About

Sindy Tang is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, and a Professor, by courtesy, of Radiology with a focus on Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics. She is affiliated with the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging (AIMI) at Stanford. Her research centers on the application of artificial intelligence and imaging technologies to improve healthcare diagnostics and treatment, integrating multidisciplinary approaches to advance precision medicine. As a leader within AIMI, she contributes to the development of innovative AI-driven solutions for medical imaging and healthcare, leveraging her expertise to foster collaboration across engineering, environmental science, and radiology disciplines.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Biology
• Sociology
• Chemistry
• Virology
• Data science
• Engineering
• Medicine
• Biomedical engineering
• Engineering ethics
• Materials science
• Computational biology
• Nanotechnology
• Biochemistry
• Genetics

Selected publications

• The living interface between synthetic biology and biomaterial design

  Nature Materials · 2022 · 207 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Nanotechnology
  • Sociology

  Recent far-reaching advances in synthetic biology have yielded exciting tools for the creation of new materials. Conversely, advances in the fundamental understanding of soft-condensed matter, polymers and biomaterials offer new avenues to extend the reach of synthetic biology. The broad and exciting range of possible applications have substantial implications to address grand challenges in health, biotechnology and sustainability. Despite the potentially transformative impact that lies at the interface of synthetic biology and biomaterials, the two fields have, so far, progressed mostly separately. This Perspective provides a review of recent key advances in these two fields, and a roadmap for collaboration at the interface between the two communities. We highlight the near-term applications of this interface to the development of hierarchically structured biomaterials, from bioinspired building blocks to 'living' materials that sense and respond based on the reciprocal interactions between materials and embedded cells.

  DOI

• Fomite Transmission, Physicochemical Origin of Virus–Surface Interactions, and Disinfection Strategies for Enveloped Viruses with Applications to SARS-CoV-2

  ACS Omega · 2021 · 131 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Virology
  • Biology

  Inanimate objects or surfaces contaminated with infectious agents, referred to as fomites, play an important role in the spread of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The long persistence of viruses (hours to days) on surfaces calls for an urgent need for effective surface disinfection strategies to intercept virus transmission and the spread of diseases. Elucidating the physicochemical processes and surface science underlying the adsorption and transfer of virus between surfaces, as well as their inactivation, is important for understanding how diseases are transmitted and for developing effective intervention strategies. This review summarizes the current knowledge and underlying physicochemical processes of virus transmission, in particular via fomites, and common disinfection approaches. Gaps in knowledge and the areas in need of further research are also identified. The review focuses on SARS-CoV-2, but discussion of related viruses is included to provide a more comprehensive review given that much remains unknown about SARS-CoV-2. Our aim is that this review will provide a broad survey of the issues involved in fomite transmission and intervention to a wide range of readers to better enable them to take on the open research challenges.

  DOI

• Transcription polymerase–catalyzed emergence of novel RNA replicons

  Science · 2020 · 38 citations

  • Chemistry
  • Biology
  • Genetics

  Transcription polymerases can exhibit an unusual mode of regenerating certain RNA templates from RNA, yielding systems that can replicate and evolve with RNA as the information carrier. Two classes of pathogenic RNAs (hepatitis delta virus in animals and viroids in plants) are copied by host transcription polymerases. Using in vitro RNA replication by the transcription polymerase of T7 bacteriophage as an experimental model, we identify hundreds of new replicating RNAs, define three mechanistic hallmarks of replication (subterminal de novo initiation, RNA shape-shifting, and interrupted rolling-circle synthesis), and describe emergence from DNA seeds as a mechanism for the origin of novel RNA replicons. These results inform models for the origins and replication of naturally occurring RNA genetic elements and suggest a means by which diverse RNA populations could be propagated as hereditary material in cellular contexts.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Investigation of Wound-healing at the Single Cell Level using Microfluidics-based Microsurgery

  NSF · $250k · 2015–2018

• An Integrated Micro-Basophil Activation Test for Rapid Food Allergy Diagnostics

  NIH · $409k · 2020–2023

• Probing basophil function in microfluidic systems for allergic disease diagnosis

  NIH · $605k · 2021–2024

• Collaborative Research: Uncovering the Biophysical Mechanisms of Single-cell Wound-healing

  NSF · $569k · 2020–2024

• RAPID: Effective mass spray disinfection using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

  NSF · $200k · 2020–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Ratmir Derda

  University of Alberta

  25 shared

• Ya Gai

  Princeton University

  25 shared

• Ming Pan

  Yangzhou University

  19 shared

• Jian Wei Khor

  17 shared

• George M. Whitesides

  14 shared

• Lucas R. Blauch

  Stanford University

  13 shared

• Wadim L. Matochko

  Amgen (Canada)

  13 shared

• Wallace F. Marshall

  University of California, San Francisco

  12 shared

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Yi Cuih-287
• Zhenan Baoh-224
• Karl Deisserothh-218
• Michael Snyderh-215
• Roger Blandfordh-205