Luo Gu is an assistant professor of materials science and engineering and an associate researcher at the Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT). His laboratory studies how cells sense and respond to the mechanical and biochemical cues from their microenvironment. The findings from these studies are then used to design and create new biomaterials that provide desirable signals in a spatiotemporally controlled manner to direct cell behavior and function.

His current projects focus on three research areas: developing tissue-like viscoelastic biomaterials to investigate the role of matrix mechanics in stem cell biology and tissue regeneration; engineering immune niches with biomaterials for cancer immunotherapy; and creating new nanomaterials for gene editing.

Gu received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Peking University in China in 2004, and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego, in 2007. He stayed on at UCSD for a doctorate in chemistry with a specialization in multiscale biology, which he earned in 2012. Gu completed his postdoctoral training at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering before joining the Whiting School of Engineering faculty in 2017.