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• December 16, 2009

  Congratulations to Dr. McAleavey!

  Congratulations to Dr. Stephen McAleavey on the birth of his first child. Stephen and his wife welcomed a daughter, Laura Katherine McAleavey, on December 15. She weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces, was 20.7 inches long, arrived at 9:29 AM. Mom and baby are both doing well.

• November 10, 2009

  Scientists Create a 'Golden Ear' Mouse with Great Hearing as It Ages

  What do you get when you cross a mouse with poor hearing and a mouse with even worse hearing? Ironically, a new strain of mice with golden ears - mice that have outstanding hearing as they age.

  The work by one of the world's foremost groups in age-related hearing loss, or presbycusis, marks the first time that scientists have created the mouse equivalent of a person with golden ears - people who are able to retain great hearing even as they grow older. The research at the University of Rochester Medical Center was published online recently in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

  The new mouse is expected to offer clues about how these lucky folks are able to retain outstanding hearing even through old age. Researchers estimate that approximately 5 percent of people, mainly women, fall into this category. The new mice created in the laboratory of Robert Frisina, Ph.D., embody many of the same traits of human golden ears because of an astute cross of two types of mice long popular with researchers.

• October 29, 2009

  Dr. Diane Dalecki Elected Fellow of Acoustical Society of America

  Diane Dalecki, Ph.D. (BME, RCBU) has been elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. She was recognized by the society for her contributions to the bioeffects of sound and ultrasound. Professor Dalecki's election to Fellow was acknowledged at an awards ceremony during the 158^th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America that was held in San Antonio, TX on October 26-30, 2009.

• October 16, 2009

  Dottie Welch on 13WHAM News' Bright Spot

  A 13WHAM News Bright Spot is roughly defined as a person or organization performing an act of kindness. The Bright Spot focuses on good deeds done by people who go beyond the normal or expected to help others or enrich our community. Currently in the spotlight is Biomedical Engineering's very own Dottie Welch. Congratulations Dottie!

• October 11, 2009

  Dr. Rick Waugh elected BMES President

  Dr. Rick Waugh, professor and Biomedical Engineering Department Chair, has been elected to a two-year term as president of the Biomedical Engineering Society (a national organization of biomedical researchers from universities and industry).

• October 10, 2009

  BME Department makes a record showing at the Biomedical Engineering Society - Student Chapter wins Meritorious Achievement Award

  

  BME students receiving the Meritorious Achievement Award, recognizing the best student chapter in the nation.

  Dozens of UR students and faculty attended the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA from October 7-10. Our group gave 12 oral presentations and presented 17 posters demonstrating work in many areas of the department's research, including imaging, orthopaedics, tissue engineering, neuroengineering, nanotechnology, and cellular mechanics. The work was presented by faculty, graduate students and undergraduates, and also included examples of both translational research and educational outreach programs. The department also hosted an exhibit booth to meet with prospective students and faculty.

  The annual meeting also offered numerous activities for students, related to research and career development. Perhaps most exciting was that our student BMES chapter received a Meritorious Achievement Award. This recognizes the best student chapter in the nation for achievements during the last academic year, based on last year's Chapter Development Report.

• October 8, 2009

  Alumnus Anant Mathur Featured in Democrat and Chronicle

  Anant Mathur ('03 BME BS and '05 Optics MS), now an optical engineer in Bausch and Lomb's Optical Design and Metrology Department, combines his knowledge of optics with his understanding of biomedical engineering to test and improve the design of contact lenses and intraocular lenses.

• October 7, 2009

  Pain Researcher at School of Nursing Receives Prestigious Award

  Martin Schiavenato, Ph.D., R.N., assistant professor at the School of Nursing, was awarded the prestigious Nurse Faculty Scholarship Award will support his research into how pain is measured in premature babies. Schiavenato was mentored by Laurel Carney, Ph.D., professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neurobiology and Anatomy and Harriet Kitzman, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., associate dean of research at the School of Nursing (SON).

