COLLEGE STATION, Texas, July 10, 2009 – Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering G. Kemble Bennett has appointed Arul Jayaraman holder of the Ray Nesbitt Professorship in Chemical Engineering. Jayaraman is assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Jayaraman, who completed his undergraduate career at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India, earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Irvine in 1998. He was an instructor in bioengineering at Harvard Medical School for four years prior to joining Texas A&M in 2004.
At Texas A&M, Jayaraman’s research focuses on investigating molecular mechanisms underlying inflammatory diseases and bacterial infections using integrated experimental and modeling approaches. His research projects include systems biology of interleukin-6 signaling in liver inflammation; metabolic engineering and proteomics of adipocytes during hypertrophic enlargement; and role of quorum sensing signaling in bacterial communication and infection.
Earlier this year, Jayaraman was awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award sponsored by the National Science Foundation for research that includes the development of a molecular systems signaling framework aimed at gaining a fundamental understanding of signals, receptors and recognition mechanisms, which will further the advancement of emerging areas such as synthetic biology.
