Prof. Brian Aguado
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brianaguado.bsky.social
Prof. Brian Aguado
@brianaguado.bsky.social
1.2K followers 240 following 61 posts
Asst Professor of BioEng, UC San Diego | #SexDifferences 🤝 #Biomaterials | LatinXinBME Cofounder | CZI Science Diversity Leader | NIH Director’s New Innovator | WHISDEM Center Co-Director for Women’s Health | 🇨🇴🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈
https://aguado.eng.ucsd.edu/
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brianaguado.bsky.social
Happy 4th bday to the #AguadoLab! Made my signature BBQ chicken and played games - Chameleon was super fun!! Thankful for this team always and everything they do! 💙
July 3, 2025 at 1:23 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Kicking off summer celebrating my National Science Foundation CAREER Award! ☀️🔬 Your US taxpayer dollars will be invested in the #AguadoLab to learn how sex chromosomes modulate health & disease using our bioengineered cell culture platforms and educate future bioengineers about sex differences! 🙌
Brian Aguado smiling next to a confocal microscope.
June 20, 2025 at 2:54 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Huge congrats to Brandon Vogt & friends on our on Science Advances @science.org paper!!! We leveraged hydrogel biomaterials & AI tools from Dean Ho’s lab at NUS to determine sex-dependent drug combinations that target valve myofibroblasts! 🎯
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@jacobsschool.bsky.social
Celebrating the latest Aguado Lab publication with a Strawberry Fraisier cake! L to R smiling: Megan Chavez, co-author, Brandon Vogt, first author, and Brian Aguado, senior author/PI.
June 7, 2025 at 1:26 AM
brianaguado.bsky.social
POV: Plenary lecture at the Society For Biomaterials - definitely my best SFB selfie yet! 📸 Thank you to the SFB community for the 2025 Young Investigator Award - my lab is committed to our mission to understand sex chromosome biology & develop better treatments for all! @jacobsschool.bsky.social
April 11, 2025 at 2:27 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Thank you to @aimbe-official.bsky.social for electing me as an Emerging Leader! Super lucky to have incredible mentors @lolauic.bsky.social @metecivelek.bsky.social @tejaladesai.bsky.social Song Li to help me gear up for future AIMBE Fellowship. Feeling energized to continue my STEM advocacy! ⚡️
March 30, 2025 at 6:18 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Huge congrats to Rayyan Gorashi on her first author Science Advances @science.org paper! She discovered the Y-linked UTY gene modulates male-specific valve myofibroblast phenotypes - both X and Y chromosomes modulate cell phenotypes! 🤯
Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@jacobsschool.bsky.social
Celebrating Rayyan Gorashi’s publication in Science Advances with a custom cake!
March 12, 2025 at 6:35 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Paper (cake) alert! 🚨🍰Congrats to #AguadoLab PhD student Nicole Félix Vélez on her first author paper published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A! Nicole discovered inflammatory cytokines modulate female-specific myofibroblast activation:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Celebrating Nicole Felix Velez’s publication w a sheet cake with customized decoration featuring her headshot and a figure from the paper entitled “Secreted cytokines from inflammatory macrophages modulate sex differences in valvular interstitial cells on hydrogel biomaterials.” Brian Aguado and Nicole Felix Velez are smiling and holding up the cake.
March 5, 2025 at 11:59 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
I had the amazing pleasure of hosting my bestie @anamaporras.bsky.social for our UCSD BioE seminar series! Her science was so exciting we submitted a seed grant together…collab loading! Celebrated w An’s gelato w @kolade-adebowale.bsky.social + beach walks at La Jolla Shores! 😎 Come back soon!! 💙
Prof Ana Maria Porras visiting UCSD! Collage showing fun times at La Jolla Shores, eating ice cream at An’s ice cream, and enjoying sunset!
March 2, 2025 at 10:19 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
My statement regarding the decision to drop the second round of the CZI Science Diversity Leadership Award funding opportunity:
I am crushed that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has decided not to continue with the second round of the Science Diversity Leadership Awards. My heart breaks for all the scientists that submitted their grant applications with the hope that their research and community building ideas would be funded to help make the science world a more equitable place. I see you. Please take the time to mourn the loss of your time and effort and figure out your next move. I feel an intense surge of survivors’ guilt. As part of the first (and now last) CZI SDL cohort, I have enjoyed significant personal and professional opportunities that have emerged after receiving the award – opportunities that have now vanished for future science diversity leaders. The award gave me confidence in my research program, but more importantly, was the catalyst I needed to bring my full self to the laboratory. After receiving the CZI award, I finally felt comfortable fully coming out to the scientific community and embracing my identity as a proud queer Latino scientist. The award was extremely unique and enabling, allowing me to build a vibrant laboratory community, support various professional development activities for trainees, and grow my research program focused on understanding sex differences in biology towards our goal of health equity. I am devastated that future scientists with stories like mine will not have the financial support they need to achieve their vision in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a Science Diversity Leader, I remain fiercely committed to my personal and professional mission to promote diversity through impactful science and community building efforts. I will continue using this platform to uplift diverse voices in the scientific community. To those feeling hopeless, please know that our continued commitment and presence in science is a powerful form of social justice. Let us continue using our creative minds and resources to fight inequities in society - …
February 19, 2025 at 3:49 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Receiving the 2025 Society For Biomaterials Young Investigator Award is a dream come true! 🏆 SFB has always been my career home - I’ll showcase my lab’s work and commitment to understand sex as a biological variable at multiple length scales using biomaterials! 🙏❤️

biomaterials.org/publications...
