Faculty Profile

Catherine A. Fromen

Centennial Associate Professor for Excellence in Research and Education

Graduate Admissions Co-Director

Education

Post-Doctorate – 2017 University of Michigan
Doctorate – 2014 North Carolina State University
Bachelors – 2009 University of Rochester

About Catherine A. Fromen

Respiratory diseases remain a challenging therapeutic problem, resulting in high morbidity and mortality. These conditions range from infectious diseases of influenza, tuberculosis and pneumonia, to known genetic and immunological disorders of cystic fibrosis (CF), allergy, and lung cancers, and finally to acquired conditions dominated by airway obstructions and lung remodeling in COPD, asthma, and pulmonary fibrosis. With each of these diseases, physiological/pathological changes occur on many length scales, with dysfunction on the molecular level causing changes in cellular interactions, dynamics of the microenvironment, and resulting whole organ function. We are interested in applying engineering fundamentals and innovative tools with the latest understanding in immunology to better predict how these changes manifest at each length scale. Importantly, we seek to understand how these changes impact the efficacy of inhaled therapeutics and to develop translational aerosol designs in new therapeutic areas.

Three main areas of interest include:
1. Leveraging 3D printing to advance in vitro tools for pulmonary drug delivery testing
2. Using engineered particles to probe lung biology and immune function
3. Engineering novel therapeutics for controlled immune stimulation in the lung

Select Publications

For a complete listing of publications, please view the Full CV.

Stillman, Z., Decker, G.E., Dworzak, M.R., Bloch, E.D., Fromen, C.A., Aluminum-Based Metal-Organic Framework Nanoparticles as Pulmonary Vaccine Adjuvants, J Nanobiotechnology (2023) DOI: 10.1186/s12951-023-01782-w
Sudduth, E.R., Kolewe, E.L., Graf, J., Yu, Y., Somma, J., Fromen, C.A., Nebulization of Model Hydrogel Nanoparticles to Macrophages at the Air-Liquid Interface, Frontiers in Chemical Engineering (2023) 4, DOI: 10.3389/fceng.2022.1086031
Bomb, K.,* LeValley, P.J.,* Woodward, I.R., Cassel, S.E., Yun, Z., Sutherland, B., Bhattacharjee, A., Steen, J., Kurdzo, E., McCoskey, J., Burris, D., Levine, K., Carbrello, C., Lenhoff, A.M., Fromen, C.A.,# Kloxin, A.M.# Cell therapy biomanufacturing: uniting biomaterial and flow-based membrane technologies for production of engineered T-cells, Advanced Materials Technologies (2022) DOI: 10.1002/admt.202201155
Kolewe, E.L., Padhye, S., Woodward, I.R., Wee, J., Rahman, T., Feng, Y., Briddell, J.W., Fromen, C.A., Spatial aerosol deposition correlated to anatomic feature development in 6-year-old upper airway computational models, Comput Biol Med (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2022.106058
Bomb, K., Pradhan, L., Qi, Z., Jarai, B.M., Bhattacharjee, A., Burris, D., Kloxin, A.M.,# Fromen, C.A., # Destructive fibrotic teamwork: how both microenvironment stiffness and profibrotic Interleukin 13 impair alveolar macrophage phenotype and function, Biomaterials Science (2022). DOI: 10.1039/D2BM00828A
Jarai, B.M., Fromen, C.A. Nanoparticle Internalization Promotes the Survival of Primary Macrophages, Advanced NanoBiomed Research (2022) 2:5, 2100127. DOI: 10.1002/anbr.202100127
Woodward, I.R., Fromen, C.A. Scalable, process-oriented beam lattices: generation, characterization, and compensation for open cellular structures, Additive Manufacturing (2021) 48A, 102386 DOI: 10.1016/j.addma.2021.102386
Woodward, I.R., Attia, L.M., Patel, P. Fromen, C.A. Scalable 3D Printed Lattices for Pressure Control in Fluid Applications, AIChE J (2021) 67:12 e17452 DOI: 10.1002/aic.17452
Jarai, B.M., Stillman, Z., Fromen, C.A. Hydrogel Nanoparticle Degradation Influences the Activation and Survival of Primary Macrophages, J Mat Chem B 9 (2021) 7246-7257. 10.1039/D1TB00982F
Jarai, B.M.*, Stillman, Z.*, Attia, L., Decker. G.E., Bloch, E.D., Fromen, C.A., Evaluating UiO-66 Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) Nanoparticles as Acid-Sensitive Carriers for Pulmonary Drug Delivery Applications, ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 12:35 (2020) 38989-39004. DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c10900

Patents (h3)

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Awards (h3)

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Research Areas

Pulmonary drug delivery, biomedical and immune engineering, in vitro and in vivo models, aerosol nanoparticle therapeutics, 3D printing of relevant physiology