Dr. Cheng is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. He currently also serves as the Chair of the NIH Biomaterials and Biointerfaces (BMBI) study section. Previously, he was the Randall B. Terry, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Regenerative Medicine at NC State University and Professor in the UNC/NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. He also co-directed the NIH Comparative Molecular Medicine T32 Training Program and served as the Executive Director of Interdisciplinary Scholarship in NC State’s Office of the Provost.
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Lab WebsiteResearch from Dr. Cheng’s lab has been summarized in publications in Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Science Translational Medicine, Circulation Research, European Heart Journal, and more. Dr. Cheng is a fellow of the International Association of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE), the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the American Heart Association (AHA). Additionally, he currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Extracellular Vesicle (Elsevier) and Associate Editor for Bioactive Materials.
Dr. Cheng has been devoted to the clinical application of stem cells and exosomes. He led several Investigational New Drug (IND) applications obtained from the FDA. The biotech companies he founded are developing stem-cell drugs and extracellular vesicles to provide better solutions for lung and heart regeneration, cancer therapy, and drug delivery.
Dr. Cheng's research focuses on regenerative medicine strategies, particularly in adult stem cells, biomaterials, and nanomedicine approaches to pulmonary/cardiac bioengineering and regenerative medicine. For stem cells, he has been focused on adult stem cells and their secreted exosomes and microRNAs in animal models of lung injury/fibrosis, SARS-CoV-2 infection, myocardial infarction, and heart failure. For bioengineering techniques, Dr. Cheng's lab uses a combination of magnetic/molecular targeting, tissue engineering, nanomaterials, hydrogel, and imaging technologies to develop more potent biotherapeutics for various degenerative diseases. In addition, his lab also discovered and defined the term of angiopellosis as a new mechanism of cell extravasation.
Dr. Cheng obtained his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Zhejiang University and his Ph.D. degree in bioengineering from the University of Georgia.