Datta lab will explore microbial communities in porous environments

Sujit Datta, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, has been selected for the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. Datta, along with 21 other early-career researchers, will receive funding over the next four years to tackle complex challenges related to human health and disease.

Datta and his lab will explore how microbial communities organize and operate as they navigate complex three-dimensional environments, including the dense human tissues and membranes of the gut, lungs and skin. Recently, his lab invented PoreBiome, a new technology allowing researchers to create an environment that mimics these porous tissues and membranes.

“Biomedical research is one of the best pathways we have to understand and overcome the world's greatest health hurdles,” said Craig C. Mello, a 1995 Pew scholar and 2006 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, in Pew’s news release.

Datta joined Princeton in 2017 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. In addition to his primary appointment, he is an associated faculty member in the Princeton Bioengineering Initiative, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, the High Meadows Environmental Institute and the Princeton Institute of Materials.

Read the Pew news release and the School of Engineering and Applied Science news release.