Susan Margulies, Ph.D.

margulie@seas.upenn.edu

Professor of Bioengineering and Neurosurgery
Member of the Institute for Medicine and Engineering
Bioengineering Graduate Group Chair

B.S.E., Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, 1982
M.S.E., Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, 1983
Ph.D., Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, 1987

Research Interests

Cells within the body routinely tolerate deformations during activities such as head turning and breathing,  yet when cells are deformed beyond a safe limit or injury threshold, function and structure are altered temporarily or even permanently. Our goal is to determine functional and structural injury thresholds in the brain and lung, and use them to understand mechanisms of traumatic brain and lung injury. In addition, our study of the biochemical and molecular biology of injured cells facilitates the development of preventive and therapeutic measures.

Because human tissues tend to be inhomogeneous, anisotropic and nonlinear, and the tissues of interest undergo large strains, determining the complex relationship between cellular and macroscopic responses requires an integrated biomechanics approach consisting of several simultaneous rigorous engineering experimental and theoretical analyses. Tissue mechanical properties and injury thresholds are measured and used to develop computational models. These models are used to generalize our experimental cell and tissue findings and determine macroscopic injury mechanisms.

Applications of current work are in the areas of traumatic head injury in adults and children, and ventilator-induced lung injury. These studies parallel clinical investigations regarding the treatment and detection of traumatic injury.

Professor Margulies was awarded the prestigious ALA Young Investigator and Whitaker Foundation Young Investigator Awards, and an NSF CAREER Award.  Her research program is currently funded by NIH, Department of Transportation, and the CDC. She has received awards from the Stapp Car Crash Conference, Proctor and Gamble, American Society of Mechanical Engineering  and the Association of Women in Science. She has been on the editorial board of the Journal of Physiology, the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, and the Journal of Biomechanics, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Discover Magazine, and by CNN and the BBC. Dr. Margulies has served on grant review panels for NSF, NIH, and CDC, and is a standing member of the NIH RIBT grant review study section.  She is a member of the board of directors for the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and was the chair of the Respiration Section Programming Committee of the American Physiological Society.  Dr. Margulies was elected a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2007 and a fellow in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2009.

Selected Publications

1.      Cavanaugh KJ Cohen TS and Margulies SS. Stretch Increases Alveolar Epithelial Permeability to Uncharged Micromolecules. Am J. Physiol-Cell 2006; 290:C1179-1188.
2.      Levine G, Deutschman C, Helfaer M and Margulies SS. Sepsis Induced Lung Injury in Rats Increases Alveolar Epithelial Vulnerability to Stretch. Crit Care Med 2006:34: 1746-1751.
3.      Zhu Q, Prange M., Margulies SS. Predicting Unconsciousness From a Pediatric Brain Injury Threshold.  Developmental. Neurosci (Invited) 2006:28:388-395.
4.      Coats BS and Margulies SS.  Material Properties of Human Infant Skull and Suture at High Rates.  J Neurotrauma 2006: 23(8):1222-1232.
5.      Ning X., Zhu Q, Lanir Y, and Margulies SS.  Development of a Transversely Isotropic, Hyperelastic and Viscoelastic Model for Brainstem undergoing Finite Deformation.  J Biomech Eng. 2006 128(6):925-33.
6.      Ichord R., Naim M., Pollack A., Ibrahim N., Christian C, and Margulies SS. Ischemic Injury Complicates Traumatic Brain Injury in Infants. J Neurotrauma (Invited) 2007: 24:106-118.
7.      Fisher JL and Margulies SS.  Modeling the Effect of Stretch and Plasma Membrane Tension on Na+/K+-ATPase in Alveolar Epithelial Cells. Am J Physiol -Cell 2007:292:L40-L53.
8.      Friess SH, Ichord R, Owens K, Ralston J, Overall K, Smith C, Helfaer M, and Margulies SS. Neurobehavioral Functional Deficits Following Closed Head Injury in the Neonatal Pig.  Exper Neurol 2007: 204:234-243.
9.      Cohen TS, Cavanaugh KJ and Margulies SS. Frequency and Peak Stretch Magnitude Affect Alveolar Epithelial Permeability Eur Resp J 2008 32(4):854-61.
10.     Coats B and Margulies SS.  Potential for Head Injuries in Infants from Low Height Falls. Journal of Neurosurgery - Pediatrics 2008 Nov, 2(5):321-30.

Department of Bioengineering
School of Engineering and Applied Science
University of Pennsylvania
210 S. 33rd Street
Room 240 Skirkanich Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone No.: (215) 898-8501
Fax No.: (215) 573-2071
beoffice@seas.upenn.edu

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