Dr. Kristyn Masters

Biography

Kristyn Masters is a Professor and Vice Chair at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is affiliated with the Biomedical Engineering department and the UW Comprehensive Diabetes Center. Her research focuses on the application of biomaterials, tissue engineering, bioconjugate chemistry, gene editing, and microfabrication to create in vitro environments that model disease progression. She applies molecular and cellular biology along with computational tools to examine cell and tissue outcomes on biomimetic culture platforms. Her primary research interests include understanding how cells integrate multiple cues to make decisions about their fate, deciphering disease pathogenesis, and elucidating key stimuli involved in these processes to inform the design of clinical therapies. In the context of diabetes, Dr. Masters investigates chronic wound healing, specifically looking at factors that regulate keratinocyte migration and the features of the diabetic microenvironment that affect these behaviors. Her work spans characterizing intracellular signaling pathways that drive collective cell movement and developing wound dressing approaches that deliver therapeutics to advance cell migration.

Research Interests