Lukasz Bugaj Assistant Professor Bioengineering BE MSE Co-Director Research Website | Publication List About Lukasz Research Lukasz Bugaj, Assistant Professor in Bioengineering (BE), develops molecular probes to control cells with high precision and applies these probes to understand how cell signals and their dynamics regulate cell behavior, with a focus on cancer signaling and the mammalian stress response. His lab has particular expertise in optogenetics, thermogenetics, protein condensation, synthetic biology, fluorescent biosensors, receptor tyrosine kinase signaling, fusion oncogenes and signal dynamics. Through this work, the Bugaj group hopes to reveal fundamental insights of how cells work while developing new biotechnology for cellular engineering and control for a variety of biomedical applications. Education Bugaj received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, his M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2007 and his ph.D. in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley/UCSF in 2008. From 2014 to 2018, Bugaj was the Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow with Wendell Lim at UCSF, where he applied optogenetic technology to uncover functional signaling defects in cancer cells. In 2018, he joined Penn in his current role as Assistant Professor in Bioengineering. Awards 2012 — Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor, UC Berkeley 2012 — Siebel Scholar, UC Berkeley 2013 — Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation, Runner-up 2016 — Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) (declined) 2016 — Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship 2021 — NEMO Prize 2022 — BMES CMBE Rising Star Award 2022 — NSF CAREER Award 2022 — American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award
