Joseph Irudayaraj, bio-micro/nanotech researcher, joins MNTL faculty

Joseph Irudayaraj has joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a full professor, Founder Professor in Bioengineering, and associate head for graduate programs in the Department of Bioengineering. He comes to Illinois from Purdue University, where he served as a professor of Biological Engineering and deputy director of the Bindley Bioscience Center. Irudayaraj conducts bionanotechnology research, developing tiny (nano) diagnostic tools to understand cellular mechanisms that could lead to targeted therapies or better pronoses for cancer or neurogenerative diseases.

At Illinois, his focus is to “develop optical technologies and nanoparticle sensors for epigenetic regulation and dynamic phosphorylation monitoring to understand disease etiology — with a primary focus on cancer and immunotherapy,” he said.

Irudayaraj’s appointments at Illinois include the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory.

At MNTL, he is using lab tools for “device development, image capture and calibration software,” and is collaborating with other faculty on “probe preparation and device development,” he said. In addition, with IGB faculty he’s developing molecular tools; with Beckman faculty, ultrasound therapeutics and modeling of ultrasound and nanoparticle biophysics; and with Bioengineering faculty, he’s working on nanoparticle therapeutics and basic molecular tools for epigenetic regulation.

Irudayaraj holds an M.S. degree in Biosystems Engineering and an M.S. in Information and Computer Science, both from the University of Hawaii, and he earned his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering at Purdue University.