• October 1, 2009

  New Collaboration between the Helguera (RIT), Dalecki, and Hocking Labs

  A new collaboration, funded by the NIH, brings together the expertise of Professor Maria Helguera (Center for Imaging Sciences, RIT), Professor Diane Dalecki (BME, UR), and Professor Denise Hocking (Pharmacology & Physiology, UR). The collaborative effort focuses on developing novel, ultrasound tissue characterization techniques for engineered tissues. This work is part of a larger project, led by Drs. Dalecki and Hocking and funded by the NIH, that aims to develop ultrasound-based technologies for the field of tissue engineering.

  Dr. Helguera's laboratory is devoted to advancing multimodal imaging and materials characterization techniques. Over the years, she has developed a suite of nondestructive, ultrasound-based materials characterization techniques for non-biological materials, such as polymers, ceramics, and layered materials. Through this new collaborative effort, the novel approaches that Dr. Helguera has developed and implemented for ultrasound characterization of non-biological materials will be translated to characterize the biological properties of engineered tissues. We propose to extend and apply high frequency ultrasound-based, tissue characterization techniques to monitor non-invasively biological and structural properties of cells and extracellular matrix proteins within three-dimensional engineered tissues. NIH support for the next two years will allow Dr. Helguera to spend the fall semesters and part of her summers devoted full-time to the research project as a Visiting Scientist in the Dalecki lab at the UR BME department. Drs. Helguera, Dalecki, and Hocking are all members of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound.

• September 30, 2009

  Dr. Edward Brown Receives an NIH Director's New Innovator Award

  Dr. Edward Brown has received an NIH Director's New Innovator Award to support a 5 year/$1.5M study that seeks to understand the cells and signals responsible for collagen organization in tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs). This study exploits an optical phenomenon called Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) which allows for the microscopic imaging of ordered collagen fibers within living tissue. Tumor cells can exploit these ordered fibers during metastasis, and Dr. Brown hopes to determine the cells and signals which influence the SHG+ fibers in order to disrupt their production and inhibit metastasis via the TDLN, which is a primary route. He will also explore the ability of SHG imaging of TDLN biopsies to predict metastatic ability, to aid in customization of postoperative therapy. This project continues work that has been previously funded by a D.o.D. Era of Hope Scholar Award and a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences Award, and complements a recently awarded D.o.D. Era of Hope Scholar Research Award.

• September 14, 2009

  BME Graduate Sarah Lancianese wins Young Investigator Award

  Recent graduate Sarah Lancianese received a Young Investigator Award at the 2009 World Congress on Osteoarthritis in Montreal, Quebec. She presented her work on the use of biomechanical models to understand risks for knee osteoarthritis in a plenary session including the 6 highest rated abstracts from young investigators. This abstract represented the final chapter of her PhD dissertation which she defended in July, 2009. The overall project, supervised by BME Associate Professor Amy L. Lerner, investigated the combined effects of obesity, limb alignment and bone mechanical properties on the knee joint. Dr. Lancianese is now a design engineer at Wright Medical, Inc. in Memphis TN.

• September 12, 2009

  Preventing Injuries from Causing Long-term Osteoarthritis

  An existing osteoporosis drug is the first ever found to prevent cartilage loss from osteoarthritis following injury to a joint, and may also regenerate some cartilage that has been lost to osteoarthritis, according to an early study presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in Denver. While the study was in mice, the model closely mimics human osteoarthritis that develops following knee injuries, according to the study authors.

• August 28, 2009

  Dr. Edward Brown Receives a D.o.D. Breast Cancer Research Program Grant

  Dr. Edward Brown has received funding from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program to support a 5 year/$2M study that seeks to understand the cells and signals responsible for collagen organization in breast tumors. This study exploits an optical phenomenon called Second Harmonic Generation which allows for the microscopic imaging of ordered collagen fibers within breast tumor models. Breast tumor cells exploit these ordered fibers to escape the tumor mass, and Dr. Brown hopes to determine the cells and signals which influence the SHG+ fibers in order to disrupt their production and inhibit metastasis. He will also explore the ability of SHG imaging of breast tumor biopsies to predict metastatic ability, to aid in customization of postoperative therapy. This project continues work that has been previously funded by a D.o.D. Era of Hope Scholar Award and a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences Award.

• June 30, 2009

  Carol Raeman - 20 Years with the RCBU!

