Katsuo Kurabayashi, PhD

Department Chair, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Dr. Katsuo Kurabayashi is Professor and Chair of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at New York University and an expert of microfluidics, biosensors, single-cell technologies, and translational bioengineering. His research integrates microsystems engineering, nanotechnology, optoelectronics, and artificial intelligence to develop innovative platforms for biological discovery and precision medicine. Over the course of his career, he has pioneered technologies for single-cell analysis, high-throughput molecular screening, immune monitoring, biomarker detection, and point-of-care diagnostics, translating fundamental engineering advances into impactful biomedical applications and commercial technologies.

A central focus of Dr. Kurabayashi’s current work is the development of single-cell microfluidic technologies that enable precise manipulation, sorting, and molecular characterization of individual cells. His laboratory created the patented “Sort N’ Merge” platform, which combines high-throughput droplet sorting with downstream merging and molecular analysis, enabling efficient recovery of rare cells and preservation of native biological information. These technologies have been applied to single-cell transcriptomics, directed evolution, and immune-cell profiling.

In the Colton Lupus REV-CAR project, Dr. Kurabayashi leads the development and implementation of the single-cell microfluidic workflow used to capture native paired immunoglobulin heavy- and light-chain sequences from lupus patient B cells. His technologies provide the foundation for generating high-diversity, patient-derived antibody repertoires that will be reformatted into reverse-engineered CAR libraries for functional autoantigen discovery. Through his expertise in microfluidics, single-cell analysis, and translational bioengineering, Dr. Kurabayashi enables the project’s core strategy of decoding pathogenic autoimmune responses and advancing precision immune therapies for lupus.