Samantha A. Brugmann

Samantha Ann Brugmann is an American developmental biologist. She is an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati Department of Surgery and is currently studying the development of, as well as diseases related to, the cranium and face (craniofacial). Brugmann's research focuses on the function of the primary cilium and how it affects craniofacial development as well as the development of neural crest cells.

Education Brugmann completed a Bachelor of Arts in cell and molecular biology from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1998. She then got her Ph.D. in genetics at Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Her goals are to find a way to both understand the mechanisms that lead to craniofacial malformations as well as how to develop neural crest cells into various skeletal tissues so that they can be used for repairing craniofacial malformations through surgery.

As recently as 2021, Brugmann published a paper in which she and her team found 1609 genes that are in close proximity to Gli target genes within the mandibular prominence. After gene ontology analysis, they were able to conclude that these 1609 genes are important in cell cycle progression, ossification, and osteoblast differentiation. Through these discoveries, there is now a better starting line for the cause, or causes, of ciliopathic micrognathia (or the development of a small jaw).

Awards Brugmann received a series of three awards while at Stanford University.

In 2016 Brugmann received an award from President Obama known as The Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers Then, in 2017, she received The Sustaining Outstanding Achievement in Research (SOAR) award for her research in neural crest cells development in hopes of finding a way to repair malformations in craniofacial structures.