María M. Coronel, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

mcoronel@umich.edu

Dr. Coronel is a Biological scholar and Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. Her lab is centered on engineering biomaterials for perturbing and investigating immunological responses. Dr. Coronel received her BS degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Miami, and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Florida. She also obtained a certificate in Clinical Translational Research from Emory University Public Health School. She finished her postdoctoral fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she received funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, NIH T31, and Georgia CTSA to support her training. CV.

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Nicolle Martin, Ph.D.

nicollek@umich.edu

Nicolle Martin is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Unity Lab. She completed her PhD in Immunology at the University of California, Davis, where she worked under Dr. William Ridgway on the development of immunotherapies for Type 1 Diabetes. In particular, she studied the role, structurally and mechanistically, by which an anti-TLR4 antibody was able to reverse acute-onset disease. She completed her undergraduate degree in Cell and Molecular Biology at California State University, Northridge while working in Dr. Martin Martin's lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. There, she helped elucidate the role of the mechanosensitive ion channel Piezo1 in gut motility by employing temperature-sensitive hydrogels to induce stretch.

Her work in the Coronel Lab focuses on the effect of multivalency of checkpoint inhibitor ligands on modulating the immune response, utilizing the SpyCatcher/SpyTag protein conjugation system. Her work has implications for the development of a spectrum of effects from the multivalency of a variety of checkpoint inhibitor pathways, which could be utilized in the treatment of a myriad of autoimmune conditions. When she is not in the lab, she enjoys wine tasting, exploring new places, escape rooms, and playing video games. If she was an immune cell, she would be a macrophage because she enjoys trying new foods, and keeping everything nice and tidy.

Maedeh Rahimnejad, Ph.D.

rmaedeh@umich.edu

Maedeh Rahimnejad is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Unity Lab. Before joining the University of Michigan, Maedeh was a postdoctoral fellow in the Bottino Lab at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, where she worked on bioprinted biomaterials and vascularized tissue-engineered constructs. Her research interests broadly include biomaterials, 3D bioprinting, tissue engineering, organ-on-chip systems, and the development of clinically relevant engineered tissue models.

Her work in the Coronel Lab focuses on developing biomaterial platforms to improve vascularization and cell survival in engineered tissues and cell transplantation. Her current work combines oxygen-sensing nanoparticles, microporous hydrogel scaffolds, microvascular engineering, and real-time oxygen mapping to investigate how the local oxygen environment influences the design and function of cell grafts. Her research is particularly focused on developing strategies to improve the survival of insulin-producing cell grafts for diabetes treatment. In collaboration with Dr. Brigid Gregg, she also engineers biomaterials for mammary organoid formation and develops stimuli-responsive three-dimensional biomaterial models that mimic mammary tissue and lactation patterns, aiming to create more physiologically relevant platforms for studying tissue development, function, and disease. In her free time, she enjoys reading novels, painting, traveling, and spending time with her family.

Graduate Students

John-Paul Pham

Cellular Biotechnology Training Program (CBTP) T32 Trainee

jppham@umich.edu

John-Paul Pham is a 5th year Biomedical Engineering PhD candidate from Menifee, CA. He completed his undergraduate degree in Bioengineering (Biotechnology) at the University of California San Diego, where he worked under Dr. Shengqiang Cai and Dr. Karen Christman. In Cai Lab, he developed and mechanically characterized composite biomaterials for bone grafting applications. His work in Christman Lab entailed in-vivo validation of a cardiac infarct-homing protein-like polymer (PLP) nanoparticle and investigating regenerative decellularized myocardial matrix hydrogels using single-cell transcriptomics.

At Coronel Lab, John-Paul is engineering microfluidics-based platforms for making polymeric nanoparticles that can be functionalized with immunomodulatory ligands. His work would enable minimally invasive, targeted strategies for inducing tolerance of allogeneic organ transplants. John-Paul is also a current trainee of UM’s Cellular Biotechnology Training Program, a NIH T32 training grant. When he’s not looking for the stepstool in lab, John-Paul enjoys hiking, blasting music through his earbuds so other lab members have to throw things at him to get his attention, and yes, graphic design is his passion. If he was an immune cell, he would be a neutrophil because he gets into lab early, accidentally breaks things, and leaves the crime scene for adaptive immunity (Dr. Coronel) to fix later.

Jean-Pierre Pierantoni

GEM Fellow/UofM CPOD Organogenesis NIH T32 Trainee

jppieran@umich.edu

Jean-Pierre Pierantoni is a 4th year Biomedical Engineering PhD candidate from Tampa, FL. He completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida where he worked in Dr. Benjamin Keselowsky’s lab. There, his research focused on developing a novel glycosylated synthetic protein for modulating immune cell responses in the liver. Jean-Pierre was a participant in the NSF SURE REU program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the summer of 2022 where he worked on nanoparticle platforms for treating thrombosis. As a GEM fellowship recipient, he completed an internship at Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco, CA during the summer of 2023 where he worked in a lab focusing on the development of antibody drug conjugates. In 2025, Jean-Pierre began his appointment as a trainee in the NIH Predoctoral T32 training program in Organogenesis through the Michigan Center for Plasticity and Organ Design

Jean-Pierre’s work in the Coronel Lab focuses on developing microporous annealed particle hydrogels with tethered vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) to improve islet transplant outcomes. By creating this platform, we are able to enhance engraftment efficiency, while also leveraging the novel immunomodulatory properties of VEGF to mitigate adverse immune responses. In his free time, Jean-Pierre enjoys cooking, playing soccer, going to new places, and also attending concerts. If he was an immune cell, he would be a Memory B Cell because he enjoys learning new knowledge and helping others remember things if they forget.

Lab Staff & Undergraduate Students

Lab Alumni

Undergraduate & Visiting Students

Alexander Dontu

Annie Li

Yash Sakhalkar

Eden Merritt

Jinhua (Davina) Sun

Emily Dobao

Allison Nold

Layla Summers

Kasimir Borgol

Leah Phillips

Chloe Filice

Ben Pomianek