Michael King is a national leader in the field of biomedical engineering, and an expert in the following research areas: the adhesion and transport of circulating cells; cellular delivery of anti-cancer therapeutics in the bloodstream; the mechanotransduction of cancer and immune cells in shear flow; and the development of 3D in vitro models of bloodborne metastasis. Dr. King completed a PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Notre Dame and postdoctoral training in bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written textbooks on the subjects of statistical methods and microchannel flows, and has received several awards including the NSF CAREER Award, Outstanding Research Awards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society of Clinical Chemistry, and was a James D. Watson Investigator of New York State. King is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and served as founding Vice President of the International Society of Bionic Engineering. Since 2013 he has been the Editor-in-Chief of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, an official journal of the BMES. He previously served as Chair of the BME Council of Chairs, and most recently as the Chair of the AIMBE College of Fellows.

Prior to joining the Rice faculty in 2024, Michael R. King was the J. Lawrence Wilson Professor and Department Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. Before that he was the Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor at Cornell University, and he started his faculty career at the University of Rochester.

Research Statement

The King Lab applies tools and concepts from transport phenomena, materials science, and computational biology to understand the mechanotransduction of cancer and immune cells, and to develop nanomaterials for the study and treatment of metastatic cancer. We have published pioneering studies examining how the interplay between chemical reaction kinetics, molecular biophysics, and the forces in blood flow control the trafficking of immune cells in the body, and their accumulation at sites of inflammation. We have also shown how a similar interplay controls the recruitment and accumulation of platelets at sites of vascular injury and disease. For the past two decades, the King Lab has applied this unique perspective on the cellular biophysics of the blood circulation towards understanding, and eventually conquering, the spread of cancer throughout the body.

The mechanotransduction of cancer cells in the solid tumor environment is an active area of research, yet far less work has been done to examine the biological behavior of cancer cells in the blood flow environment where there are significant forces at play. Mechanical stimuli such as shear stress have received attention for their effects on cancer progression. For instance, studies have shown that shear stress has been associated with both enhanced metastasis and cancer cell death. In our laboratory, we have demonstrated the synergistic effect of shear stress and TRAIL on cellular apoptosis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), as well as the unique ability of cancer cells to survive extremely high pulses of shear stress, similar to blood cells. These mechanical cues can be translated into biochemical responses in cells through the process of mechanotransduction. We have developed new high-throughput methods to subject cell samples to repeated shear stress pulses and develop “mechanoresistant” cell lines that have been phenotypically and genotypically characterized to identify the molecular drivers that enable cancer cells to survive in circulation. Moreover, given that the presence of CTC aggregates in the blood signal more aggressive and metastatic disease, we have learned to culture multicellular aggregates modeled after aggregates isolated and characterized from cancer patient blood samples. These CTC clusters have been tested in vitro for their mechanical responses, and are now produced in sufficient quantities to inject into experimental mouse models of bloodborne metastasis. Our cancer aggregate cultures are based on new nanostructured surfaces that exhibit the property of superhydrophobicity to create large arrays of “floating” drops, as a high-tech version of the classic hanging drop experiment.

Mechanotransduction in the cardiovascular system has been well studied for decades, in particular the link between disturbed shear stress on endothelial cells and atherosclerotic progression. However, the ability of immune cells to sense and respond to fluid shear stress in the circulation has received far less attention. We have previously shown that exposure of neutrophils to physiological levels of shear stress can significantly modulate the activation of cells to chemoattractants such as fMLP and platelet activating factor. In our current research, we are carrying out mechanistic studies of leukocyte signal transduction in the fluid flow microenvironment. Our laboratory has found significantly increased and sustained T cell activation through stimulation of the mechanosensitive ion channel, Piezo1 with fluid shear stress, and have also reported, for the first time, the dramatic activation of dendritic cells through exposure to physiological fluid flow. These recent discoveries have the potential to revolutionize a broad range of cancer immunotherapies, such as CAR T therapy, as we will be exploring in our research.

Research in the King Laboratory is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, and a major award from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). We are currently growing our team by recruiting outstanding postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, especially those with expertise and curiosity in the fields of immunology, cellular mechanotransduction, and nanotechnology.

Recent Publications

King, M.R., ChatGPT, “A Conversation on Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, and Plagiarism in Higher Education,” Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, 2023, 16(1):1-2.

Hope, J.M., Dombroski, J.A., Pereles, R.S., Lopez-Cavestany, M., Greenlee, J.D., Schwager, S.C., Reinhart-King, C.A., King, M.R., “Fluid shear stress enhances T cell activation through Piezo1,” BMC Biology, 2022, 20(1):61.

Hope, J.M., Bersi, M.R., Dombroski, J.A., Clinch, A.B., Pereles, R.S., Merryman, W.D., King, M.R., “Circulating prostate cancer cells have differential resistance to fluid shear stress-induced cell death,” Journal of Cell Science, 2021, 134(4):jcs251470.

Greenlee, J.D., Subramanian, T., Liu, K., King, M.R., “Rafting Down the Metastatic Cascade: The Role of Lipid Rafts in Cancer Metastasis, Cell Death, and Clinical Outcomes,” Cancer Research, 2021, 81(1):5-17.

Jyotsana, N., Zhang, Z., Himmel, L.E., Yu, F., King, M.R., “Minimal dosing of leukocyte targeting TRAIL decreases triple-negative breast cancer metastasis following tumor resection,” Science Advances, 2019, 5(7):eaaw4197.