Samira Musah facts for kids

Samira Musah is an American scientist and professor at Duke University. She is a biomedical engineer, which means she uses engineering ideas to solve problems in medicine and biology. Dr. Musah is famous for creating tiny models of human organs, like a kidney part called the glomerulus, on a small chip. This helps scientists study how our bodies work and how diseases affect us.

Her School Days

Samira Musah went to Binghamton University for her first degree, where she studied chemistry. For her advanced degree, called a PhD, she went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, she focused on how different materials can help special cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells, grow and develop.

What She Does

From 2014 to 2018, Dr. Musah was a special researcher at Harvard Medical School's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. At the Wyss Institute, she led a project to build a working model of a kidney part called the glomerulus. She used stem cells and helped them grow into mature podocytes, which are important kidney cells. Her amazing work on this project was even featured in a short film by Physics World.

Since 2019, Dr. Musah has been a professor at Duke University. She works in both the engineering and medical programs. Her lab studies how human kidneys develop and how to guide stem cells to become kidney cells. Dr. Musah has also talked about how helpful a writing program was for professors who are often not well-represented in science.

Her Research Interests

Dr. Musah is very interested in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). These are special cells that can be turned into almost any type of cell in the body. She uses them to understand how diseases happen and to find new ways to heal the body, which is called regenerative medicine.

Her lab also works on understanding how human kidneys grow and how diseases affect them. They are interested in making new organs or tissues in the lab, finding ways to discover new medicines, and improving organ transplants.

The Musah Lab's Work

In the Musah Lab, scientists try to understand how tiny signals and physical forces work together to help organs develop and function. They look at how these processes can be used to treat human diseases, especially kidney disease. The lab also focuses on guiding stem cells to become specific cells for treating kidney problems and finding new therapies.

Awards and Recognition

• 2017 Baxter Young Investigator Award
• 2020 Whitehead Scholarship in Biomedical Research
• 2020 Named one of 100 inspiring Black scientists in America by Cell journal
• 2021 Recognized as an Outstanding and Trailblazing Black Researcher by Nature Biotechnology