Alexandra Naba is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is also an affiliate member of the Richard & Loan Hill Department of Bioengineering, and a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center, and a fellow of the UIC Honors College.

Alexandra, a Parisian native, received her Ph.D. from the Curie Institute in Paris, France where she studied the role of the membrane-cytoskeleton linker, ezrin, in normal and tumor cell adhesion in the laboratory of Pr. Daniel Louvard under the supervision of Dr. Monique Arpin.

For her postdoctoral training, Alexandra joined the laboratory of Dr. Richard Hynes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she led a project aimed at understanding the role of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in tumor progression. The ECM is a requirement and a defining characteristic of metazoan life. A handful of ECM molecules are known to make critical contributions to disease processes, but technical limitations have prevented a comprehensive analysis of this critical family of proteins. At MIT, Alexandra overcame these barriers and developed novel proteomic and bioinformatic methods to study the molecular composition of the ECM, pioneering the field of “matrisomics.” Her work demonstrated striking differences in the matrisome of tumors of different metastatic potential and showed that distinct sets of ECM proteins could predict metastatic potential of primary tumors. More recently, Alexandra founded the Matrisome Project and MatrisomeDB, two resources aiming to disseminate tools and data on the ECM to advance ECM research.

In 2016, Alexandra established the Naba Lab for ECM Research in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at UIC.

Alexandra has published over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She has served on the editorial board of Matrix Biology since 2016 and on the editorial board of Matrix Biology Plus since 2019. She was elected to the council of the American Society for Matrix Biology (2017 – 2021) and has served on the council of the International Society for Matrix Biology since 2019. Alexandra has served on the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Wellcome Center for Cell Matrix Research (Manchester, UK) since 2023.

Alexandra has received numerous invitations to speak at national and international conferences and prestigious awards including the 2012 JBC/Herb Tabor Young Investigator Award, the 2018 Junior Investigator Award from the American Society for Matrix Biology (ASMB), and the 2018 Rupert Timpl Award from the International Society for Matrix Biology (ISMB). She is also the recipient of the 2018 UIC – College of Medicine Rising Star Award. In 2020, Alexandra received the Philip L. Hawley Distinguished Faculty Award, presented by the students of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics to faculty embodying “supportiveness, enthusiasm, and sincerity”. In 2024, Alexandra received the UIC Honors College Capstone Supervisor of the Year Award, an award given annually to a faculty member for their outstanding mentorship of Honors College students’ Senior Honors Capstone projects.

Research interests: The extracellular matrix (ECM), a complex meshwork of cross-linked proteins, is a fundamental component of multicellular organisms. It provides architectural supports to the cells, confers mechanical properties to tissues, and conveys biochemical signals transduced by cell surface receptors to control various cellular processes such as proliferation, survival, differentiation, adhesion and migration. In the Naba Lab, we study the role of the ECM in development, health, and disease, with a particular focus on cancer. To do so, we utilize classical molecular, cellular, and developmental biology approaches in combination with cutting-edge proteomics and computational analyses. Our goal is to better understand how the ECM contributes to diseases so that we can exploit it to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

Teaching contribution: At UIC, Dr. Naba teaches lectures in the Master of Science in Medical Physiology and in the first- and second-year courses of the Graduate Education in Biomedical Sciences (GEMS) Program where she is affiliated with the Cell And Regenerative Medicine and Cancer Biology concentrations.