  This month the RCBU recognizes Carol Raeman's 20 years of employment at the University of Rochester! Carol is currently a Technical Associate I working in the laboratory of Professor Diane Dalecki in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Carol started her employment with the University in 1989 working with Professor Ed Carstensen in the Department of Electrical Engineering. During her early years of employment, Carol played a key technical role in many studies on the biological effects of lithotripter fields. Only one year after her initial hire, Carol was already a co-author on 5 papers dealing with the bioeffects of lithotripter fields and pulsed ultrasound on the kidney, chick embryo, and lung. As her career progressed, Carol contributed to many significant studies on the effects of ultrasound on tissues containing contrast agents, the mechanisms for ultrasound-induced lung damage, effects of ultrasound on the heart and neural tissue, and the interaction of very low frequency underwater sound with biological tissues. Recent areas of Carol's work include applications of ultrasound in wound healing and cell and tissue engineering. Carol is highly skilled in both our biological and acoustic techniques, and contributes to the design and completion of a wide variety of research projects in our lab. Her experience, ingenuity, technical ability, and collaborative skills make her an enormously valuable member of our laboratory team. She has made outstanding contributions to the field of biomedical ultrasound over the years and we are very fortunate that she is a member of our lab. said Dr. Diane Dalecki.

• June 26, 2009

  Mathews Jacob awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award

  The five-year award provides funding for the research project titled Efficient Image Sparsifying Operators: Theory, Algorithms and Applications. The goal of the project is to develop efficient operators/transforms to compress multidimensional image data. Such schemes are widely used in JPEG compression schemes to transmit images over the web and to acquire data from devices such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a much faster rate. Dr. Jacob is especially interested in applying this method to advance MR spectroscopic imaging, thus making it clinically feasible to detect disease-induced changes to the chemical composition, along with the anatomical variations. The translation of this technology to cancer therapy is the main focus of his project titled Model-based MR Spectroscopic Imaging for Brain Cancer Treatment Planning, which is funded by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Rochester. The NSF funding will also allow Dr. Jacob to develop and refine a new Biomedical Image Processing course for biomedical engineering students and offer research opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students.

• June 24, 2009

  Alumnus Christopher Kumar's Student Team Wins American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Competition

  Alumnus Christopher Kumar, now a science instructor at Monroe Community College, led his student design team to a first place finish at the American Society for Engineering Education's National Robitcs Competition. Kumar's student team, Tinkerballz, won the design title by creating a robot that could sort colored golf balls and deposit them in corresponding targets. Chris completed is BS in our BME Undergraduate program in 2003, then continued as a research technician and MS student with Greg Gdowski. After receiving hs MS degree in 2008, he joined the faculty at Monroe Community College as an instructor in the Department of Engineering & Physics.

• June 18, 2009

  Dr. Awad Receives a NIH Grant Award

  Dr. Hani Awad has received funding from the NIH to support a 5 year study that seeks to develop a tissue engineering-based solution to debilitating adhesions that are frequently encountered with flexor tendon reconstructive surgery. The funded research will evaluate the interplay between pro- and anti-scarring factors to identify therapeutic targets for this problem. The studies will also investigate the efficacy of using allografts and gene therapy in eradicating adhesions and restoring the joint's range of motion. The new grant will expand this area of research, which has been previously funded by grants from the Orthopaedic Research Education Foundation (OREF) and the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF).

• June 16, 2009

  Drs. Hocking and Dalecki Receive NIH Funding for Summer Students

  Dr. Denise Hocking and Dr. Diane Dalecki have received funding from the NIH to support the summer research projects and career development of undergraduate and high school students for two years. The funding is in response to American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) initiatives of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). Research areas of student projects focus on studying the effects of ultrasound on cell growth and protein conformation, and novel applications of acoustic radiation force. This work will contribute to a larger, multidisciplinary project, led by Drs. Hocking and Dalecki and funded by the NIH, that aims to develop novel ultrasound technologies for the field of tissue engineering.

• June 16, 2009

  Carlos Sevilla Awarded NIH Pre-doctoral Fellowship

  Carlos Sevilla was awarded a prestigious NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Pre-doctoral Fellowship. This three-year award will provide funding for Carlos' thesis research project, titled ,Promoting Chronic Wound Healing with Ultrasound and Fibronectin. In his research, Carlos is investigating the ability of ultrasound to produce conformational changes in the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin that, in turn, stimulate cellular processes important for accelerating soft tissue wound repair. Carlos is a third year graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and his thesis research is co-advised by Dr. Denise Hocking and Dr. Diane Dalecki. Carlos is also a student member of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound (RCBU). Carlos' research is part of a larger, multidisciplinary project, led by Drs. Dalecki and Hocking and funded by the NIH, that aims to develop the use of ultrasound for chronic wound therapy.

