Jeff Karp is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and is Co-Director of the Center for Regenerative Therapeutics at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is Principal Faculty at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and is Affiliate Faculty at MIT through the HST program.

His research focuses on Stem Cell Engineering (towards elucidating basic mechanisms mediating the homing of Mesenchymal Stem Cells that drive innovative engineered solutions to control the fate and function of cells post-transplantation), Biomaterials (studying degradable prodrug-based self-assembled hydrogels as controlled drug-delivery systems), and Medical devices such as cell sorting chips that can be used to sort cells for diagnostic or therapeutic applications, needles that sense travel through tissues, or Gecko-inspired medical adhesives that was recently selected as one of Popular Mechanic's "Top 20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine”.

Dr. Karp has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, 15 book chapters, 60 abstracts, and has 25 issued or pending patents, a number of which have been licensed by biotech companies. Dr. Karp's work has been recognized by CNN, NPR Science Fridays, ABC News, MSNBC, CBC Quirks and Quarks, CanadaAM, BBC, Forbes, CBS Brink, Popular Science, the Washington Post, the New York Post, and by Wired Magazine.

In 2011 the Boston Business Journal recognized Dr. Karp as a Champion in Healthcare Innovation. MIT’s Technology Review Magazine (TR35) also recognized Dr. Karp as being one of the top innovators in the world under the age of 35. He received the 2010 Coulter Foundation Translational Young Investigator Award and the 2011 Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award. He currently serves as the Biology and Medicine Section Editor for the Journal Nanotechnology.

Dr. Karp is also an acclaimed mentor and innovator.  He was selected as the Outstanding Faculty Undergraduate Mentor among all Faculty at MIT in 2008 and received the 2010 HST McMahon Mentoring award for being the top mentor among all faculty who mentor Harvard-MIT students.  Jeff obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2004 at IBBME/Chem Eng where he worked with Professor John Davies and Molly Shoichet. Upon graduation, he was awarded the Paul B. Madsen Award for being the most innovative graduate student. He joined MIT as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow working in Institute Professor Robert Langer's laboratory from 2004-2007.

Engineered cell homing.
Sarkar D, Spencer JA, Phillips JA, Zhao W, Schafer S, Spelke DP, Mortensen LJ, Ruiz JP, Vemula PK, Sridharan R, Kumar S, Karnik R, Lin CP, Karp JM.
Blood. 2011 Oct 27.
 
Cell-surface sensors for real-time probing of cellular environments.
Zhao W, Schafer S, Choi J, Yamanaka YJ, Lombardi ML, Bose S, Carlson AL, Phillips JA, Teo W, Droujinine IA, Cui CH, Jain RK, Lammerding J, Love JC, Lin CP, Sarkar D, Karnik R, Karp JM.
Nat Nanotechnol. 2011 Jul 17;6(8):524-31.
 
Mimicking the inflammatory cell adhesion cascade by nucleic acid aptamer programmed cell-cell interactions.
Zhao W, Loh W, Droujinine IA, Teo W, Kumar N, Schafer S, Cui CH, Zhang L, Sarkar D, Karnik R, Karp JM.
FASEB J. 2011 Sep;25(9):3045-56. Epub 2011 Jun 7.
 
Nanoparticles reduce nickel allergy by capturing metal ions.
Vemula PK, Anderson RR, Karp JM.
Nat Nanotechnol. 2011 May;6(5):291-5. Epub 2011 Apr 3.
 
Design of a mechanical clutch-based needle-insertion device.
Bassett EK, Slocum AH, Masiakos PT, Pryor HI 2nd, Farokhzad OC, Karp JM.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Apr 7;106(14):5540-5.
 
Mesenchymal stem cell homing: the devil is in the details.
Karp JM, Leng Teo GS.
Cell Stem Cell. 2009 Mar 6;4(3):206-16. Review.
 
Nanocarriers as an emerging platform for cancer therapy.
Peer D, Karp JM, Hong S, Farokhzad OC, Margalit R, Langer R.
Nat Nanotechnol. 2007 Dec;2(12):751-60. Review.
 
A biodegradable and biocompatible gecko-inspired tissue adhesive.
Mahdavi A, Ferreira L, Sundback C, Nichol JW, Chan EP, Carter DJ, Bettinger CJ, Patanavanich S, Chignozha L, Ben-Joseph E, Galakatos A, Pryor H, Pomerantseva I, Masiakos PT, Faquin W, Zumbuehl A, Hong S, Borenstein J, Vacanti J, Langer R, Karp JM.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Feb 19;105(7):2307-12.