Brunaugh Lab
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences · University of Michigan
We study how biological barriers shape the fate of therapeutics.
Airway mucus, microbial biofilms, and diseased tissue don't just impede drug delivery — they actively adsorb, redistribute, and deplete therapeutics in ways that erode efficacy. Our lab develops the tools, formulations, and models to understand these interactions and engineer around them.
Understanding the barrier
We map how drugs, proteins, and microbial signals interact with complex biological environments — revealing the hidden physics that govern whether a treatment works or fails.
Learn more →Engineering solutions
We design inhaled dry powders, amorphous solid dispersions, and multi-drug particles informed by the transport constraints of the environments where they must perform.
Learn more →Building new tools
We develop experimental platforms and instrumentation that capture drug behavior under physiologically realistic conditions — replacing surrogate measurements with direct observation.
Learn more →We're looking for curious, creative researchers.
Our lab welcomes graduate students, postdocs, and visiting scholars with backgrounds across pharmacy, engineering, chemistry, and biology. If you want to work at the intersection of physical science and biological complexity, we'd like to hear from you.
See opportunities →