News

Congenital Heart Disease Mutation Linked to Kidney Damage

| Duke Pratt School of Engineering

Congenital Heart Disease Mutation Linked to Kidney Damage (Press Release on Our 2025 Nature Biomedical Engineering Paper)

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have shown that a genetic mutation that causes congenital heart disease also contributes to kidney damage and developmental defects. Identifying this early cause of kidney damage could enable clinicians to diagnose and address kidney problems much sooner…

Newest publication from the Musah Lab, out in Nature Biomedical Engineering: "Engineered human induced pluripotent stem cell models reveal altered podocytogenesis in congenital heart disease-associated SMAD2 mutations."

New publication from the Musah Lab, out in Nature Biomedical Engineering

Excited to share the newest publication from the Musah Lab, out in Nature Biomedical Engineering: "Engineered human induced pluripotent stem cell models reveal altered podocytogenesis in congenital heart disease-associated SMAD2 mutations." We hope our discovery informs clinicians, research…

Dr. Musah Named 2025 CBME Young Innovator

Dr. Musah Named 2025 CBME Young Innovator

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Musah has been recognized as one of the 2025 Young Innovators in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CBME).

Musah Lab publication revealing the importance of using developmentally appropriate in vitro models for human-relevant studies, including disease modeling and mechanistic insights

Our newest research publication highlights the importance of using developmentally appropriate non-animal models for studying human diseases

Given the growing interest in non-animal models (#NAMs) and human-relevant systems, we are thrilled to share the publication of our latest research in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering! This study highlights the impor

The article, "Decoding cell fate: human models reveal how SMAD2 variants shape development," discusses a recent work by Ward et al. from Harvard Medical School, who used genome engineering to create isogenic human iPSC lines with patient-derived SMAD2 variants. This approach allowed them to dissect the transcriptional and epigenetic consequences of SMAD2 mutations in a human context—something that's often impossible to address in animal models due to early embryonic lethality.

Our new perspective article is published in Nature Reviews Genetics!

Image

2025-2026 CBTE Seminar Series

CBTE Announces 2025-2026 Seminar Series Featuring World-Class Speakers

Image

Musah Lab PhD Student Hamidreza Arzaghi Receives Prestigious 2025 Lew’s Pre-doctoral Fellowship

Musah Lab PhD Student Hamidreza Arzaghi Awarded Prestigious 2025 Lew’s Pre-doctoral Fellowship

The Musah Lab is delighted to announce that PhD student Hamidreza Arzaghi has been awarded the 2025 Lew’s Pre-doctoral Fellowship by the Center for Biomolecular & Tissue Engineering at Duke University.

Amanda Barreto (Graduate Student in the Musah Lab) presents an award winning poster at the 2025 International Podocyte Conference

Best poster and conference travel awards go to Amanda Barreto at the 2025 International Podocyte Conference in Hamburg, Germany

Image

Yasmin Roye presenting the 2025 International Podocyte Conference

Yasmin Roye gives an oral presentation at the 2025 International Podocyte Conference in Germany

Monique Armelle Dacanay joins the Musah Lab as a Pratt-NCCU Summer Research Scholar in Biomedical Engineering

Monique Armelle Dacanay joins the Musah Lab as a Pratt-NCCU Summer Research Scholar in Biomedical Engineering!

We are excited to welcome Monique Armelle Dacanay to the Musah Lab as a Pratt-NCCU Summer Research Scholar in Biomedical Engineering! Monique recently graduated Summa Cum Laude from North Carolina Central University with a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences and a Minor in Spanish (Class of 2025).…

Alek Mishra, A Musah Lab undergraduate, presenting his poster for the Graduation with honors/departmental distinction poster session

Congratulations to Alek Mishra on his Graduation with Honors and Departmental Distinction

Image

4th successful PhD thesis defense from the Musah Lab delivered by Yasmin Roye.

Yasmin Roye successfully defended her dissertation, becoming the 4th PhD student to graduate from the Musah Lab

Image

Anavi Kaul

Congratulations to Anavi Kaul on her dual presentations at the 2025 National Undergraduate Research Conference at Brown University

Congratulations to Anavi Kaul, an undergraduate researcher in the Musah Lab at Duke University, on the acceptance of her abstract and selection for both a poster and oral presentation at the 2025 National Undergrad

Photo of Dr. Samira Musah, recently named the Alfred M. Hunt Faculty Scholar Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University

Dr. Samira Musah named the Alfred M. Hunt Faculty Scholar Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke

The named professorship, Alfred M. Hunt Faculty Scholar Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, honors and recognizes Dr. Samira Musah's outstanding achievements in engineering and impact at Duke University.

2025 UCLA Stem Cell Symposium speakers

Dr. Samira Musah invited as a distinguished speaker at the Annual Stem Cell Symposium hosted by the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center

Image