Our Research
Diagnostics Anywhere
Rapid, accurate disease diagnosis, and real-time monitoring is essential for effective treatments, halting the rise of drug resistance, and achieving personalized health and precision medicine goals. The Tadesse Lab develops next generation point-of-care diagnostic devices using optical, spectroscopy and nanoscience-based tools with machine learning based data analysis for application in resource limited clinical settings including developing nations, extraterrestrial exploration, and military sites. We aim to establish a leading research program for translational medicine integrating sensing technologies, artificial intelligence tools and needs-based design thinking for translation to targeted clinical and research settings.

Our Publications

We present a systematic study of electrostatic interactions between gold nanorods designed with a range of positive and negative zeta potentials, with Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy activity tested on representative E. coli and S. epidermidis bacteria. Our work provides new insights into the principle of bacteria-nanorod interactions, enabling reproducible and precise biomolecular readouts.
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Interplay of Electrostatic Interaction and Steric Repulsion between Bacteria and Gold Surface Influences Raman Enhancement
Jia Dong, Jeong Hee Kim, Isaac Pincus, Sujan Manna, Jennifer M Podgorski, Yanmin Zhu, Loza F Tadesse
Preprint, 2025

We present SpectroGen, a novel deep generative model for generating spectral signatures across modalities using experimentally collected spectral input from a single modality. The results from 319 standard mineral samples tested demonstrate generating with 99% correlation and 0.01 root mean square error with superior resolution than experimentally acquired ground truth spectra
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Universal Spectral Transfer with Physical Prior-Informed Deep Generative Learning
Yanmin Zhu, Loza F Tadesse
Preprint, 2024

We present surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) combined with machine learning (ML) as a powerful tool for providing interpretable insights into the transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome at the single-cell level. Recent advances in nanophotonics enhance Raman scattering for rapid, strong label-free spectroscopy, while ML approaches enable precise spectral analysis.
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From Genotype to Phenotype: Raman Spectroscopy and Machine Learning for Label-Free Single-Cell Analysis
Yirui Zhang, Kai Chang, Babatunde Ogunlade, Liam Herndon, Loza F Tadesse, Amanda R Kirane, Jennifer A Dionne
ACS Nano, 2024

We present a rapid, culture-free, and antibiotic incubation-free drug susceptibility test for tuberculosis (TB) using Raman spectroscopy and machine learning. Recent developments in these techniques allow us to achieve over 98% accuracy in classifying resistant versus susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) strains on dried samples, and approximately 79% accuracy on patient sputum samples.
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Rapid, antibiotic incubation-free determination of tuberculosis drug resistance using machine learning and Raman spectroscopy
Babatunde Ogunlade, Loza F Tadesse, Hongquan Li, Nhat Vu, Niaz Banaei, Amy K Barczak, Amr AE Saleh, Manu Prakash, Jennifer A Dionne
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, 2024

We present the establishment of an open-access web-based repository for microbiological Raman spectroscopy data called ‘MicrobioRaman’. Inspired by successful research databases like GenBank, this repository minimizes the risk of data loss and offers a long-term reference for analysis with enhanced accessibility and transparency.
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MicrobioRaman: an open-access web repository for microbiological Raman spectroscopy data
Kang Soo Lee, Zachary Landry, Awais Athar, Uria Alcolombri, Pratchaya Pramoj Na Ayutthaya, David Berry, Philippe de Bettignies, Ji-Xin Cheng, Gabor Csucs, Li Cui, Volker Deckert, Thomas Dieing, Jennifer Dionne, Ondrej Doskocil, Glen D’Souza, Cristina García-Timermans, Notburga Gierlinger, Keisuke Goda, Roland Hatzenpichler, Richard J Henshaw, Wei E Huang, Ievgeniia Iermak, Natalia P Ivleva, Janina Kneipp, Patrick Kubryk, Kirsten Küsel, Tae Kwon Lee, Sung Sik Lee, Bo Ma, Clara Martínez-Pérez, Pavel Matousek, Rainer U Meckenstock, Wei Min, Peter Mojzeš, Oliver Müller, Naresh Kumar, Per Halkjær Nielsen, Ioan Notingher, Márton Palatinszky, Fátima C Pereira, Giuseppe Pezzotti, Zdenek Pilat, Filip Plesinger, Jürgen Popp, Alexander J Probst, Alessandra Riva, Amr AE Saleh, Ota Samek, Haley M Sapers, Olga T Schubert, Astrid KM Stubbusch, Loza F Tadesse, Gordon T Taylor, Michael Wagner, Jing Wang, Huabing Yin, Yang Yue, Renato Zenobi, Jacopo Zini, Ugis Sarkans, Roman Stocker
Nature Microbiology, 2024
Our Patents

