Dr. Qutub received her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley and UCSF, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rice University. Following her postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, she joined Rice University in 2009 where she is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering.
Her research interests are in neurovascular systems biology, cell engineering, and hypoxic response. Her lab’s research vision is to harness human cells’ natural behavior in order to understand and improve health. Specifically, she develops tightly coupled experimental-computational methods to identify the natural behaviors of brain cells (e.g., differentiation) and how they are constrained by molecular signaling as cells develop into functional tissue. She has authored or coauthored 30 publications; cofounded the tech startup DiBS; and served as scientific lead of a 2014-2015 DREAM Algorithm Challenge. She is a NSF CAREER awardee. Her research is currently supported by NSF, NIH and the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas.