2015 News Archives

Catherine K. Kuo receives Award for Innovation in Research

December 21, 2015

ckk awardCatherine K. Kuo (Associate Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Orthopaedics) received an Award for Innovation in Research at the Go:Life in Orthopaedics Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden in December. Her talk, “Embryonically Inspired Approaches to Regenerate Soft Tissues”, described her innovative research program to regenerate tendons in a manner that recapitulates embryonic tendon development and scarless healing. She described how she engineers 3-dimensional tissue models to study the mechanobiology of embryonic tendon formation, and uses the new information to develop novel tendon regeneration approaches informed by the embryonic processes.

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Gdowski Recognized by IEEE for Leadership Efforts

December 17, 2015

gdowskiProfessor Greg Gdowski, the Rochester IEEE Section Chair, has received an IEEE award for Regional Professional Leadership from IEEE USA for demonstrated leadership efforts in advancing the professional aims of IEEE in Region 1, specifically in revitalizing the Rochester Section and the photonics community. 

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Fernandes receives Donald M. and Janet C. Barnard Fellowship

November 5, 2015

Congratulations to BME PhD candidate Ninoshka Fernandes, who has received a Donald M. and Janet C. Barnard Fellowship from the College of Arts, Science and Engineering. These fellowships recognize outstanding achievement by PhD students in engineering and science, as evidenced through their coursework and their dissertation research work. The Fellowship provides a $2K stipend top-off of the student’s existing stipend, as well as a tuition award.

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Bowen Recognized Among Top Freshmen

October 29, 2015

Congratulations to Ryan Bowen, Class of 2018, who was awarded the Iota Book Award last night in Rush Rhees Library. This honor recognizes the top students among the previous year’s freshmen. Criteria include: 1) scholarly achievement, 2) humanistic values, 3) co-curricular activity, and 4) leadership potential.

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Choe and Benoit Awarded NSF grant to develop safe, noninvasive imaging methods to monitor bone graft healing

October 29, 2015

BME Professors Regine Choe (Principal Investigator) and Danielle Benoit (Co-Investigator) have been awarded an NSF Grant for their collaborative research project entitled, “Diffuse Optical and Correlation Tomography for Monitoring of Bone-Graft Headling.” The overall goal of this proposal is to develop new and safe imaging methods that use red and infrared light to monitor and image the re-growth of blood vessels in healing bones. These methods are based on diffuse optical tomography (DOT) and diffuse correlation tomography (DCT) as scientific research tools to provide non-invasive, deep-tissue longitudinal monitoring of vascularization of engineered tissues. Techniques that non-invasively monitor and longitudinally assess the vascularization process could significantly accelerate the tissue-engineering field, which will lead to new methods for healing damaged tissues. By providing efficient ways to assess vascularization, this methodology will impact the speed of clinical translation of new tissue-engineering technologies, saving time and reducing development costs. 

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University of Rochester Makes Best Biomedical Engineering Schools List According to Student Reviews

October 22, 2015

We're honored to have landed a spot on the Graduate Programs Fall 2015 Rankings of Top Biomedical Engineering Graduate Programs! This list highlights the best graduate programs in the country in a variety of fields based solely on ratings and reviews from current or recent graduate students posted on graduateprograms.com. It encompasses reviews posted by more than 75,000 students participating in over 1,600 graduate programs nationwide.

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BME Professors Hani Awad and Danielle Benoit Receive $2 million NIH Grant

October 20, 2015

Hani Awad, Ph.D. (BME and Orthopaedics) and Danielle Benoit, Ph.D. (BME) have received a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) for their project titled “Engineering Scarless Repair of Flexor Tendon Injuries.” The goal of this 5-year multi-PI project is to advance the understanding of the mechanism of scar formation in flexor tendons of the hand, whose scar-mediated healing often leads to adhesions and loss of hand function. The project identifies a therapeutic target and maps out its mechanism of involvement in scar formation, and investigate the efficacy of a novel nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery approach to mitigate its effects in a preclinical model of flexor tendon repairs. Successful completion of this project, which elegantly integrates biology, biomechanics, and biomaterials, will have a profound impact on the field, especially since there are presently no pharmacologic or biologic treatments for the prevention or resolution of tendon adhesions.

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Catherine K. Kuo Joins Faculty

October 5, 2015

Catherine K. Kuo arrives from Tufts University, where she had been an assistant professor of biomedical engineering since 2008, as well as from MIT, where she had been a visiting scientist in chemical engineering since 2011. 

