Dr. Swathi Balaji is a bioengineer and principal investigator whose research is focused on understanding how extracellular matrix (ECM) signaling, inflammation, metabolism, and mechanotransduction interact to regulate wound healing. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatric Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital and an Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Rice University. She directs the Laboratory for Regenerative Tissue Repair, where her team conducts NIH-funded basic and translational research to investigate why patients with similar injuries experience markedly different scarring outcomes, with particular emphasis on fibroblast metabolism, oxidative stress, and exosome-mediated cellular communication to identify metabolic and biomechanical biomarkers that predict scarring outcomes. Her group was among the first to demonstrate tension-induced aerobic glycolysis in dermal fibroblasts and to define exosome-mediated signaling as a determinant of fibrosis, discoveries with strong potential for clinical translation.
Dr. Balaji earned her B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, followed by postdoctoral training at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Since establishing her laboratory in 2015, she has developed interdisciplinary platforms integrating patient data, genomics, proteomics, and advanced murine, porcine, and human xenograft wound models to design biomaterials and regenerative therapies.
Her work has been published in leading journals including Science, Annals of Surgery, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and FASEB Journal. She has received multiple national and international awards, serves as an NIH study section reviewer, and is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of clinician-scientists and bioengineers.