Dr. Alison Vander Roest

Biography

Alison Vander Roest is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on cardiac mechanobiology, particularly how the mechanical environment of the heart influences cell behavior and cardiac function in pediatric development and disease. Her lab aims to utilize gene-edited human stem-cell-derived in vitro systems and computational models to study disease and potential therapeutics to improve precision medicine. Dr. Vander Roest received her degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University. Her postdoctoral work at Stanford University involved using gene-edited stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes and micropatterned environments to measure the impact of disease-causing mutations. She is currently leading a K99/R00 funded project that employs multiscale computational modeling approaches to relate cardiac mechanics at the molecular, cellular, and multicellular scales, specifically studying the effects of cardiac fibrosis.

Research Interests

Experience