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BMEGG Student Research Conference 2015

Our 4th annual Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group Student Research Conference, held on May 15, 2015, was a wonderful day of research and discussion highlighting our outstanding students.  Professor Victor Barocas from the University of Minnesota kicked off the event with a terrific plenary talk. The day was well-attended by students at all levels, and the quality of research displayed in the oral and poster presentations was truly impressive.

Congratulations again to the students who received special recognition for their presentations:

 

Brent Foster selected as a 2015-2016 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recipient

Brent Foster, a 1st year BME PhD Student in Professor Chaudhari’s Laboratory, has been selected by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) as a 2015-2016 fellowship award recipient.  The NSF GRFP will provide Brent with 3 years of funding to pursue his research project which aims to create an open-source 3D statistical representation of the healthy anatomy of the wrist structures. This representation will enable an analysis of the morphological variation in wrists across the population.

Priscilla Williams receives an American Heart Association Summer 2014 Predoctoral Fellowship

Priscilla Williams, Ph.D. Candidate in Professor Silva’s Lab, has been selected as recipient of an American Heart Summer 2014 Predoctoral Fellowship. Priscilla’s research aims to design a biomaterial system to recruit circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) to ischemic tissue after intravenous injection for therapeutic angiogenesis. This greater understanding of human EPC homing and angiogenesis will help elucidate the mechanisms responsible for ischemic vascular diseases.

Jenna Harvestine receives a 2015 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

Jenna Harvestine, a 1st year BME PhD Student in Professor Leach’s Laboratory, has been selected as a recipient of a 2015 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship.  The NDSEG Fellowship will provide Jenna with 3 years of funding to pursue research in biomaterials and bone tissue engineering.  This work may be of benefit to injured service members and veterans of the United States Armed Forces.

BME PhD Candidate Robin Cumming will represent UC Davis in Washington DC

Congratulations to Robin Cumming (Sutcliffe Lab) for her selection at the  UC Davis representative for the AAAS Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering workshop in Washington DC. Robin will attend a two-day workshop and then talk to members of Congress to advocate for the UC Davis and science and engineering research, hopefully convincing our legislature to increase funding research. 

Professor Sara St. James returns as BME Alumni Seminar Speaker

The Biomedical Engineering Alumni Seminar Series continues Thursday, February 5th, with a talk given by Dr. Sara St. James, Assistant Professor and Medical Physicist, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Washington.

The title of this week’s talk will be:

Kaitlin Murphy is awarded American Heart Association Summer 2014 Predoctoral Fellowship

Kaitlin Murphy, Ph.D. Candidate in Professor Leach’s Lab, has been selected a recipient of a American Heart Summer 2014 Predoctoral Fellowship.  Kaitlin’s research will seek to identify cellular and physical cues to present to endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) that will improve capillary formation upon transplantation. The results of this study may provide a novel approach to promote blood vessel growth and limb salvage in diabetic patients.

Hussain Fatakdawala receives multiple awards at IGPS

Hussain Fatakdawala participated Friday, April 4th, in the campus-wide Interdisciplinary Graduate and Professional Student Symposium (IGPS) and won the Dean’s Prize for Best Oral Presentation in Engineering for his presentation entitled “Imaging coronary arteries using a bimodal catheter combining fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) and intra-vascular ultrasound (IVUS)”.

BME Grad Students are co-authors on Science publication

BME Graduate students Pasha Hadidi of the Athanasiou Lab and Yu (Charlie) Ouyang of the Cherry Lab co-authors on a recently published Science paper “Total Synthesis of a Functional Designer Eukaryotic Chromosome” describing the world’s first synthetic eukaryotic chromosome. As undergraduate students at the Johns Hopkins University in 2008, Hadidi and Ouyang, along with their fellow classmates, performed synthesis, cloning, and sequence analysis of DNA as part of a multidisciplinary team lead by Dr. Jef D. Boeke.

Christopher Chapman receives 2014 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Christopher Chapman, Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering, has been selected to receive a 2014 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Currently Chris’s research focuses on an advanced material, nanoporous gold, due to its high surface area-to-volume ratio, ease of surface modification, tunable surface morphology, and electrical conductivity. In order to rapidly screen for the optimal material morphologies and surface chemistries that enhance biological response and electrophysiological performance, he is engineering a micro-chip-based high-throughput electrode testing platform.

Justin Klein selected a scholar for the 2014-2015 SNMMI Predoctoral Molecular Imaging Scholar Program

BMEGG predoctoral student Justin Klein (Cherry lab) has been selected as the recipient of the 2014-2015 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) Predoctoral Molecular Imaging Scholar Program. The pre-doctoral program supports a research scholar in an established molecular imaging lab that will apply molecular imaging approaches (including tool development) to investigate biological pathways in disease models.

Beko Binder selected for 2014 BMEGG Outstanding Graduate Student Award

This year’s BMEGG Outstanding Graduate Student Award goes to Beko Binder from Prof. Kent Leach’s laboratory. While a doctoral student in the BME Graduate Group, Beko has made significant advances in the development of pharmacological and materials-based approaches to promote cell survival and direct tissue repair, with particular emphasis on bone and angiogenesis. His research contributions are broad, utilizing a range of materials including hydrogels and implantable scaffolds derived from natural and synthetic polymers.

Students present at ISSCR Meeting

Allison Hoch and Beko Binder (both Ph.D. candidates in Biomedical Engineering) presented their research at the 4th International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR)/Society of Biological Engineering meeting in San Diego in March 2014.