Biomedical Research

The Genetic Heritage Group is a collaborative research team dedicated to studying human heritage through genomics. The group conducts field expeditions and generates its own datasets, carrying out analyses both independently and in partnership with local researchers. Adopting a broad definition of heritage as the inherited attributes that characterize human populations and societies, the group's research spans four interconnected domains: genomic, microbial, cultural, and natural heritage.

Principal Investigator: Youssef Idaghdour

Environmental Genomics Lab investigates how genes and environmental factors interact to shape health, disease, and biological diversity. Using advanced genomics, bioinformatics, and single-cell technologies, the group studies immune responses, metabolic traits, host–pathogen interactions, and conservation genetics.

Principal Investigator: Mazin Magzoub

Magzoub Lab in Biophysics designs advanced delivery platforms that help therapeutic proteins and nucleic acids reach the right cells more effectively and precisely. By combining expertise in drug delivery, cancer biology, and amyloid diseases, the group aims to translate novel therapies into real-world applications.

Principal Investigator: Kirsten Sadler Edepli

The Sadler Edepli Lab investigate how genomic and epigenetic regulation shapes development, regeneration, and disease. Using genomics, imaging, and animal models, they uncover the mechanisms that drive tissue repair, stress responses, and cancer, with a particular focus on liver regeneration.

Prinicpal Investigator: Sehamuddin Galadari

The Cell Death Signaling Laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms of programmed cell death and their roles in cancer and human disease. Using advanced biochemical, genetic, and cellular approaches, they identify new therapeutic strategies that target cell death pathways to improve disease treatment.

Principal Investigator: Piergiorgio Percipalle

The Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology studies how nuclear architecture, chromatin organization, and epigenetic regulation shape cell identity and metabolic state. Its research focuses on understanding how disruptions to these processes alter gene expression and cellular function, contributing to cancer, metabolic disorders, and neurodevelopmental diseases.

Principal Investigator: Dipesh Chaudhury

The Laboratory of Neural Systems and Behavior uses multidisciplinary approaches, including rodent models, optogenetics, electrophysiology, viral tracing, pharmacology, and imaging, to investigate how neural circuits linking circadian and sleep–wake centers to mood-regulating brain regions contribute to disorders such as depression.

The Magzoub Lab investigates innovative strategies to improve the delivery and effectiveness of therapeutic macromolecules, including proteins and oligonucleotides. A major challenge in developing these therapies is their limited ability to cross cellular membranes and reach specific targets within the body.

To address these barriers, the lab develops advanced drug delivery platforms based on peptides, liposomes, and nanoparticles that enhance cellular uptake and target specificity. Research in the lab integrates biophysics, drug delivery, amyloid diseases, and cancer therapeutics, with collaborations across the United Arab Emirates and internationally that broaden the impact and translational potential of its discoveries.

Principal Investigator: Ken-ichiro Kamei

The Reverse Bioengineering Lab reconstructs human and animal physiology using advanced bioengineering technologies. Through innovations such as their Body on a Chip technology, the group develops in vitro systems that advance drug discovery, regenerative medicine, and wildlife conservation.

Principal Investigator: Dan Ohtan Wang

The RNA-MIND Lab investigates how dynamic RNA modifications regulate brain function, learning, memory, and behavior. Using advanced molecular, genomic, and neurobiological approaches, we uncover the mechanisms linking RNA regulation to cognition and neurodegenerative diseases, with the goal of enabling next-generation RNA-based therapies.

The overarching goal of the Center for Brain and Health is to advance the understanding of brain function in health and disease, with a particular emphasis on disorders that are prevalent in the UAE. The Center will achieve its goal by jumpstarting interdisciplinary research programs at the nexus of NYUAD’s strengths in Brain, Health, and Data Science, and by pursuing translational and commercialization opportunities with its clinical and industry partners.

Neural disorders due to diabetes, for example, are highly prevalent in the region, pose a significant societal burden, and are underserved by existing research efforts. The strength of the Center lies in its ability to focus NYUAD’s existing but separate areas of expertise around two organizing principles: (1) Local Disorders and (2) Shared Methodology. Thus, each project improves our understanding of a locally prevalent disorder and leverages shared research methodology developed and curated by the Center.

The Center for Genomics and Systems Biology (CGSB) at NYUAD has been a nexus for cutting-edge life science research in the United Arab Emirates for over a decade. With world-class facilities and resources at its disposal, the Center’s mission is to promote innovative advances in genomics and systems biology.

As part of its responsibilities at NYUAD, the Center fosters and promotes the university’s research and training missions, by allowing undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral scientists to engage in cross-disciplinary research. It further assists researchers by providing them with advanced instrumentation and computational support to facilitate high-throughput data collection, visualization, and analysis. The NYUAD CGSB operates in partnership with its sister center, NYU Biology’s CGSB in New York, as part of an open organizational framework that drives forward transformative collaborative work across the globe, supported by joint technology and service platforms.

The United Arab Emirates is confronting major public health challenges in tobacco use, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. These factors have complex co-determinants in human genetic susceptibility and environmental conditions, ranging potentially from the built environment to the human microbial milieu (microbiome). The mission of the New York University Abu Dhabi Public Health Research Center (PHRC) is to improve the health of the population in the United Arab Emirates through scientific research.

The objective of The Research Center for Translational Medical Devices (CENTMED) is to catalyze translational research collaborations between researchers at NYUAD and clinicians at medical centers in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. CENTMED is specifically focused on the development of medical device technologies for diagnostics and therapeutics, with a broad goal of advancing Bioinnovation and Health within NYUAD and Abu Dhabi.