Higgins Lab
Read BioI 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
Szafraniec HM, Bull F, Higgins JM, Stone HA, Krüger T, Pearce P, Wood DK
Suspension physics govern the multiscale dynamics of blood flow in sickle cell disease. Sci Adv. 2026;12(1):eadx3842 - PMID: 41477838 - PMCID: PMC12757044 - DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adx3842Tozzo V, Nathan DM, Krause-Steinrauf H, Lachin JM, Mow C, Butera N, Cohen RM, Higgins JM, GRADE Research Group
Differences Between Glycemia Estimates from Hemoglobin A1c and Continuous Glucose Monitoring and Their Association with Complete Blood Counts. Diabetes Technol Ther. 2025;:ePub - PMID: 41439332 - DOI: 10.1177/15209156251395036Williams DC, Higgins JM, Wood DK
Quantifying the unique mechanical properties of irreversibly sickled cells in sickle cell disease. Blood Vessel Thromb Hemost. 2025;2(3):100077 - PMID: 40765910 - PMCID: PMC12320412 - DOI: 10.1016/j.bvth.2025.100077Tozzo V, Zhang LH, Ranganath R, Higgins JM
Transformer-based artificial intelligence on single-cell clinical data for homeostatic mechanism inference and rational biomarker discovery. medRxiv. 2025;:ePub - PMID: 40196278 - PMCID: PMC11974774 - DOI: 10.1101/2025.03.24.25324556Szafraniec HM, Bull F, Higgins JM, Stone HA, Krüger T, Pearce P, Wood DK
Suspension physics govern the multiscale dynamics of blood flow in sickle cell disease. bioRxiv. 2025;:ePub - PMID: 40161781 - PMCID: PMC11952557 - DOI: 10.1101/2025.03.13.642599- 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.