Matthew Petroll, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Petroll received his BS degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University in 1984, and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 1989. After two years at Georgetown University in the lab of Drs. James Jester and Dwight Cavanagh, he joined the faculty at UT Southwestern in 1991. He was promoted to professor in 2005, and became Chair of the Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering in 2012.

Dr. Petroll’s laboratory applies engineering approaches and design principles to the investigation of fundamental clinical and biological problems in ophthalmology, while providing training to graduate students, medical students and post-docs. The main focus of Dr. Petroll’s research is cell mechanics and tissue engineering, in which multidimensional time-lapse imaging is used to investigate how the mechanical behavior of corneal fibroblasts is regulated by both biochemical and biophysical stimuli. He also has a longstanding interest in the development and application of in vivo confocal microscopy, which allows quantitative 3-D imaging of the cornea and has been used in numerous research and clinical studies on corneal wound healing, toxicity, development and infection.

Undergraduate

Duke University (1984), Biomedical Engineering

Graduate School

University of Virginia - Sfs (1989), Biomedical Engineering

• Cell Mechanics
• Cellular Imaging
• Corneal Cell Biology
• Tissue Engineering
• Wound Healing

Featured Publications

Keratocyte mechanobiology.

Petroll WM, Varner VD, Schmidtke DW, Experimental eye research 2020 Sep 200 108228

Assessment of Corneal Stromal Remodeling and Regeneration after Photorefractive Keratectomy.

Kivanany PB, Grose KC, Tippani M, Su S, Petroll WM Sci Rep 2018 Aug 8 1 12580

Fibroblast-fibronectin patterning and network formation in 3D fibrin matrices.

Miron-Mendoza M, Graham E, Manohar S, Petroll WM Matrix Biol. 2017 Jun

Corneal Fibroblast Migration Patterns During Intrastromal Wound Healing Correlate With ECM Structure and Alignment.

Petroll WM, Kivanany PB, Hagenasr D, Graham EK Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 2015 Nov 56 12 7352-61

Techniques for assessing 3-D cell-matrix mechanical interactions in vitro and in vivo.

Miron-Mendoza M, Koppaka V, Zhou C, Petroll WM Exp. Cell Res. 2013 Jun

Cell motility and mechanics in three-dimensional collagen matrices.

Grinnell F, Petroll WM Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 2010 Nov 26 335-61

Localized application of mechanical and biochemical stimuli in 3-D culture.

Petroll WM, Ma L Dev. Dyn. 2008 Oct 237 10 2726-36

Infectious keratitis after corneal crosslinking: a systematic review.

Murchison CE, Petroll WM, Robertson DM, J Cataract Refract Surg 2021 Feb

Fibulin-3 knockout mice demonstrate corneal dysfunction but maintain normal retinal integrity.

Daniel S, Renwick M, Chau VQ, Datta S, Maddineni P, Zode G, Wade EM, Robertson SP, Petroll WM, Hulleman JD, Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany) 2020 Sep

ECM Stiffness Controls the Activation and Contractility of Corneal Keratocytes in Response to TGF-ß1.

Maruri DP, Miron-Mendoza M, Kivanany PB, Hack JM, Schmidtke DW, Petroll WM, Varner VD, Biophys J 2020 Sep

• Fellow, Gold Level
  Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (2020)
• Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
  (2017)
• Fellow, Silver Level
  Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (2009)
• Senior Scientific Investigator Award
  Research to Prevent Blindness (2008)
• Olga Keith Weiss Scholar Award
  Research to Prevent Blindness (1999)

• Chair, UTSW Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering (2012)
• Member, American Society for Cell Biology
• Member, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
• Member, Biomedical Engineering Society