• June 5, 2009

  Kelley Garvin Wins Best Student Paper Competition

  Kelley Garvin won the Best Student Paper Competition at the 157th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America held in Portland, OR from May 18-22. Her paper, titled Ultrasound standing wave fields control the spatial distribution of cells and protein in three-dimensional engineered tissue, was recognized as the best student paper in the Biomedical Ultrasound / Bioresponse to Vibration Technical Section. Kelley presented her recent work demonstrating the use of ultrasound fields to non-invasively control the spatial locations of cells in collagen-based engineered tissues. Ultrasound standing wave fields were used to organize cells into planar bands within collagen gels, resulting in a significant two-fold increase in cell-mediated gel contraction, suggesting that ultrasound-induced cell organization leads to a differential extracellular matrix remodeling. Further, using ultrasound to spatially band endothelial cells within collagen gels resulted in vessel sprouting. These novel technologies have important applications to the fabrication of engineered tissues with desired tissue characteristics. Kelley is a third year graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and her thesis research is co-advised by Dr. Diane Dalecki and Dr. Denise Hocking. Kelley is also a student member of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound (RCBU). Kelley's research is part of a larger, multidisciplinary project, led by Drs. Dalecki and Hocking and funded by the NIH, that aims to develop novel ultrasound technologies for the field of tissue engineering.

• May 18, 2009

  School of Medicine and Dentistry Names Puzas to Lead Basic Science Research

  J. Edward Puzas, Ph.D., Donald and Mary Clark Professor of Orthopaedics at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and director of orthopaedic research, today was named senior associate dean for basic science research at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

• May 15, 2009

  Rochester's Engineering School Named for Edmund A. Hajim

  The University announced that its engineering school will, effective July 1, be officially named the Edmund A. Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

  The naming recognizes alumnus Edmund Hajim's many decades of service and contributions to the University, including his $30 million gift commitment last fall to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Hajim earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Rochester in 1958, has had a highly successful career as a senior executive for several Wall Street firms, has served for the past year as the Chairman of the University's Board of Trustees, and has been a member of the Board since 1988.

• May 12, 2009

  U of R Students Show Off Healthcare Innovations on WROC-TV

  Robert Handzel and Kevin Staton, senior Biomedical Engineering students at the University of Rochester, demonstrated their design prototypes on WROC-TV. Rob Handzel's team developed a respiration monitor for Dr. Timothy Stevens, the Meical Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong. The team also included Megan Mekarski, Ben Horowitz and William Sipprell, who were supervised by Mathews Jacob, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering. Kevin Staton worked with Megan Miller and Brian Flynn to design a novel chair to facilitate treadmill gait training for patients recovering from strokes. Their team was supervised by Associate Professor Scott Seidman and worked with Lynn Wood, PT from Unity Health.

• May 1, 2009

  Lisa Bonanno Awarded NIH Pre-doctoral Fellowship

  Lisa Bonanno was awarded a prestigious NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Pre-doctoral Fellowship. This two-year award will provide funding for Lisa's thesis research project to develop label-free porous silicon optical biosensors. Lisa's research is focused on designing sensors to detect molecules of interest in complex biological fluids (blood, urine etc.) for point-of-care diagnostic applications. This work is aimed at improving patient health care by reducing the time and cost associated with clinical laboratory testing. In particular, the fellowship award, entitled, Drug Screeening with Nano-Porous Silicon Optical Biosensors is focused on designing sensors to detect small molecule drugs of abuse in urine. This multidisciplinary study is co-sponsored by Dr. Jean Bidlack in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology. Lisa is a fourth year graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and her thesis research is advised by Dr. Lisa DeLouise in the Department of Dermatology.

• April 23, 2009

  Scientists Discover Way to Jumpstart Bone's Healing Process

  Rarely will physicians use the word miraculous when discussing patient recoveries. But that's the very phrase orthopaedic physicians and scientists are using in upstate New York to describe their emerging stem cell research that could have a profound impact on the treatment of bone injuries.

