Juan Rodriguez

Dr. Rodriguez is a professor of physics at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, where he divides his time between teaching physics and conducting biophysics research. His interest in biophysics was developed while a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, where he investigated the optical properties of metalloporphyrins, a class of molecules that includes the O2 carrying active site in hemoglobin known as heme. His work on metalloporphyrins continued at Centenary College of Louisiana where he investigated how light can be used to monitor brain oxygenation non-invasively. His research interests later expanded to nitric oxide (NO) biology, where his work shed light on the biological actions elicited by secondary products of NO synthesis. He also contributed to the development of NO assays, especially the one that was later used to characterize the NO and O2 carrying capacity of Vivacelle’s first products. His work has been funded by a variety of foundations, including the NSF. Dr. Rodriguez is also affiliated with the Vision Sciences and Mechanobiology centers at Washington University in St. Louis.