry and the distribution of nanoparticles of different sizes in tumor tissue using microfluidic devices.

My postdoctoral work with Prof. Ashlee N. Ford Versypt at Oklahoma State University and now the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York has focused on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of the drug molecules, computational modeling of the local and systemic immune response, identification and intervention of the key biomarkers in signaling networks, and modeling tissue damage. I developed a multi-compartment physiology-based pharmacokinetic model to track and quantify the effect of the short-chain fatty acid butyrate in the gut-bone axis which contributes to bone formation via immune cells. I am currently working on a coalition project with researchers from diverse backgrounds to develop an open-source, multi-scale tissue simulator that can be used to investigate the mechanisms of intracellular viral replication, infection of lung epithelial cells, host immune response, and tissue damage during SARS-CoV-2 infection. I am integrating a computational model in the coalition project to study the fibroblast mediated collagen deposition at damaged sites of infected tissue and dysregulation of the renin-angiotensin system due to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Selected Journal Publications

1. V. Cook, M. A. Islam, B. J. Smith, A. N. Ford Versypt, “Mathematical modeling of the effects of Wnt-10b on bone metabolism,” BioRxiv, 2021.
2. Getz, Y. Wang, G. An, A. Becker, C. Cockrell, N. Collier, M. Craig, C. L. Davis, J. Faeder, A. N. Ford Versypt, J. F. Gianlupi, J. A. Glazier, S. Hamis, R. Heiland, T. Hillen, D. Hou, M. A. Islam et al., “Iterative community-driven development of a SARS-CoV-2 tissue simulator,” BioRxiv, 2021.
3. M. A. Islam, S. Roy, S. Das, and D. Barua, “Multicellular models bridging intracellular signaling and gene transcription to population dynamics,” Processes 6, no. 11(2018): 217.
4. M. A. Islam, S. Barua, and D. Barua, “A multiscale modeling study of particle size effects on the tissue penetration efficacy of drug-delivery nanoparticles,” BMC Systems Biology 11.1 (2017): 113.

Selected Conference Proceedings

1. M. A. Islam, A. N. Ford Versypt, “Modeling the progression of fibrosis with dysregulation of ACE2 in COVID19 patients,” SMB, 2021.
2. M. A. Islam, C. V. Cook, B. J. Smith, A. N. Ford Versypt, “Computational Modeling of the Gut-Bone Axis and Implications of Butyrate Treatment on Osteoimmunology,” AIChE, 2020.
3. S. Roy, M. A. Islam, S. Das, and D. Barua, “A scalable parallel framework for multicellular communication in bacterial quorum sensing,” In International Conference on Bio-inspired Information and Communication, 2019.

Teaching Interests

My teaching philosophy focuses on creating an environment to guide students from all backgrounds through their intellectual development and promoting their curiosity for life-long learning. I am committed to inspiring my students with motivations to become critical thinkers in the scientific process and endure the hard work to follow. I will create a learning environment to engage students in course materials, provide conceptual and technical training with tangible applications, and prepare them for future academic and career goals. I am interested in teaching the core courses in chemical engineering including mass and heat transport, process control, reaction kinetics, and material and energy balances. I envision developing elective courses, particularly on biological transport, quantitative biology, quantitative computational science, and advanced numerical methods. My research interests, background, expertise, and collaborations with computer science, chemistry, biology, and nutritional science departments make me suited to develop these interdisciplinary cutting-edge courses.