Temenoff Appointed to Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Professorship

Johnna Temenoff has been appointed to the Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan endowed professorship. Temenoff is a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and deputy director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT).

CMaT’s vision is to enable robust, scalable, low-cost biomanufacturing of high-quality therapeutic cells to bring affordable, curative therapies against incurable chronic diseases to everyone. Eleven institutions are supporting the efforts of this NSF engineering center along with six industry partners.

Dr. Temenoff’s current research focuses on fabricating novel biomaterials to improve the quality of adult stem cells for repair of orthopaedic injuries. In addition, her laboratory develops injectable materials to modulate the local tissue environment and reduce joint degeneration after rotator cuff tears.

In 2016, Temenoff was the recipient of the Educational Award presented by the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society. In 2014, she was named co-director of the statewide Regenerative Engineering and Medicine Center (REM), which is a joint partnership between investigators at Georgia Tech, Emory University, and University of Georgia.

Temenoff completed her Ph.D. from Rice University after graduating from Case Western Reserve University in with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a B.A. in French. Her thesis work was completed under the guidance of Dr. A. G. Mikos in the area of cartilage and bone tissue engineering.

She co-authored an undergraduate biomaterials textbook with Mikos while at Rice University. The result, Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science, published in 2008 by Pearson-Prentice Hall, has been adopted by over 40 universities in the U.S. and has been published in two international editions. The book was awarded the Meriam- Wiley Award for Best New Engineering Textbook by the American Society for Engineering Education in 2010.

Temenoff joined the faculty of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University in 2005.