Dr Rasha Rezk

Biography

Dr Rasha Rezk is a mechanical engineer whose research combines microfluidics, cell mechanics, and stem-cell biology to develop new technologies for understanding and manipulating living cells.

Her work focuses on how physical forces influence cell behaviour and how those forces can be harnessed for cell engineering, intracellular delivery, and regenerative medicine. To address these questions, her group develops programmable microfluidic systems capable of applying controlled mechanical forces to suspended cells, enabling the investigation of both fundamental biological mechanisms and translational applications.

Rasha completed her PhD and MPhil in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she subsequently held a Junior Research Fellowship, College Lectureship, and Director of Studies positions. Her current research programme is supported through Cancer Research Horizons, EPSRC translational funding, the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship, and a range of innovation and commercialisation programmes including Creative Destruction Lab (Advanced Therapies), Blueprint by The Engine, ICURe, and Northern Accelerator.

Her work has led to the development of ForCell, a programmable microfluidic platform that uses controlled mechanical forces to investigate cell behaviour and support applications in mechanobiology, intracellular delivery, and cell engineering.

Research

Research

Our group develops microfluidic technologies that use mechanical forces to investigate and influence cell behaviour.

A central question driving our research is:

How can physical forces be used as controllable engineering tools to understand and influence cellular function?

To address this question, we combine microfluidics, mechanics, engineering, and stem-cell biology to develop new experimental systems for studying mechanobiology and cell engineering.

Mechanical Regulation of Blood Stem Cells

Blood stem and progenitor cells experience mechanical forces throughout life within the bone marrow.

We investigate how controlled mechanical deformation influences stem-cell behaviour and function, and how mechanical cues contribute to both healthy and malignant blood-cell development.

Mechanical Cell Engineering

Mechanical deformation transiently alters the physical properties of the cell membrane.

Our work explores how compressive stresses can be used to facilitate intracellular delivery, genome engineering, and future cell-therapy applications using programmable microfluidic systems.

Microfluidic Technologies for Cell Mechanics

We develop proprietary microfluidic devices, cartridge architectures, automated pneumatic systems, and programmable control platforms capable of applying precisely controlled mechanical forces to suspended cells.

This work combines microfabrication, fluid mechanics, instrumentation, automation, and translation to create new technologies for mechanobiology research and cell engineering.

Group Members: Ella Mansfield, Dr Lingyu Kong and Andrew Forster

Academic Collaborators

• Professor David Kent (University of York)
• Dr William Grey (University of York)
• Professor Giorgia Santilli (University College London)
• Professor Alexandre Kabla (University of Cambridge)

Clinical & Translational Network

Our research is supported by collaborations spanning academia, healthcare, and translational research environments, including; University Health Network (Toronto), Boston Children's Hospital and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Student Opportunities

We welcome enquiries from undergraduate, MSc, MRes, and doctoral students interested in mechanobiology, microfluidics, stem-cell biology, and cell engineering.

Opportunities are regularly available for research projects, placements, and interdisciplinary training at the interface of engineering and biology. Please get in touch if you are interested in discussing potential projects or joining the group.