The Vlahos lab synergizes synthetic biology and tissue engineering to create programmable gene and cell therapies for biomedical applications in regenerative medicine, cancer, and autoimmune disease. The lab has three main research themes, including 1) using high-throughput assays to rationally design synthetic protein sensors that sense changes in internal cell states or the external microenvironment, 2) engineering cells to model cell-to-cell communication and elucidate the dynamics and expression of key signals that govern biological processes such as fibrosis and immune rejection, and 3) applying synthetic protein circuits to improve islet tissue engineering. We will employ a multi-scale and synergistic approach encompassing protein, cellular and tissue engineering to solve grandstanding problems in biomedicine focused on immune modulation. Our long-term goal is to create a complete autonomous sense-and-response engineered cell that can be programmed to systemically probe the immune system to better understand intercellular interactions and then apply this knowledge to create personalized therapeutic responses.