Polymer-coated beads serving as Raman reporter for simultaneous target binding and identification
Filed, Appl. No. : 63/501,380

Label-free, real-time, whole-cell response monitoring with liquid Raman spectroscopy
Filed, Appl. No.: PCT/US2021/048668.2021

Biotemplating pores with size and shape diversity for Li-oxygen Battery Cathodes
Porous sheets US20180050913A1, 2018
News
Biotemplating pores with size and shape diversity for Li-oxygen Battery Cathodes
June 4, 2024
We are so proud of all the hard work you put into your proposal and are excited that you are officially our lab’s first candidate!
Caps off to our Graduates, Audrey and Kaitlin!
May 29, 2024
Audrey will start her PhD at MIT Mechanical Engineering with the Chee C. Tung (1996) departmental fellowship award, and Kaitlin Zareno (our first Master’s graduate!) will be heading to the University of Southern California for her PhD.
Congratulations to Kaitlin and Jarett for getting their paper accepted!
March 2024
Soon to be published work on our collaboration with Google has been accepted ICLR workshop. More on this soon.
Congratulations Audrey and Kaitlin!
February 2024
We are excited for you on your admissions to graduate schools. We look forward to see the amazing science you will continue to do.
Congratulations Lauren on passing MechE Quals!
January 2024
Proud of you Lauren and look forward to great work you will do at MIT!
Welcome to the Lab Jia and Yanmin!
November 2023
We are glad to have you join us for your postdocs.
Welcome to the Lab Jenn, Lauren, Kaitlin and Catalina!
August 2023
Excited for you to join the fun in the Tadesse Lab!
Welcome to the Lab Jarett!
August 2023
We look forward to hosting you as our first intern.

Open Philanthropy will support our collaboration with the Bhatia lab!
August 2023
Pneumonia is the leading cause of death among children worldwide, accounting for 14% of deaths among those under age five. We are working in a multi-lab collaboration to develop a non-invasive, accessible platform to diagnose pediatric pneumonia in under-resourced areas. More on this here.
MIT Research Support Council to support our work!
June 2023
Thank you MIT RSC for providing our initial funding in enabling next generation diagnostics with Raman.
Tadesse Lab presents at ACS Fall 2023
August 2023
We are excited to participate at the ACS meeting this Fall! More than magnetic isolation: Dynabeads as strong Raman reporters for simultaneous capture and identification of targets- Marissa McDonald, oral
Advancing label-free live-cell monitoring using intelligent Raman spectroscopy and plasmonic particles: Milestones and implications for clinical translation- Loza Tadesse, oral
Tadesse Lab receives research funding from Google
June 2023
Thank you Google for funding our work on enabling on device portable AI systems to fuel the analysis needs for our deployable devices. Looking forward to our collaboration.


