Doctoral Candidate
Before joining Dr. Lelkes at Temple, Joseph received his B.S. and M.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He had undergraduate research experience studying rare mitochondrial disease in Dr. Marni Falk’s lab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He spent two years as a Research Assistant for Dr. Rizwan Ahktar, developing diagnostic assays for protein biomarkers for Parkinson’s Disease in the lab of Virginia Lee and John Trojanowski. Currently he is developing novel electrically stimulating bioreactors for the enhanced development of electrically excitable tissues in vitro. Specifically, his research explores whether electrical simulation and electrically conductive biomaterials may be used to modulate subtype-specific cardiomyocyte differentiation.
Research Interests
- Tissue Engineering
- Electrical Stimulation in Tissue Culture
- Bioreactor Development
- Electrically Excitable Tissues
- Conductive Biomaterials
Publications
Licata et al. Biocompatibility of 3D Printed Plastics for use in Bioreactors. Bioprinting, 40, e00347. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.BPRINT.2024.E00347
Licata and Pathak et al. Development of an adjustable patient-specific rigid guide to improve the accuracy of external ventricular catheter placement. J Neurosurg. 2024 May 10. https://doi.org/10.3171/2024.2.JNS232137
Licata, Joseph P. and Schwab, Kyle H. et al. Bioreactor Technologies for Enhanced Organoid Culture Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(14), 11427; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241411427
Akhtar RS, Licata JP, et al. Measurements of auto-antibodies to α-synuclein in the serum and cerebral spinal fluids of patients with Parkinson’s disease. J Neurochem. 2018 Mar 3. doi.org/10.1111/jnc.14330
Peng et al. Inhibiting cytosolic translation and autophagy improves health in mitochondrial disease. Hum. Mol. Genetics. (2015) 24 (17): 4829-4847 first published online June 3, 2015. doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddv207
Posters/Presentations
Licata et al. Novel Bioreactor for Enhanced Fluid Flow and Electrical Stimulation of Engineered Excitable Tissues. BMES Annual Meeting 2022, San Antonio, TX. October 15, 2022
Licata, JP et al. Improved PEDOT:PSS as a transparent conducting surface for use in electrically stimulating bioreactors. Temple University Graduate Research Competition (2020). Philadelphia, PA.
Licata, JP et al. Preliminary epitope mapping of α-synuclein auto-antibodies. Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research 2016 Poster Competition (2016). Philadelphia, PA.
Skills and Techniques
- Mammalian cell culture, including induced pluripotent stem cell culture
- Multi-color flow cytometry
- Isolation of DNA/RNA and analysis by PCR, RT-qPCR
- Protein isolation and analysis by western blot, ELISA
- Histology and Immunohistochemistry
- Light microscopy, Fluorescence microscopy, SEM
- Protocol optimization
- Electrospinning of organic polymers into nanofiber scaffolds
- Electronic circuit design and prototyping
- CAD, 3D printing, and machining of parts and devices
- MATLAB, Java, R, and Arduino programming
- Technical writing and communication, including patent-related writing
Awards
- Temple University 3-Minute-Thesis Competition Finals – 1st Place
- Temple College of Engineering 3-Minute-Thesis Competition – 1st Place
- Temple University Presidential Fellowship
- 2016 University of Pennsylvania Bioengineering Senior Design Award