• April 23, 2009

  Jannick Rolland Named to New Brian J. Thompson Professorship in Optical Engineering

  Jannick Rolland, professor of optics and biomedical engineering, has been named the first Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering in the HAJIM School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She is also the associate director of the recently completed Robert E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and Engineering.

• April 16, 2009

  Professor Awarded Prestigious Imaging Science Medal

  Duncan Moore, professor of optics, biomedical engineering and business administration at the University of Rochester, has been awarded the 2009 Edwin H. Land Medal in recognition of his pioneering work on gradient-index - or GRIN - optics and his extensive entrepreneurial efforts in optics education.

• April 15, 2009

  BME Alumni Awarded 2009 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

  Two BME Alumni were named National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows for 2009. Christopher Carruthers '07 (B.S., Biomedical Engineering) of University of Pittsburgh and Scott White '07/T5 (B.S., Biomedical Engineering) currently working in Central America teaching farmers improved technology.

  Christoper Carruthers is nearing the end of his second year of his PhD program at Pittsburgh. His abstract has been accepted for the Society of Heart Valve Disease in Berlin for presentation this summer, and he is engaged in the artificial heart program at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center training, moving from a technician to an engineer with competency in the operation of over 10 ventricular assist devices by this summer.

  After graduating in May 2007, Scott White taught science to middle school students at the Wildwood School in Los Angeles. Since then, he has been working in Central America with two NGOs. He helped farmers with technology education and translating in an NGO in Guatemala called CCDA (Comite Campesino Del Altiplano), and is currently in Nicaragua with an NGO called blueEnergy with renewable energy installations in isolated communities and developing curriculum in their local schools. In 2010, he'll be attending Stanford's Atmosphere/Energy masters program in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

• April 13, 2009

  Professor Amy Lerner wins Professor of the Year honors.

  Professor Amy Lerner of the Department of Biomedical Engineering won top honors as Professor of the Year in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. This honor is based on student nominations and election, and so reflects the high quality and dedication she brings to her teaching from a student's perspective. Dr. Lerner teaches Biosolid Mechanics as well as the capstone Senior Design course required of all Biomedical Engineering majors. Congratulations, Amy!

• April 13, 2009

  BME undergraduate, Corey Walker, receives 2009-10 Tau Beta Pi Scholarship

  In student news, SEAS junior Corey Walker, a biomedical engineering major, recently received a 2009-10 Tau Beta Pi Scholarship. Tau Beta Pi the Engineering Honor Society awards the competitive scholarship of $2,000 annually to selected undergraduate members in recognition of outstanding scholarship, campus leadership and service, and promise of contributions to the engineering profession. Congratulations Corey!

• April 1, 2009

  Greg Gdowski, PhD, elected Chair of the Rochester Section of the Society for Engineering in Medicine and Biology

  Greg Gdowski, Ph.D., has been elected Chair of the Rochester Section of the Society for Engineering in Medicine and Biology. The Society is an organization within the framework of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) whose members maintain principal professional interest in biomedical engineering.

• April 1, 2009

  Tom Gaborski takes lab-to-market as VP of Life Sciences at SiMPore Inc.

  Recent Ph.D. graduate Tom Gaborski is realizing his dream of entrepreneurship as VP of Life Sciences at UR spinoff, SiMPore, Inc. Tom helped found SiMPore Inc. in 2007 while he was a graduate student in the Ph.D. program. The company actually grew out of a chance experiment conducted by Tom and Chris Striemer, who was then a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Chris had inadvertently made the world’s thinnest nanoporous membrane while developing new materials for silicon-based lasers. Tom and Chris designed and conducted experiments to test if the nanoscale pores could be used to separate proteins of different sizes and charges and discovered that they did so very efficiently. The commercial potential of this discovery was immediately obvious to Tom.

  Along with their advisors, Chris and Tom founded SiMPore to commercialize the discovery. The company now employs 9 people and started selling membranes in January of 2009. Sales have been steadily increasing as advertising efforts payoff and global interest in the material grows. Tom wears many hats in the small start-up but his primary job is to lead the company in its development of products for the biological sciences. Under Tom’s leadership, devices for protein and DNA purification are already in the SiMPore product pipeline.

