Mikhail Shapiro

Mikhail G. Shapiro is the Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He earned a B.S. in Neuroscience from Brown University in 2004 and a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008. Shapiro joined Caltech as a Visiting Associate in 2013, progressed to Assistant Professor from 2014 to 2018, Associate Professor from 2019 to 2023, and was appointed to his current named professorship in 2023. Additional appointments include Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator from 2015 to 2021, Schlinger Scholar in 2017-2018, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2021. His accolades encompass the Vilcek Foundation Prize, Roger Tsien Award for Excellence in Chemical Biology, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, and Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences Award. Shapiro instructs courses such as Transport Phenomena and Molecular Imaging within Caltech's Chemistry and Chemical Engineering programs.

The Shapiro Lab engineers molecular technologies for noninvasive imaging and control of cellular function deep in living tissues, exploiting unique interactions of biomolecules with acoustic waves and magnetic fields. Efforts center on bioacoustics for ultrasound-based imaging and manipulation, biomagnetism for MRI advancements, biophysics of ultrasound neuromodulation, and biochemistry for precise neural control. Biological applications target synthetic biology, neuroscience, cancer, immunology, and the microbiome. Seminal works include gas vesicle-based ultrasonic reporters, acoustic reporter genes enabling gene expression imaging, and ultrasound-responsive therapeutics like engineered bacteria for cancer immunotherapy. Key publications feature "Ultrasound imaging of gene expression in mammalian cells" (Science, 2019), "Biogenic Gas Nanostructures as Ultrasonic Molecular Reporters" (Nature Nanotechnology, 2014), "Acoustic reporter genes for noninvasive imaging of microbes and mammalian cells" (Nature Methods, 2018), "Genomically mined acoustic reporter genes for real-time in vivo monitoring of tumors and tumor-homing bacteria" (Nature Biotechnology, 2023), and "Biomolecular actuators for genetically selective acoustic manipulation of cells" (Science Advances, 2023). His innovations have profoundly influenced noninvasive cellular imaging and control in biomedical research.