Author: agilchr2@illinois.edu

Emily Chen received the A.T. Widiger Chemical Engineering Fellowship from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department for the 2018-2019 academic year

Aidan will participate in the NIH T32 Tissue Microenvironment Training Program to aid in the advancement of biomedical sciences and healthcare in topics ranging from regenerative medicine to managing cancer.

Marley and Alec were featured in the Beckman Institute news for their use of the microscopy suite in determining physical attributes of their 3D-printed biomaterials. These biomaterials are a multi-layered approach to healing critical sized craniofacial defects, often suffered by blast impacts associated with battle injuries. More information can be found at the Beckman Institute news feed.

Raul received the Hanratty Travel Awards, intended to support Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering graduate students present their work at national or international conferences. With the award, he will be presenting “Triphasic biomaterial for enhanced toughness and regeneration of the osteotendinous junction” at the Society for Biomaterials 2018 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

On Tuesday, January 23rd, Harley Lab member Emily Chen welcomed Amber Hsaio into the world!!  Amber is expected to immediately prep a paper for publication…once she masters eating solid food.

Dr. Ji Sun Choi’s paper, “Marrow-inspired matrix cues rapidly affect early fate decisions of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells“, was featured by the Illinois News Bureau. Her findings are a key step in engineering biomaterial culture environments for hematopoietic stem cells for the treatment of blood and immune diseases, such as leukemia and lymphoma. For more information read the full story here.

In conjunction with Professor Brian Cunningham’s Nano Sensors group of the University of Illinois Electrical & Computer Engineering and Bioengineering, Dr. Ji Sun Choi of the Harley Lab has employed Photonic Crystal Enhanced Microscopy to monitor and quantitatively measure stem cell adhesion in a novel, label-free method that enables live-cell imaging. Adhesion is a critical process that regulates stem cell migration, differentiation, division, and cell death, and can be used to understand how stem cells react to the surrounding environment. This information will be used to inform future studies on stem cell fate decisions, and expanded to how diseases like cancer spread. Read more here…

Congratulations to Emily Chen who won 3rd place for oral presentation at the 15th annual Graduate Research Symposium held by the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering!!! Her presentation was entitled “Biomaterial Models of Cancer: Invasion and Cancer Stem Cells” and was judged by a panel of Illinois alumni from industry and academia.

Dr. Bhushan Mahadik will be presenting his work “A Predictive Computational Model of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Differentiation Kinetics in Culture” at the 5th annual Materials Research Laboratory Biological Conference on October 2nd. He will be competing against other Post Docs for the fame and glory of First Place. More information on the MRL Biological Conference, including location and schedule can be found here. Be on the watch for Dr. Mahadik in the morning poster session prior to his talk.

Congrats to Dan Weisgerber and our collaborators at UCLA (Dr. Justine Lee, Dr. Tim Miller) for the acceptance of our new article, ‘Nanoparticulate mineralized collagen scaffolds induce in vivo bone regeneration independent of progenitor cell loading or exogenous growth factor stimulation’ in Biomaterials! An important next step towards regenerating large facial tissue defects.