Higgins Lab

Read Bio

Phone: 617-643-6129

I study the dynamics of human pathophysiologic processes by developing mathematical descriptions of complex human disease phenotypes and how they change over time. Pathophysiology may be described at the molecular, cellular, tissue, and organismal levels and may show clinically significant variation over time scales ranging from less than a second to more than a decade. The research combines medical insight, dynamic systems theory, and experiments utilizing microfluidics, video processing, flow cytometry, simulation, and large-scale analysis of medical databases in pursuit of two goals: (1) advancing fundamental understanding of the dynamics of human pathophysiology, and (2) improving patient diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment.

Recent Publications

  • Tozzo V, Genco M, Omololu SO, Mow C, Patel HR, Patel CH, Ho SN, Lam E, Abdulsater B, Patel N, Cohen RM, Nathan DM, Powe CE, Wexler DJ, Higgins JM Estimating Glycemia From HbA1c and CGM: Analysis of Accuracy and Sources of Discrepancy. Diabetes Care. 2024;47(3):460-466 - PMID: 38394636 - PMCID: PMC10909686 - DOI: 10.2337/dc23-1177

  • De Souza DC, Hebert N, Esrick EB, Ciuculescu MF, Archer NM, Armant M, Audureau, Brendel C, Di Caprio G, Galactéros F, Liu D, McCabe A, Morris E, Schonbrun E, Williams D, Wood DK, Williams DA, Bartolucci P, Higgins JM Genetic reversal of the globin switch concurrently modulates both fetal and sickle hemoglobin and reduces red cell sickling. Nat Commun. 2023;14(1):5850 - PMID: 37730674 - PMCID: PMC10511721 - DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-40923-5

  • Foy B, Stefely J, Bendapudi PK, Hasserjian RP, Al-Samkari H, Louissaint A, Fitzpatrick M, Hutchison B, Mow C, Collins J, Patel H, Patel C, Patel N, Ho S, Kaufman RM, Dzik W', Higgins JM, Makar RS Computer vision quantitation of erythrocyte shape abnormalities provides diagnostic, prognostic, and mechanistic insight. Blood Adv. 2023;7(16):4621-4630 - PMID: 37146262 - PMCID: PMC10448422 - DOI: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2022008967

  • Qiang Y, Sissoko A, Liu ZL, Dong T, Zheng F, Kong F, Higgins JM, Karniadakis GE, Buffet PA, Suresh S, Dao M Microfluidic study of retention and elimination of abnormal red blood cells by human spleen with implications for sickle cell disease. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023;120(6):e2217607120 - PMID: 36730189 - PMCID: PMC9963977 - DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2217607120

  • Patel NJ, Tozzo V, Higgins JM, Stone JH The effects of daily prednisone and tocilizumab on hemoglobin A1c during the treatment of giant cell arteritis. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2022;75(4):586-594 - PMID: 36383175 - DOI: 10.1002/art.42405

  • More publications ...

Research projects

Physiologic and pathologic population dynamics of human blood cells in various forms of anemia.

Rheodynamics of vaso-occlusion in sickle cell disease.

Patient immunologic response to blood transfusion.

Other important pathophysiologic processes where states can be measured with temporal and spatial resolution sufficient for productive mathematical modeling.