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Danielle Benoit named CMBE Young Innovator

September 3, 2015

Congratulations to Danielle Benoit, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, who has been recognized as one of 11 CMBE Young Innovators for 2015 by the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering journal. The award highlights the best and brightest young faculty working in the area of cellular and molecular bioengineering. Danielle and the other 2015 CMBE Young Innovators will present their research and be recognized at the annual Biomedical Engineering Society meeting in October in Tampa, Florida. Learn more about this year's CMBE Young Innovators. 

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New patent issued for Professor Hocking

August 26, 2015

The patent titled “Chimeric Fibronectin Matrix Mimetics and Uses Thereof” (US 9,072,706) has recently been assigned to the University of Rochester with inventors Denise Hocking, Ph.D. (Pharmacology and Physiology, BME, RCBU) and Daniel Roy, Ph.D. (BME PhD 2012 alumnus). The patent relates to a series of recombinant fibronectin peptide mimetics developed to promote wound repair. The technology falls under a new and exciting class of therapies known as wound biologics. The primary commercial application for this technology is to promote healing of hard-to-heal or chronic wounds, including diabetic, venous, and pressure ulcers, which impose a significant health care burden worldwide. Encouraging results from recent studies indicate that topical application of these fibronectin peptide mimetics to full-thickness excisional wounds in diabetic mice accelerates wound closure and promotes granulation tissue deposition, remodeling, and re-vascularization. Denise Hocking is an Associate Professor of Pharmacolog and physiology and of Biomedical Engineering. Daniel Roy is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the US Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio, TX.

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Eric Comeau Awarded AHA Fellowship

August 15, 2015

Eric Comeau is the recipient of an American Heart Association Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. The fellowship will support Eric’s project titled “Ultrasound standing wave field technologies for cell patterning and microvessel network formation in vitro and in situ”. Through this project, Eric will advance new ultrasound technologies for tissue engineering applications. Eric is a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and is co-mentored by Professor Diane Dalecki (BME) and Professor Denise Hocking (Pharmacology and PhysiologyBME). Eric is also a student member of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound (RCBU).

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Biomedical Optics: A University-wide collaboration

August 14, 2015

choe
Regine Choe, assistant professor of biomedical engineering; Stacie Zwolski, a senior in biomedical engineering (standing in foreground); and Ashley Proctor, lab technician acting as patient, demonstrate the use of a hemodynamic optical device with a hand-held probe as a noninvasive way to monitor breast cancer therapy. The device combines a diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and a diffuse optical spectroscopy (DOS). DCS is a near-infrared optical method that quantifies deep tissue micro-vascular blood flow, and DOS provides total hemoglobin concentration and blood oxygen saturation. These hemodynamic parameters are significantly different between tumor and normal tissues, and their changes may indicate the effectiveness of cancer therapies."  (CREDIT: Photo by J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester)

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Jong-Hoon Nam Awarded a NIH grant that could total $1.8 million over the next five years.

July 20, 2015

A cross section of the organ of Corti at upper left shows the proximity of outer and inner hair cells to the tectorial and basilar membranes. The other diagrams show hair cells modulating power dissipation within the inner ear for optimal amplification and tuning of sounds.  Asst. Prof. Jong-Hoon Nam hopes to clarify how the dissipation of this energy – an “underappreciated but crucial aspect”— occurs, to illustrate the overall balancing act that occurs within the cochlea.
A cross section of the organ of Corti at upper left shows the proximity of outer and inner hair cells to the tectorial and basilar membranes. The other diagrams show hair cells modulating power dissipation within the inner ear for optimal amplification and tuning of sounds. Asst. Prof. Jong-Hoon Nam hopes to clarify how the dissipation of this energy – an “underappreciated but crucial aspect”— occurs, to illustrate the overall balancing act that occurs within the cochlea.

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Ryan Trombetta, a second year BME doctoral student in Dr. Hani Awad’s lab is bound for Berlin!

May 22, 2015

Ryan Trombetta, a second year BME doctoral student in Dr. Hani Awad’s lab, took first place in the University’s first Falling Walls Competition. In the Falling Walls Competition, competitors have three minutes and three slides to present their ideas about a new breakthrough idea or technology that will have broad societal impact. Ryan 's winning pitch described how 3D-printed bone grafts containing antibiotics and biofilm dispersal agents could simplify and improve the treatment of osteomyelitis, a bacterial bone infection that is a common complication of surgeries to repair bone fractures or replace joints. Having won our local competition, Ryan will represent the University at the international competition to be held in Berlin November 8th and 9th, the anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall.