• April 1, 2009

  Distinguishing Single Cells With Nothing But Light

  Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a novel optical technique that permits rapid analysis of single human immune cells using only light.

  Availability of such a technique means that immunologists and other cellular researchers may soon be able to observe the responses of individual cells to various stimuli, rather than relying on aggregate statistical data from large cell populations. Until now scientists have not had a non-invasive way to see how human cells, like T cells or cancer cells, activate individually and evolve over time.

• March 31, 2009

  BME Student, Sean Virgile, Named 2009 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar

  The Goldwater is the premier national science scholarship competition for undergraduate math, science, and engineering students. The program is federally funded and is intended to recognize outstanding students with strong research promise who intend to pursue advanced degrees in math, science, or engineering and engage in research-oriented careers. The scholarship is worth up to $7,500. Four-year institutions may nominate four candidates of sophomore or junior standing each year. Students compete locally for nomination and are selected by a faculty committee following review of a draft of the complete application. Virgile is especially interested in cell and tissue engineering and plans to pursue both an M.D. as well as a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering in preparation for a research career in academic medicine. At UR, Virgile has been working in the BioNanomaterials Research Goup of Professor Lisa DeLouise at the medical center. His work in this lab has been focused on polymer design and drug delivery, particularly ocular delivery of a glaucoma drug, a project that he proposed himself. He spent this past summer on an NSF-funded REU at John Hopkins' Institute for NanoBioTechnology, where he worked in the BIOMEMS lab of Professor Jeff Wang on a project to develop a more sensitive method of quantifying DNA methylation. Virgile's results have been incorporated into a paper being prepared for publication. In addition to his classes and research pursuits, Virgile is an RA, a TA, and president of the Club Fencing Team.

• March 20, 2009

  A bevy of new research grants for the Center for Musculoskeletal Research

  The Department of Orthopaedics is a very busy, highly clinical department. In its state-of-the-art, 100,000 sq ft comprehensive outpatient facility at Clinton Crossings, faculty members provide care for more than 160,000 orthopaedic outpatient visits yearly. There is now a planned expansion to satellite sites in the community. The 12,000 inpatient and outpatient operations performed annually by orthopaedic faculty members represent a two-fold increase over the past seven years. Moreover, Orthopaedics has expanded to include a major presence at Highland Hospital, where several key programs reside, including the Evarts Joint Replacement Center, Geriatric Fracture Center, and Musculoskeletal Oncology service.

• March 18, 2009

  URMC Scientists Awarded $6.8 Million in Stem Cell Research Grants

  

  Stem Cells

  Ten scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) have been awarded more than $6.8 million by the Empire State Stem Cell Board. The grants are for a wide range of research programs in the fields of neurological disorders, cancer, musculoskeletal diseases, the blood system, and efforts to understand the fundamental mechanics of stem cell biology.

  Stem cell research for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine is a rapidly evolving field that holds great promise for the 21^st century. Drs. Hani Awad, Laura Calvi, Edward Puzas, Edward Schwarz, Xinping Zhang, Dirk Bohmann, James Palis, Richard Waugh and others have obtained funding for stem cell research to further their efforts in this area that include: understanding the molecular genetic characteristic of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), how to expand MSCs in vitro and in vivo, methods to impregnate matrices with MSCs to tissue engineer bone and cartilage, and how to image labeled MSCs.

• February 25, 2009

  UR BME Faculty, Students and Alumni at the 2009 Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting

  The UR Biomedical Engineering Program was well represented at this year's Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition to several podium and poster presentations by current members of the BME department, it was great to connect with many alumni of the program, who have gone on to graduate degrees, positions in industry, or post-doctoral fellowships. For example, presenting their work at this year's ORS were UG alums Suzanne Ferreri ('01), Tunde Babalola ('02), Jason Long ('03), Dan Xia Chen ('05), Andrea Pallante ('05), Jedd Sereysky ('05), Nick Drury ('06) and Carrie Voycheck ('06). Their presentations included studies of cartilage tissue engineering, tendon properties, finite element modeling, and the effects of ultrasound.

