Medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity and depression can be addressed through the engineering of bacterial communities that already exist within the human body. And Dr. Thomas Mansell wants to develop the ways to do that through research that he will now bring to the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State as a new assistant professor.
Having just completed more than four years of postdoctoral research in synthetic biology for cellular circuits and chemical genomics, Mansell is eager to begin his own adventure as a researcher and educator at ISU. “There is great potential for collaboration in this department,” he said. “And when I looked at the many things going in different areas and different departments at Iowa State, it says to me that there is a great synergy with the research I’m proposing.”
“This is a way to engineer human health by working with bacteria,” Mansell explained. “There is bacteria all over the place, but there are mixed populations of it in different parts of the body – in the gut, in the skin, and more. The makeup of these has a lot to do with many common medical conditions. The question the kind of research I do asks, ‘How can we manipulate these communities of bacteria to treat and prevent disease?’ For example, we can supplement food with substances that encourage the growth of good bacteria – or have bacteria engineered to reside in the body and secrete beneficial products.”
In addition to managing work in his own research lab, Mansell will also instruct CBE students in the subject of chemical engineering separation (converting a mix of substances into two or more distinct mixtures), CH E 358. More than 100 students are enrolled in the course.
Mansell received a B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. in chemical and biological engineering from Cornell University. His postdoctoral work was done at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “I started doing research as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins,” said Mansell, “and I can’t stress enough how important it is to get started on that as an undergrad.”
Mansell, his wife, and two-year-old daughter are settling into Ames, where he predicts they will feel right at home. He’s from rural Pennsylvania and his wife is from Massachusetts, with neither having big-city roots. “When it came down to it, Ames was a no-brainer,” he said.
To date, Mansell has co-authored numerous published research projects, has been involved in many conference presentations and has also been an invited presenter and guest lecturer.
Learn more about Dr. Mansell on his CBE faculty member web page here.