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Professors Dalecki and Hocking Research Wins Best Paper Award at SPIE-DSS

May 6, 2015

The latest research by Professor Diane Dalecki (BME, RCBU) and Professor Denise C. Hocking (Pharmacology & Physiology, BME, RCBU) was recognized with the Best Paper Award at the Micro- and Nanotechnology Sensors, Systems, and Applications Conference of the SPIE Defense + Security Symposium held recently in Baltimore, Maryland. Their invited paper titled “Guiding Tissue Regeneration with Ultrasound In Vitro and In Vivo” detailed three biomedical ultrasound technologies under development in their laboratories to stimulate tissue formation and regeneration. Co-authors of the paper included Sally Child, Carol Raeman, and BME graduate students Eric Comeau and Laura Hobbs. One technology under development employs forces within an ultrasound standing wave field to provide a noninvasive approach to spatially pattern endothelial cells and thereby guide the development of complex microvessel networks. A second technology uses ultrasound to site-specifically control the microstructure of collagen fibers within engineered hydrogels to direct cell function. The third line of research focuses on developing ultrasound as a therapeutic approach to enhance tissue regeneration in chronic wounds. These ultrasound technologies offer new solutions to key challenges currently facing the fields of tissue engineering, biomaterials fabrication, and regenerative medicine.

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Melinda Vander Horst presents at NCUR

April 29, 2015

Melinda Vander Horst (BME Class 2015) presented her recent research at the 29th Annual National Undergraduate Research Conference (NCUR) held at Eastern Washington University in April. NCUR is an interdisciplinary conference where undergraduate students representing universities from around the world present their research and creative works. Melinda presented her poster, titled Development of a dual transducer system for ultrasound standing wave field-induced particle banding, with co-authors Eric Comeau (BME graduate student), Denise C. Hocking (Pharmacology & Physiology), and Diane Dalecki (BME). Melinda is a Xerox Undergraduate Research Fellow working with Professors Dalecki and Hocking on new ultrasound technologies for tissue engineering.

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BME Undergrads Receive President's Choice Award

April 20, 2015

BME juniors Marlen Mahendraratnam and Allison Stiller received the President's Choice award at the Undergraduate Research Exposition for their project "Experimental Analysis of Superlooping in Polymer Line and its Application to Mathematical Models of DNA." Their faculty mentor is Stephen Burns, Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Congratulations!

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Professor Mark Buckley Receives Furth Award

March 16, 2015

BME Professor Mark Buckley has recieved support from the University of Rochester's Valerie and Frank Furth Fund for his proposal "The Role of Mechanics in Disease and Disease Therapies." 

The Furth Fund promotes natural and biological science research by funding young scientists in Arts, Sciences, & Engineering or the Medical Center. Each year, one award in the amount of $10,000 is granted to support post-doctoral and graduate students and/or to fund equipment purchases.

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BME Students Receive Honorable Mention at SPIE Conference

March 5, 2015

BME students Anas Abidin and Xixi Wang received Honorable Mention in the Best Poster Award Category at the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference held from February 21-26 in Orlando, Florida for their poster titled “Investigating the use of mutual information and non-metric clustering for functional connectivity analysis on resting-state functional MRI”. The other co-authors of the poster are Mahesh B. Nagarajan, Adora M. D’Souza, Susan K. Hobbs, and Axel Wismüller. 

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Grant Will Help Move UR Innovations From Bench-Top to Bedside

February 3, 2015

BME Professor Jim McGrath has recieved I-Corps funding for his project entitled "Portable Hemodialysis" which aims to develop a portable hemodialysis system for acute renal replacement therapy that clears toxins at rates required for human treatments. The McGrath lab will develop a multichip dialysis prototype that clears urea (acute kidney failure) and ammonia (acute liver failure) from blood at a rate (10 mL/min) typical of standard dialysis machines.

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New Study Probes Link Between HIV Drugs and Vascular Disease

January 13, 2015

BME Graduate Faculty member Marvin Doyley, Ph.D., is a part of a multidisciplinary team that was recently awarded a $3.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to better understand why individuals who receive anti-retroviral treatment for HIV are at greater risk for heart disease and stroke.

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