Denis Wirtz

Vice Provost for Research, Johns Hopkins University

Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
School of Engineering

Research Overview

Dr. Wirtz has recently developed three technological platforms: (1) the 3D multi-omic AI-based method CODA to map organisms, organs, tissues and tumors in 3D and at single-cell level. We use CODA to study the prevalence and cellular microenvironment of human pre-cancerous lesions. (2) CAR TV cells, which are CAR T therapies expressing newly designed velocity receptors to improve infiltration for the treatment of solid tumors and auto-immune diseases, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. (3) Multi-compartment organoids to properly mimic the architecture and functions of whole organs, such as the fallopian tube, endometrial tissue and complex tumors.

Topic Areas

Biophysics and Structural Biology

Cancer Biology

Cell Biology

Translational Research

Selected Publications

Du W, Zhu J, Wu Y, Kiemen AL, Sun SX, Wirtz D. Mechano-induced patterned domain formation by monocytes. Nature Materials, 2025 Accepted.
Crawford AJ, Forjaz A, Bons J, Bhorkar I, Roy T, Schell D, Queiroga V, Ren K, Kramer D, Huang W, Russo GC, Lee MH, Wu PH, Shih IM, Wang TL, Atkinson MA, Schilling B, Kiemen AL, Wirtz D. Combined assembloid modeling and 3D whole-organ mapping captures the microanatomy and function of the human fallopian tube. Science Advances, 2024.
Russo GC, Crawford AJ, Clark D, Cui J, Carney R, Karl MN, Su B, Starich B, Lih TS, Kamat P, Zhang Q, Nair PR, Wu PH, Lee MH, Leong HS, Zhang H, Rebecca VW, Wirtz D. E-cadherin interacts with EGFR resulting in hyper-activation of ERK in multiple models of breast cancer. Oncogene, 2024.
Braxton AM, Kiemen AL, Grahn MP, Forjaz A, Parksong J, Mahesh Babu J, Lai J, Zheng L, Niknafs N, Jiang L, Cheng H, Song Q, Reichel R, Graham S, Damanakis AI, Fischer CG, Mou S, Metz C, Granger J, Liu XD, Bachmann N, Zhu Y, Liu Y, Almagro-Pérez C, Jiang AC, Yoo J, Kim B, Du S, Foster E, Hsu JY, Rivera PA, Chu LC, Liu F, Fishman EK, Yuille A, Roberts NJ, Thompson ED, Scharpf RB, Cornish TC, Jiao Y, Karchin R, Hruban RH, Wu PH, Wirtz D*, Wood LD*. 3D genomic mapping reveals multifocality of human pancreatic precancers. Nature, 2024. (*co-corresponding authors)
Nair PR, Danilova L, Gómez-de-Mariscal E, Kim D, Fan R, Muñoz-Barrutia A, Fertig EJ, Wirtz D. MLL1 regulates cytokine-driven cell migration and metastasis. Science Advances, 2024.

Research Overview

Topic Areas

Selected Publications

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