Dr. Rustem Ismagilov

Biography

Rustem F. Ismagilov is the Ethel Wilson Bowles Robert Bowles Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), as well as the Merkin Institute Professor and Director of the Jacobs Institute for Molecular Engineering and Medicine. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1994 and went on to receive his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1998. Ismagilov has been a faculty member at Caltech since 2011, initially serving as Miles Professor from 2011 to 2013 before becoming Bowles Professor in 2013. He has pioneered research on global health, particularly focusing on the biophysics of microbial communities, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and microfluidics for single molecule and single cell analysis. His work often involves interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers from various fields including chemistry, biology, medicine, and engineering to tackle challenges in diagnostics and underlying mechanisms of human-microbe interactions. Ismagilov is committed to translating fundamental research into real-world applications and fostering a lab environment encouraging creativity, scientific rigor, and collaboration.

Research Interests

Experience