• February 20, 2009

  Benjamin Miller wins Health Care Achievement Award in Innovation from the Rochester Business Journal

  Fourteen individuals and an imaging system technology have been selected as recipients of Rochester Business Journal 2009 Health Care Achievement Awards. BME professor, Dr. Benjamin Miller was honored as one of the recipients of this year's award. Dr. Miller has founded two local companies based on diagnostic biosensing technologies developed in his laboratory.

• February 17, 2009

  Candace Gildner wins Ruth Kirchstein National Research Service Award for MD/PhD Studies

  Candace Gildner, an MD/PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering Department, has recently been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for Individual MD/PHD Fellows from the NIH. This prestigious, four-year award covers her PhD research as well as her remaining two years in medical school. The overall goal of this project is to determine how chronic exposure to cigarette smoke affects extracellular matrix remodeling in the lung. Cigarette smoking is a major risk factor for the development of several non-neoplastic lung disorders, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pulmonary hypertension, and interstitial lung disease. Candace's research will focus on whether chronic exposure to tobacco smoke hinders normal tissue repair by altering the ability of cells to polymerize a fibronectin matrix. Her studies will provide insight into factors that regulate the deposition, conformation and physiologic properties of extracellular matrix fibronectin and determine if these factors are localized to lung tissue in response to cigarette smoke. Candace was born and raised in Rochester, NY. She graduated from the University of Rochester with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and completed a MS thesis in Biomedical Engineering at UR. She is currently in her fourth year as a PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, working under the direction of Dr. Denise C. Hocking.

• January 27, 2009

  New Bone Cement May Prevent Amputations

  

  Acinetobacter baumannii

  Old technologies, bone cement and a well known antibiotic, may effectively fight an emerging infection in soldiers with compound bone fractures, according to a study published online today in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research. Not common in the United States and not potentially fatal, A. baumannii OM had been largely ignored until recently by physicians and the pharmaceutical industry, which focuses on life-threatening infections that affect millions, not hundreds. Then military outbreaks of the infection started among American soldiers returning from Iraq in 2003, with the number of A. baumannii OM infections seen in field hospitals, and in stateside facilities receiving injured soldiers, growing.

  If you apply the findings from two small studies to the entire U.S. military, which is a leap, perhaps 2,000 soldiers come into field hospitals with compound fractures each year that become infected with A. baumannii, said Edward Schwarz, Ph.D., professor of Orthopaedics within the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center. About a third of them go on to get a staph infection after they reach the hospital, with about a third of those, perhaps 200 soldiers, suffering infectious complications that could cost them a limb. Studies already underway in our lab seek to clarify how the initial infections could gradually be replaced by catastrophic MRSA, and to prove that we can save limbs by putting an established antibiotic into bone cement for the first time.

• January 21, 2009

  New Commercial Application of University Technology Provides Superior Imaging at the Nanoscale

  SiMPore Inc., a company commercializing nanotechnology invented at the University of Rochester, has developed an ultra-thin microscope slide that significantly improves high-resolution imaging of nanoscale materials such as proteins, viruses, and carbon nanotubes. This is the first commercial application of a unique nanomembrane initially reported in Nature in 2007.

• January 15, 2009

  Researchers Detail How Aging Undermines Bone Healing

  

  Hip Fracture

  Researchers have unraveled crucial details of how aging causes broken bones to heal slowly, or not at all, according to study results published online today in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. The research team also successfully conducted preclinical tests on a potential new class of treatments designed to rescue healing capability lost to aging.

  Along with Dr. Regis O'Keefe, the study effort was led by Amish Naik, Chao Xie, Michael Zuscik, Edward Schwarz, Hani Awad, J. Edward Puzas, Brendan Boyce and Xinping Zhang within the Center for Musculoskeletal Research, as well as by Paul Kingsley within the Department of Pediatrics, at the Medical Center.

• January 13, 2009

  Duncan Moore Named IEEE Fellow

  Duncan Moore, professor of optics, biomedical engineering and business administration at the University of Rochester, has been named a Fellow of the IEEE, one of the world's leading professional organizations for technology advancement. Originally an acronym for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the IEEE today is usually only referred to by its letters, as its membership as well as its scientific and technological scope encompass a diverse range of fields. Moore is one of only three IEEE members from upstate New York named as fellows in 2009.