Publication featured in MIT News
August 2023
Getting results from a blood test can take anywhere from one day to a week, depending on what a test is targeting. The same goes for tests of water pollution and food contamination. And in most cases, the wait time has to do with time-consuming steps in sample processing and analysis.
Now, MIT engineers have identified a new optical signature in a widely used class of magnetic beads, which could be used to quickly detect contaminants in a variety of diagnostic tests. For example, the team showed the signature could be used to detect signs of the food contaminant Salmonella.
Tadesse Lab receives research funding from Draper
April 2023
Marissa wins the NSF GRFP
April 2023
Congratulations Marissa! The NSF GRFP will support 3 years of her study and provide access to an amazing network of scholars.
Tadesse Lab officially started at MIT MechE and Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard
January 2023
Loza chaired 2022 Gordon Research Seminar in Plasmonics and Nanophotonics
July 2022
Congratulations Alexis
June 2023
Join us in congratulating our first lab graduate Alexis who finished her Bachelors at MIT!
Tadesse Lab welcomes…
September 2023
Postdoc candidate Jenn, PhD student Lauren, Masters students Catalina, Kaitlin and Audrey, and undergrad intern Jarett to the team
Tadesse Lab will join MIT MechE in 2023!
June 2021
Our Team

Prof. Loza Tadesse
Principal Investigator
Loza Tadesse is an assistant professor at MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering and an associate member of the Ragon Institue of MassGeneral, MIT, and Harvard. She received her PhD in bioengineering from Stanford University in 2021 and previously was a medical student at St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley in the Computational Imaging lab of Prof. Laura Waller. Tadesse has been listed as a 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 in healthcare, received many awards including the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Career Development Award, and the Gates Foundation $200K grant for SciFro Inc., an educational non-profit she co-founded. She enjoys spending time with her family, watching movies, taking walks and hanging out with friends especially over delicious Ethiopian food.
lozat@mit.edu
Support Staff

Winn Gatewood
Administrative Assistant
winng@mit.edu
I joined the Tadesse Lab in June 2023, bringing 15 years of juggling different administrative and customer service roles. I thrive on keeping things moving smoothly, like the epoxy holding it all together. I am excited to be in the academic world, supporting the professors and students of MIT. When I am not on the ball at MIT, you can find me cooking in the kitchen or pushing my limits with running, biking, and swimming.

Liona Delva
Financial Officer
ldelva@mit.edu
I am a Financial Officer in the MechE RAS Finance Team. Although I joined MechE in March, I have been at MIT for seven and a half years. In my free time I enjoy reading, watching true crime shows and food review vlogs.
Postdoctoral Researchers

Aditya Garg
Postdoctoral Researcher
aditya14@mit.edu
I received my PhD degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, specializing in nanoplasmonic devices for pathogen detection. As a postdoctoral associate, I’m excited to use my background to develop translational diagnostic technologies for solving critical societal problems. In my free time, I enjoy watching cricket and exploring new countries and cuisines.

Jeong-Hee (Jenn) Kim
Postdoctoral Researcher
jhkim7@mit.edu
I completed my PhD degree in mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, using optical tools to study the molecular properties of biological samples. I am a postdoctoral fellow and begin working on developing Raman spectroscopy-based platforms for rapid and accurate diagnostics. In my free time, I enjoy climbing and exploring local ice cream shops!

Srilakshmi Premachandran
Postdoctoral Researcher
sri01@mit.edu
I received my PhD in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada, specializing in developing nanosensors for cancer diagnostics. As a postdoctoral associate I will be working on advancing spectroscopy and machine learning-based tools for diagnostic applications. Outside of the lab, I enjoy taking walks and exploring new place
PhD Students

Marissa Morales
PhD Student
mmcdon33@mit.edu
I received my BS from Johns Hopkins University where I studied Biomedical Engineering and Computational Medicine. I am now pursuing my PhD in Medical Engineering & Medical Physics in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology program. I’m excited to utilize my background in immune engineering to design immune diagnostics for global health and space medicine applications. In my free time, I enjoy dancing salsa and bachata and thrift shopping.

