P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans

Mikhail Shapiro is the Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering and Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Medicine at Caltech and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

His research is focused on technologies to image and control cellular function deep inside the body using sound waves and magnetic fields. This work has applications in basic biology and the development of cell-based diagnostics and therapeutics.

Mikhail was born in Kolomna, Russia. He is now a naturalized citizen, and his family lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Mikhail received his PhD in Biological Engineering from MIT with co-advisers Robert Langer and Alan Jasanoff and his BSc in Neuroscience from Brown University. He conducted post-doctoral research in biophysics at the University of Chicago with Francisco Bezanilla, and was a Miller Fellow at U.C. Berkeley before joining Caltech in 2014.

Among his research accomplishments, Mikhail's lab developed the first acoustic reporter genes and approaches for mechanical and thermal remote control of cellular function. This work has been recognized with the NIH Pioneer, Packard, Pew, Vilcek, Sontag, Mark Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome, Hertz and Tsien awards and other recognitions.

In addition to his research, Mikhail has been a co-founder and adviser of several life science start-up companies and spent three years in biotechnology venture capital.

More information about Mikhail and his work can be found at shapirolab.caltech.edu.