Warren C. Ruder, PhD

Dr. Warren Ruder is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh.  Prior to his appointment at Pitt in 2017, Dr. Ruder was an Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, from 2012-2017. Dr. Ruder obtained in 2002 a BS Civil and Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He went on to obtain his MS (2008) and PhD (2009) from Carnegie Mellon University.  His MS was in Mechanical Engineering, Specialization: Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine (BiRM) where he was 1 of 4 inaugural trainees in the NIH T32 Training.  His program advisors were Philip LeDuc, PhD, and James Antaki, PhD.  His PhD is in Biomedical Engineering. Presently, Dr. Ruder is an Editorial Board Member, Biological Physics, Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group), and an Editorial Board Member, Synthetic Biology (Oxford University Press) and a Co-Editor for Special Issue on “Cell-Free Snthetic Biology” which is in preparation. In 2014, Dr. Ruder was honored with an invitation to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Engineering event.  Every year, 100 engineers from all disciplines, age ~30 – 45, are invited to meet to engage each other and discuss priority areas for the NAE’s future. Only ~40 are invited from academia. Dr. Ruder’s laboratory focuses on applying synthetic biology constructs, methods, and paradigms to solve a range of industrial, medical, and environmental problems. The lab’s mission includes both understanding the fundamental biology of natural bioprocessing systems as well as re-engineering these systems with synthetic control circuits. The team has expertise in multiple fields including gene circuit engineering, cell physiology and biomechanics, microfluidics, MEMS, biomaterials, and polar (Antarctic) ecology. View a list of Dr. Ruder’s publications here.