Mercedes Balcells

Dr. Balcells-Camps is a Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (2016) and Profesora Titular in Bioengineering at Institut Químic de Sarrià (2006) in Barcelona. Her research in tissue engineering has shown how endothelial cell states are critical to tissue response to injury, vascular and neurological; integrity of the endothelial monolayer and cross-talk with adjacent cells dictate vascular health and ability to withstand disease. She was the first to show that cells respond to flow frequency not just shear stress and in a manner that is tissue bed dependent. She demonstrated that endothelial cells from the heart and blood vessels, lungs or gastrointestinal tract proliferate optimally under flow conditions whose frequency is tuned to the operating frequency of their host tissue.

She compared the response of macro- and microvascular endothelial cells to flow and to inflammation, and reported that microvasculature endothelial cells become more inflamed than their arterial counterparts when exposed to high shear stress suggesting an arterial/neurological disease link. Confluent endothelial cell monolayers withstand amyloid beta toxicity, while cells in subconfluent/injured states cannot. The concepts she has elaborated have already helped understand why microvascular disease is such an important element and exacerbent of neurologically dementing diseases. Dr. Balcells-Camps’ research bridges the cardiovascular and neuroscientific domains - closing the gap between computational predictions and animal models, through functional and signaling studies on endothelial and neighboring cells performed in a highly multidisciplinary fashion.

Through her dual appointment at MIT and Institut Quimic de Sarria, Dr. Balcells-Camps has promoted innovative, highly productive research and educative exchanges between both institutions and countries. As a direct consequence of her work in extending MIT’s international opportunities for students and faculty she created the International MIT-Spain Program. Each year the program provides 50 MIT students across schools and departments with internship opportunities in Spanish companies, universities and research centers.

In 2011, Spain’s government bestowed Dr. Balcells-Camps with the Cross of the Order of the Civil Merit for her contribution to establishing a fruitful channel between MIT and her home country, Spain. Dr. Balcells-Camps chairs MIT innovation program IDEA2 Global within MIT LinQ Initiative and directs the Global CoCreation Lab at MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. For her service to MIT and to the world, Dr. Balcells-Camps has recently received the 2019 MIT Excellence Awards “Advancing inclusion and global perspectives: maximizing MIT's strengths”.

Dr. Balcells is a passionate basic scientist who embraces working with physicians and clinicians as well as industry partners to accelerate the path of new technologies and therapies from bench to bed-site. She is also a motivated mentor and the projects she leads become the ideal venue to educate the next generation of engineers, biologists, material scientists, physicians, computer scientists and chemists who learn to work collaborative as the only way to solve today’s greatest challenges in health.