Harley Lab members including Mai, Aidan, Samantha, and Tori are attending the 2019 BMES annual meeting at Philadelphia, PA from October 16th through October 19th. Aliki is attending the 2019 Immune Modulation & Engineering Symposium hosted at Drexel University on October 16th. If you are also attending, be sure to stop by any and all of the Harley Lab posters and presentations.

BMES
Oral:
Mai – Secretome Of Engineered Three-Dimensional Endothelial Networks Impacts U87-MG Glioblastoma Cell Behavior (October 18th at 9 am Room 121B)

Poster:
Aidan – Identification of Soluble Factors for Enhanced Ex Vivo Hematopoietic Stem Cell Culture (October 17th, poster #78)
Tori – Influence of the Perivascular Secretome on Hematopoietic Stem Cell Maintenance in a Gelatin Hydrogel (October 17th, poster #79)
Samantha – Kinetics of Trophoblast Invasion in Gelatin Hydrogels (October 18th, poster #80)

Immune Modulation & Engineering Symposium
Aliki – Modifying mineralized collagen scaffolds to modulate the inflammatory response in craniomaxillofacial defects and enhance bone regeneration (October 16th at 4:30 pm, Bossone 3rd Floor Atrium, 32nd and Market Streets)
 

Congrats to Brendan and Bryan Bryson (MIT BE) for receiving a collaborative science supplement to Brendan’s NIH R21 to study macrophage heterogeneity in biomaterials under development for craniofacial bone regeneration. A fantastic chance for our groups to work collaboratively to integrate bioinformatics and biomaterials!

Congrats to Brendan and Sara Pedron for receiving a Alzheimer’s-focused administrative supplement to our NIH R01 in the space of biomaterial models of brain cancer. With support from NCI they will be adapting these cultures to create neurodegenerative conditions!

Congrats to Brendan for being named the Robert W. Schaefer Professor in the Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Congrats to our undergraduate researchers Morgan Kim, Vincent Cornelius, Diana Slater, Andrey Nosatov, Joshua Scott, and Nathan Petrikas for receiving 2019-2020  Illinois Scholars Undergraduate Research (ISUR) fellowships. This highly competitive program provides research funds for individual projects and is a testament to the great graduate and postdoctoral mentors they have!

Congratulations to Samantha Zambuto who was awarded the 2019 BMES Career Development Award for her work regarding racial disparities in pregnancy and how stress affects trophoblast invasion. The prestigious award aims to “support travel to the BMES Annual Meeting for Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Fellows, and Early Career Professionals from underrepresented populations in biomedical engineering and/or involved in research and training focused on health disparities and minority health”.

In May Brendan traveled to Taiwan to spend a week giving lectures and meeting new colleagues as part of him being named the 2019-2020 Next Power Chair Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at National Tsing Hua University. Great science and many new friends!

A large chunk of the Harley Lab members will be attending the Society for Biomaterials 2019 Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA from April 3rd to April 6th. If you are also attending, be sure to stop by any and all of the Harley Lab posters and presentations. You’ll be dazzled and amazed:

Wednesday
Marley Dewey: The Addition of the Amniotic Membrane to Mineralized Collagen Scaffolds for Immunomodulatory Bone Regeneration. (5 min rapid fire) at 4pm on Wednesday, also poster #125

Thursday
Raul Sun Han: Biomimetic Triphasic Scaffolds for Osteotendinous Junction Regeneration, 11:45am
Aidan Gilchrist: Exploiting biomaterial-modulated secretome production in artificial stem cell niches. 2:30pm
Samantha Zumbuto: Development of a Biomaterial Model of the Decidualized Endometrium. 6pm

Posters:
Marley Dewey: The Addition of the Amniotic Membrane to Mineralized Collagen Scaffolds for Immunomodulatory Bone Regeneration, poster #125
Julio Serrano: Gelatin-based Thiol/Disulfide Degradable Hydrogels to Encapsulate Cells, poster #775
CJ Hunter: Developing a Spatially-Defined Biomaterial Model of the Glioblastoma Perivascular Niche, poster #791
Emily Chen: Patient Derived Glioblastoma Cells Activate Microglia in a Three-Dimensional Gelatin Hydrogel, poster #816

Brendan has been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. This  is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington that focuses on leadership and advocacy in medical and biological engineering. This past weekend he traveled to Washington DC for the induction ceremony at the National Academies of Science building. Congrats!

Emily Chen was selected to participate in the 2019 St. Jude National Graduate Student Symposium (NGSS). Emily is one of 38 students selected from over 1400 by a faculty review committee for the 2019 symposium.

“St. Jude offers two annual invited events for select PhD students from around the U.S.: the National Graduate Student Symposium (NGSS), held in spring, and the Future Fellow Research Conference (FFRC), held in summer. Both events are all-expenses-paid and are hosted on the St. Jude campus in Memphis, Tennessee. These competitive symposia allow PhD-level graduate students from U.S. institutions to present their work, meet our faculty and learn about the cutting-edge research and facilities at St. Jude.”