Departments
Roles
BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Alec Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics at The University of Washington. Dr. Smith earned his Ph.D. in Tissue Engineering from University College, London (UK) in 2012 before moving to the United States to pursue a career in biomedical research. His expertise includes electrophysiology, molecular biology, tissue engineering, and stem cell biology, with a particular focus on modeling neuromuscular function in health and disease. His work centers on the development of novel 2D and 3D models of the neuromuscular junction and their application in modeling inheritable neurodegenerative diseases (including ALS and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease) to better understand the mechanisms that drive pathology. By integrating human tissue engineering and cell culture with advanced methods for assaying electrophysiological and contractile function, he is developing novel platforms with which to improve the predictive capacity of current preclinical toxicity screening and disease modeling technologies. Working with collaborators from the Nathan Shock center, Dr. Smith is examining whether engineered models of human neuromuscular tissue can be used to characterize age-related changes in function