Headshots of the 2025 Society for Biomaterials award recipients. FOUNDERS AWARD: Nicholas P. Ziats, PhD, Case Western Reserve University C. WILLIAM HALL AWARD: Jennifer E. Woodell-May, PhD, Zimmer Biomet SOCIETY FOR BIOMATERIALS AWARD FOR SERVICE: Shelly E. Sakiyama-Elbert, PhD, University of Washington TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT AWARD: Ashutosh Chilkoti, PhD, Duke University DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION AWARD: BME UNITE Future Faculty Program CLEMSON AWARD FOR APPLIED RESEARCH: Ke Cheng, PhD, Columbia University CLEMSON AWARD FOR BASIC RESEARCH: Kara Spiller, PhD, Drexel University CLEMSON AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LITERATURE: Jeremy L. Gilbert, PhD, Clemson University MID-CAREER AWARD: Cole A. DeForest, PhD, University of Washington YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD: Brian Aguado, PhD, University of California San Diego STUDENT AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING RESEARCH | PhD CATEGORY Nghia Le Ba Thai, Syracuse University C. WILLIAM HALL – UNDERGRADUATE TRAVEL SCHOLARSHIP Benjamin Nachod, University of Pennsylvania CATO T. LAURENCIN, MD, PHD - UNDERGRADUATE TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP Milani Needam, North Carolina A&T State University
February 12, 2025 at 8:50 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Aguado Lab Vday Bake-off in the books! 🧁❤️ Congrats to our Star Baker Awardees! Handed out a few Hollywood Handshakes:
⭐️ Rayyan for Best Pastry
⭐️ Ash for Best Cupcake
⭐️ Vivian for Best Cookie
⭐️ Nicole for Community Favorite
*Pro tip: lean on your lab community through these tough times for science ✊
Four star bakers holding their awards! The awards are a canvas print of cells in a star formation! Photo of pastries, cupcakes, and cookies for our lab’s bake-off competition!
February 10, 2025 at 9:25 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Thank you to the American Society for Matrix Biology (ASMB) for selecting me for the 2025 Junior Investigator Award! 🏆 I'll be speaking in a plenary session at the 2025 ASMB Biennial Meeting (Nov 16-19 in Baltimore) on understanding sex differences in cardiac cell responses to the ECM! ❤️
Banner celebrating the 2025 American Society for Matrix Biology awardees with photos of awardees. Senior Investigator Award: Peter Yurchenko Junior Investigator Award: Brian Aguado Iozzo Award: Yao Yao Founders Award: Neha Dinesh
January 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Thank you @bmes-cmbe.bsky.social for the gala dinner last night to celebrate the CMBE Rising Star Awardees! ⭐️ Hoping more of these superstars join BlueSky! @marianhh.bsky.social @rituraman.bsky.social @fraleylab.bsky.social
January 5, 2025 at 5:35 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Submit your research to a special issue in Biomedical Materials Research Part A (JBMR-A) called "Biomaterials for Women's Health" - super excited to guest edit with Jessica Weaver and working with Kent Leach to put together an exciting issue! 🧪
Learn more and submit your article: lnkd.in/gZRm8Zhs
December 20, 2024 at 7:45 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Labsgiving 2024 with the Aguado and Engler labs in the books! Super thankful for our lab communities coming together to celebrate end of quarter! Turkey not pictured 🦃 @jacobsschool.bsky.social
Aguado and Engler lab members gather for a group photo after eating a labsgiving feast!
November 23, 2024 at 3:58 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Happy Monday, friends! Since peer review takes forever 🤔, our lab is jumping on the preprint train! Check out the Aguado Lab's first 3 submitted preprints all focused on understanding sex differences in aortic valve stenosis using hydrogel biomaterials as cell culture tools: 🧵
November 18, 2024 at 6:08 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Happy weekend! Post a picture you took (no description) to bring some zen to the timeline
Beach sunset photo, La Jolla shores, California
November 16, 2024 at 3:59 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Brat summer may be over but I’m living for this fall aesthetic in our new #AguadoLab photo! 🎃🍁 Welcome to our new lab members Rayyan Ayoub, Kimmy Wennerholm, June Akpata, Rene Peña, & Kati Richter - all working to understand how sex chromosomes regulate sex differences in cardiovascular diseases! 🫰
October 3, 2024 at 1:33 AM
brianaguado.bsky.social
My wildest research ideas were funded today w the NIH Director’s New Innovator DP2 Award!! 🤯 The Aguado Lab will understand how sex chromosomes regulate cardiac fibrosis using biomaterials. We won’t rest until sex-specific treatments are a reality! ❤️🧪 #NIHHighRisk
commonfund.nih.gov/newinnovator...
October 3, 2023 at 6:26 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Such a special invitation 🤩 thank you to Prof. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic & Columbia BME for bringing the tissue engineering community together in 2020 with the Tissue Talk virtual seminar series! Tune in to check out the latest sex differences research from the #AguadoLab! 🧪
Register: bit.ly/3ESUJEj
October 2, 2023 at 6:38 PM
brianaguado.bsky.social
Hi Bluesky! 👋 I’m Brian Aguado, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego. My lab investigates sex differences in cardiovascular disease using biomaterials and tissue engineering tools. Let’s dismantle the science patriarchy & perform equitable science for all. I also pretend to surf! 😜
August 2, 2023 at 3:27 PM