Our Team
As principal investigator of the Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Research Laboratory, Dr. Griffiths leads a team dedicated to improving treatment options for cardiovascular conditions through discoveries in transplant immunology, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
Learn more about the key members of Dr. Griffiths' research team.
Leigh G. Griffiths, Ph.D., MRCVS
Dr. Griffiths is a veterinary cardiologist, cardiovascular surgeon and research scientist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Dr. Griffiths graduated from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1995. He spent a year in small animal practice and then completed a residency in small animal soft tissue surgery at the University of Glasgow School of Veterinary Medicine.
In 1999, he accepted a position as a lecturer in small animal surgery at the University of Liverpool School of Veterinary Science. He earned a diploma in small animal surgery (soft tissue) from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 2000. Dr. Griffiths was the first veterinary surgeon in the United Kingdom to complete the Canniesburn Hospital microvascular surgery training course.
Dr. Griffiths completed a fellowship in cardiac surgery at Colorado State University in 2003, followed by a Ph.D. and residency in cardiology. In 2007, he obtained his American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Diploma of Cardiology.
Also in 2007, Dr. Griffiths joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), where he ran the cardiovascular surgery program. He provided services for cardiac angiography and noninvasive tests, such as echocardiography and electrocardiography. He also was interested in interventional cardiology, including pacemaker implementation, balloon valvuloplasty and patent ductus arteriosus occlusion. Dr. Griffiths established a research laboratory at UC Davis in 2008, focusing on transplant immunology, xenogeneic extracellular matrix scaffolds and cardiovascular tissue engineering.
Dr. Griffiths joined Mayo Clinic in 2016 as a senior associate consultant 2 and was promoted to consultant in 2021. In 2022, he was promoted to the academic rank of professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Dr. Griffiths has served as dean of Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences since 2023.
Ali Babaie, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow
Dr. Babaie researches methods to enhance the antigen removal process by targeting specific antigenic proteins. This process was developed in Dr. Griffiths' lab. Dr. Babaie joined the lab as a postdoctoral research fellow in May 2023.
Dr. Babaie has a bachelor's degree in materials engineering and a Master of Science degree in tissue engineering. Dr. Babaie also holds a Ph.D. in stem cell biomaterials interactions from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Before joining the lab, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, where he worked on tissue engineering research using 3D bioprinting.
Lucien P. Jay
M.D.-Ph.D. student
Jay's research in the lab focuses on developing xenogeneic scaffolds for small artery grafting. His research builds off decellularization and antigen removal techniques developed by the lab. Jay's research focus areas include reseeding of decellularized scaffolds and their testing under physiological conditions.
Jay's clinical interests include interventional cardiology and cardiothoracic anesthesiology, which he hopes can help inform his research career in regenerative medicine. Jay is an M.D.-Ph.D. student in the Mayo Clinic Medical Scientist Training Program. He is from Charleston, South Carolina, where he attended the College of Charleston and received a B.S. in biochemistry and B.A. in chemistry in 2017.
David W. Morse, M.H.A.
Lab manager
As a supervising principal research technologist, Morse's responsibilities include managing the laboratory. He joined the lab in 2021, bringing with him years of experience in cardiovascular research and a background in biology, clinical laboratory science, and health and human services administration. He also supervised collaborative groups of research teams at Mayo Clinic, including cardiovascular, cardio-oncology, electrophysiology and vascular immunology under research scientists and practicing physician-scientists.
Morse received a B.S. in biology from Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. He completed practicums in clinical laboratory science at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences and received a master's degree in administrative postgraduate studies from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota in 2021. He obtained two associate of science degrees in laboratory science and allied health from Rochester Community and Technical College in Rochester, Minnesota.
Morse continued his career development in laboratory management and cardiovascular research by completing Mayo Clinic programs in research allied health, research temporary professional supervision and research finance administration. In addition, Morse serves as both a mentor and a mentee within Mayo Clinic leadership development networks.
Danuta Radyna
Ph.D. student
Radyna, who's from Minsk, Belarus, is a Ph.D. student at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in the biomedical engineering and physiology track. She received a B.S. in biomedical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
Radyna's dissertation work focuses on controlling in vitro and in vivo cellular repopulation of vascular scaffolds through induction of cell migration. This project has two applications. One is achieving vascular grafts that can be quickly and fully repopulated with cells once implanted for coronary artery bypass or peripheral vessel bypass surgery. The second is recapitulating the whole-heart vascular bed for whole-heart tissue engineering.
Kamal Youssif, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow
Dr. Youssif joined the lab in 2025 as a postdoctoral researcher. His research focuses on the mechanisms of antibody-mediated rejection after heart transplantation and developing tissue-engineered heart valves. He earned his bachelor's degree in veterinary medicine in Egypt in 2008, followed by a combined master's and Ph.D. in veterinary surgery from Kangwon National University in South Korea in 2016. Dr. Youssif's doctoral work focused on organ bioengineering, employing whole-liver decellularization, and stem cell-based recellularization techniques, with subsequent validation of the bioengineered liver in preclinical animal models.
Dr. Youssif was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Veterinary Surgery at Assiut University in Egypt in 2017. He was promoted to assistant professor in 2022. He has conducted postdoctoral research at Seoul National University in South Korea, University of Southern Denmark and Loughborough University in the United Kingdom, where he focused on innovative approaches in vascular tissue engineering. Most recently, he was a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Youssif's broader research interests include integrating biocompatible scaffolds with stem cells and their preclinical validation in animals, aiming to enhance graft integration, functionality and clinical translation.
Alumni
Dr. Griffiths strongly believes in the value of education and training in research. He has trained numerous graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and others, giving them a solid foundation of skills to further their education and careers.
Recent alumni include:
- Nicholas A. Shortreed, graduate student, 2019-2025
- Likitha Somasekhar, postdoctoral fellow, 2021-2024
- Anjali Panicker, graduate student, 2019-2024
- Qi Xing, postdoctoral fellow, 2018-2020
- Manuela Lopera Higuita, graduate student, 2016-2020
- Katherine Y. Gates, graduate student, 2014-2019
- Mojtaba Parvizi, D.V.M., Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow, 2017-2018
- Ailsa Dalgliesh, graduate student, 2013-2018
- Mikella Robinson, graduate student, 2013-2018
- Jeny Shklover, postdoctoral researcher, 2016-2017
- Maelene Wong, postdoctoral fellow, 2010-2017; graduate student, 2009-2014
- Alycia Clark, research technologist, 2014-2016
- Zhi Zhao Liu, postdoctoral fellow, 2014-2016
- Jenny Chang, postdoctoral fellow, 2013-2016