Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Tufts University
CGR alum Juan Gnecco is assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University. Prior to Tufts, he served as post-doctoral associate in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering at MIT, in the lab of Dr. Linda Griffith.
Gnecco obtained his B.S. in Biotechnology from Rutgers University and PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, under the mentorship of Dr. Kevin Osteen. In his PhD thesis, he developed the first microphysiological systems (MPS) model of the perivascular endometrium and deployed this model to illuminate the inflammatory effects exerted by environmental toxicants on the female reproductive tract. At MIT, Gnecco led efforts to transform the human clinical relevance of reproductive tract models by defining the interplay between biophysical and biochemical cues on the phenotypes of 3D endometrial cell cultures, using synthetic extracellular matrices to control the cellular microenvironment. In parallel, he initiated and led an effort to define the ex vivo 3D structure and composition of the human endometriotic lesions using tissue clearing and light-sheet imaging approaches. Gnecco has been an invited speaker at the Society for Reproductive Investigation (2020/2021), the Gates Foundation Global Health Integrative Organoid Consortium (2021) and was selected as a Rising Star in Engineering and Health by Columbia University (2020). He serves on the editorial board for Frontiers in Reproductive Health and Experimental Biology and Medicine (EBM) where he received the Outstanding Reviewer award in 2020. Gnecco’s research vision lies at the interface of reproductive biology and tissue engineering to understand the immune-endocrine mechanisms driving both reproductive physiology and disease pathogenesis.