Lauren Futami
PhD Student
lfutami@mit.edu
I am currently working toward my PhD in biomedical product design within mechanical engineering. I am co-advised by Loza Tadesse (Tadesse Lab) and Ellen Roche (Therapeutic Technology Design and Development) and very excited to be working on designing and iterating through methods and physical implementations for automation and biomedical devices! In my free time, I like watching everyone’s movie recommendations and watering dying plants.

Aashini Shah
PhD Student
aashah28@mit.edu
I am a first-year PhD Student in the Health Sciences and Technology Program. I am co-advised by Loza Tadesse and Eleftherios Paschalis (Massachusetts Eye and Ear) and developing a project to create implantable micro-optomechanical sensors for sensing and monitoring pathologies of the eye. Outside of lab, I am passionate about assistive technology, community-oriented design, and mentoring young scientists. On weekends, you can find me reading or trying to learn how to paint.

Daniel Robinson
PhD Student
daniel_r@mit.edu
I am a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. I am interested in developing hardware and machine learning techniques to enable wearable spectroscopic devices for health monitoring and diagnostics. I’m looking forward to using my electrical engineering background to create technology that improves people’s lives. In my free time, I like to ride my unicycle and mess around with electronics.
Masters Students

Catalina Romero
MS Student
cromero1@mit.edu
I earned my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at MIT with a focus in Product Design and an Environment and Sustainability minor. I’m now pursuing my M.S. in Mechanical Engineering with the goal of designing accessible medical device diagnostics for areas in global health and space. I’m thrilled to use my previous mechanical design engineering experience from Apple and Tesla for medical device design applications. I enjoy ultramarathon running, sharing my Colombian culture, and watching soccer.
Undergraduate Students

Jarett Dewbury
B.A.Sc Student
jdewbury@mit.edu
I am currently pursuing a B.A.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Waterloo with a focus in medical artificial intelligence. I am interested in the intersection of medicine and machine learning to develop transformative precision diagnostic tools in low-resource settings. I enjoy maintaining an active lifestyle and am also excited to explore the culinary world that Cambridge and Boston have to offer.

Shruthi Ravichandran
S.B. Student
shruthi@mit.edu
I am currently an undergrad at MIT, pursuing an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a BSAD in Art and Design. I am passionate about bringing healthcare and diagnostics to low-resource environments and am excited to bring my past experience in immunology, machine learning, and optics and interest in interdisciplinary approaches to research. In my free time, you can find me building something in a maker space, training for my next marathon, or finding new napping spots on campus.

Sabrina Williams
UROP
sabriw@MIT.EDU

Elwin Au
UROP
eau131@MIT.EDU

Sama Alshatali
UROP
samadia@MIT.EDU
Collaborators
Alums
Masters Students /Visiting Students/Postdoctoral Researchers
Kaitlin Zareno – PhD Student, USC
Sujan Manna-Visiting Student
Yanmin Zhu-Faculty at HongKong Uni
Jia Dong-LAM Research
Alexis Yang – Researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Jarett Dewbury – University of Waterloo
Tahsin Zaman – UROP
Outreach

Professor Tadesse is a co-founder of the non-profit organization SciFro, working on empowering the African youth to solve local problems through scientific research and innovation. The organization is generously supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Science Foundation, American Physical Society and others.
The Tadesse Lab, through SciFro, organizes and provides opportunities for the lab members and the broader MIT community to engage in educational outreach in Africa and underrepresented minority communities in the United States. This includes summer schools, boot camps, hosting research in the lab, online lectures, developing teaching kits, and recruiting for graduate studies. We are excited for the 2024 cycle of our school!
Contact Us
We are seeking team members to join our vibrant lab. If you are interested in joining, please send your CV and research interests to Prof. Loza Tadesse at lozat@mit.edu.
Lab Socials
Tadesse Lab works hard and plays hard! We plan meals and activities around the Boston area and look forward to the launch of our retreats!