Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic (Serbian Cyrillic: Гордана Вуњак Новаковић) FRSC is a Serbian American biomedical engineer and university professor. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and also holds the title of Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Sciences. She leads the laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia University. She is part of the faculty at the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Center for Human Development, both located at Columbia University. She also holds an honorary professor position at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy at the University of Belgrade, an honorary professor position at the University of Novi Sad, and an adjunct professor position at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University.
Her work focuses on creating human tissues for regenerative medicine, studying stem cells, and modeling diseases. With her team, she has written over 380 scientific papers, 70 book chapters, and three books about tissue engineering. She has given 380 invited lectures worldwide and is listed as a co-inventor on 100 licensed, issued, or pending patents. Using these patents, she co-founded four biotech companies: EpiBone, TARA Biosystems, Xylyx Bio, and Immplacate Health. She also frequently advises the federal government on topics related to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Biography
Vunjak earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Belgrade in Serbia, which is where she was born. After completing her graduate studies in Germany, she returned to the University of Belgrade as a faculty member in its Chemical Engineering Department. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology from 1986 to 1987. She also held joint positions as a research scientist at the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT from 1993 to 1998 and as a part-time professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University from 1994 to 2004. In 1998, she became a full-time principal research scientist with the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Science and Technology at MIT, where she worked with biomedical engineer Robert S. Langer. In 2005, she began a role as a full professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University.
Research
Vunjak-Novakovic has made many important achievements that have had a big effect on the field of tissue engineering and biomedical engineering. Her research focuses on creating functional human tissues using stem cells, special materials called scaffolds, and tools called bioreactors, which help control how tissues grow. She has helped develop the ideas and experiments needed to create new materials and structures that can help repair damaged tissues. For example, five papers she published in 1998 and 1999 about bioreactors, how to grow tissues on polymer scaffolds, conditions for growing cells, and how to test tissue samples have been cited more than 2,000 times. Building on this work, she has studied how stem cells grow and change to form bones and heart tissue, how mammalian cells grow in space-like conditions, and how cartilage cells affect the strength of cartilage. Her team has done more than any other group to control how cells grow, use energy, and function in engineered human tissues. This work has received a lot of recognition from scientists. She is now applying these findings to help treat patients in real medical situations.
Recognition
In 2007, Vunjak-Novakovic became the first woman engineer to give the Director's Lecture at the National Institute of Health. In 2008, she was added to the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame. In 2009, she was elected to the New York Academy of Sciences. The next year, she received the Clemson Award from the Society of Biomaterials for making important contributions to the science of biomaterials. Vunjak-Novakovic is currently on the Council of NIBIB and has previously led the Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. She is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, AAAS, and a founding member of TERMIS. She is also part of the Academia Europaea, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and was listed among the top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy in 2014. She received the Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lecture Award in 2017, which is the most important award given by the Biomedical Engineering Society.
In 2012, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for her work in bioreactor systems and modeling for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This made her the first woman at Columbia University to earn this important honor. Two years later, she was also elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Inventors. In 2019, she was added to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2017, Vunjak-Novakovic was named University Professor at Columbia University, which is the highest academic title given to a small group of faculty members who have made major contributions to their field and support the university.
In February 2021, she was awarded the Sretenje Order by the Republic of Serbia. In July 2021, she was given the Popular Prize by the European Inventor Award.
Her work has been written about in The New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes Magazine, National Public Radio (NPR), and the BBC. She appeared in the 2018 documentary film Tesla Nation as herself.