Irene de Lázaro Named Recipient of NEBEC Emerging Investigator Award
The Northeast Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC) 2026 has awarded Irene de Lázaro their Emerging Investigator Award, designed to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of bioengineering by junior faculty.
The conference is a consortium of biomedical engineering departments from colleges and universities throughout the Northeast region, and was hosted at Temple University this year. The award is given to those who craft innovative research, teach with passion and push the boundaries of bioengineering. de Lázaro, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NYU Tandon, was the sole recipient this year.
“It is a great honor to be selected by the committee for this award,” says de Lazaro. “This recognition represents not just my work, but the work of my lab members, colleagues, mentors and many more who help shape it.”
de Lázaro leads the NanoBioEngineering for Tissue Reprogramming and Regeneration laboratory at NYU Tandon. Her team is interested in understanding how genetic, biochemical and mechanical signals impact cell plasticity, identity and function. The lab’s mission is to apply this knowledge in combination with nanomedicine and bioengineering strategies to develop therapeutic interventions that modulate cell fate, for example, to repair or rejuvenate poorly regenerative tissues such as the heart.
As part of the award, de Lázaro was invited to give a talk about her recent research into methods to “rewind” aging heart cells in living mice by briefly activating a set of genes known for turning adult cells back into stem cells. By carefully controlling when and where these genes are switched on, her research team found they could make older, failing heart cells behave more youthfully without triggering dangerous tumor growth. Continuous activation fully reset the cells into stem-like states, which caused tumors, but a cyclical, on-and-off approach instead produced a safer “partial reprogramming.” This rejuvenation showed up in molecular markers of aging and gene expression, and it appeared to slow the decline in heart function in older mice. The work suggests that precisely timed genetic reprogramming could one day help repair damaged hearts by restoring the vitality of existing cells rather than replacing them.
de Lázaro has previously been the recipient of the Nanoscale 2024 Emerging Investigator award and the Young Investigator Award from the journal Cells Tissues Organs, among other honors.
