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Meenal Datta, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Notre Dame
South Bend, Indiana, United States

Meenal Datta is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Prof. Datta received her Ph.D. in chemical and biological engineering from Tufts University in 2018, after which she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research focuses on deciphering the atypical tumor microenvironment that drives disease progression and treatment resistance in incurable cancers. By understanding and overcoming the biological, chemical, electrical, and mechanical abnormalities found in solid tumors, new therapeutic approaches can be discovered.

Prof. Datta specializes in multidisciplinary and mechanism-based preclinical research that has the potential to be rapidly translated to improve treatment approaches in the clinic. She has spent her time as a researcher deciphering and reprogramming abnormal tissue microenvironments that present in a variety of diseases ranging from virulent tuberculosis to benign schwannoma to deadly glioblastoma that, surprisingly, share unifying features: abnormal blood vessels, abundant extracellular matrix, immunosuppression, and mechanopathologies. During her Ph.D., Dr. Datta normalized the aberrant blood vasculature found in pulmonary tuberculosis granulomas to improve drug delivery. In her postdoctoral training, Dr. Datta re-engineered the immunosuppressive brain tumor microenvironment to improve glioblastoma response to immunotherapy. As the director of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment & Mechanics Lab at Notre Dame (https://timelab.nd.edu), Prof. Datta’s research group applies engineering fundamentals and problem-solving approaches to explore immunomechanics and mechano-immunology in health and disease, and to discover novel biophysical mechanisms that can be targeted therapeutically to enhance treatment outcomes. Prof. Datta’s lab has also successfully conducted science-in-space experiments on the International Space Station. Prof. Datta has received numerous awards in support of her research including a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute F31 predoctoral fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Association of Cancer Research, a National Cancer Institute K22 career transition award, a junior faculty award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities, and a National Institute of General Medical Sciences R35 award for early-stage investigators.

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