Primary Research:

Spanning 20 years, Dr. Murfee's laboratory has thrived at the intersection of biomedical engineering, physiology, biomechanics and vascular biology. His laboratory bridges research silos by integrating approaches across fields. As one example, his laboratory developed a novel tissue culture model that enables real-time observation of cell migration, fate, and function during microvascular network growth, including both angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. Most of the guiding paradigms for understanding the adult microcirculation can be linked to intravital microscopic observations from the 1930s through the 1980s. His laboratory is making similar impacts by viewing cell dynamics involved in microvascular remodeling in a new way. The innovative approach has led to discoveries that lymphatic vessels can lose their lymphatic specific phenotype and form mosaic blood vessels, that vascular pericytes can detach from vessels and become other cell types, and that vascular islands can form and reconnect to other locations in a growing network. Ongoing projects include exploring lymphatic/blood vessel mispatterning, tracking stem cell fate, evaluating immune-cancer-vascular cell interactions, and using computational modeling to estimate local shear stresses experienced by endothelial cells during angiogenesis.

Laboratory web site URL:

https://faculty.eng.ufl.edu/murfee/

Collaborative Relationships:

Dr. Murfee has been fortunate to have been helped shape the microvascular research community through NAVBO programming, his leadership roles in the Microcirculatory Society, and as Editor-In-Chief of Microcirculation. His work has involved more than 35 collaborations across 23 universities.

Laboratory Motto:

It only matters if it matters.