News

March 25, 2015

Kathryn Drzewiecki Wins P.E.O. Scholar Award

BME PhD student Kathryn Drzewiecki has recently been awarded a $15k P.E.O (Philanthropic Educational Organization) Scholar Award. The P.E.O. Sisterhood is interested in bringing increased opportunities for higher education to women. The P.E.O. Scholar Award was established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women who are pursuing a doctoral level degree at an accredited college or university.
March 4, 2015

Dharm Patel and Sarah Misenko Receive NJCCR Fellowships

Biochemistry Graduate Student Dharm Patel, was awarded a 2 year, $50,000 New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. The fellowship will support his PhD thesis project entitled, "The Function of Bloom's Syndrome Helicase in Mammalian DNA Double Strand Break Repair." This work aims to identify how BLM helicase physically and genetically interacts with other DNA repair factors including the tumor suppressor BRCA1 to mediate faithful repair of DNA damage and prevent genomic instability that can lead to tumorigenesis and metastasis.
December 12, 2014

Patent Issued to Biotech Fellow

A patent was issued to Eric Wallenstein, Rene Schloss. Martin Yarmush entitled, "Media Conditioning for Improving Gene Delivery Efficiency To Differentiating Embryonic Stem Cells". The invention provides systems and methods for improving the efficiency of transient gene delivery to differentiating embryonic stem cells by serum starvation. Dr. Eric Wallenstein graduated from the Biotech Program with a PhD in 2008 under Professor Yarmush`s supervision, and currently works as a Principal Scientist at Merck.
October 29, 2014

Chris Lowe Wins Best Poster at BMES

BME PhD Graduate Student,Christopher Lowe, was awarded the Bioconjugate Chemistry Best Poster at the BMES Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, for his poster entitled, "Fabricating Highly Aligned Collagen Sponges  From Self-Assembled, Fibrillar Collagen Gels". Other poster co-authors included Professor David Shreiber,undergraduate senior Shiv Mistry, and Biotech Fellow Kathryn Drzewiecki.
October 4, 2014

Dr. Serom Lee Wins Best Poster

Recent Biotech Program PhD graduate, Dr. Serom Lee, was awarded first prize in the poster competition at the Innovations in Dermatological Sciences 2014 Conference held at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, NJ on October 8. Posters were peer-reviewed by members of a distinguished Poster Committee based on originality, significance, quality, and clarity. For her poster entitled, "In Vitro Method to Identify Skin Sensitizers", Serom was awarded a $1000 cash prize and a one year membership to the Controlled Release Society.
September 15, 2014

Antoinette Nelson and Brittany Taylor Receive FASEB/MARC Travel Awards

BME Graduate Students Antoinette Nelson and Brittany Taylor were selected as recipients of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)/ Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) travel award to attend the 2014 Institute on Teaching and Mentoring Workshop in Atlanta, GA. The purpose of the conference is to provide scholars with the skills necessary to succeed in their graduate studies and to prepare them for successful careers as faculty members within academia.
April 29, 2014

Biotech Fellow Chris Lowe Awarded NJCBIR Fellowship

Christopher Lowe, a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering, has been awarded a 3-year, $100,000 fellowship from the New Jersey Commission on Brain Injury Research (NJCBIR). Chris aims to improve neural cell survival and regeneration following injury using biomaterials that include different peptide fragments of BDNF. Chris is advised by Dr. David Shreiber.
April 2, 2014

Melissa Przyborowski Olekson Awarded National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

BME Graduate student, Melissa Przyborowski Olekson, has been awarded a 1-year, $48,000 National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award to carry her proposed project "Biofilms Impaired Wound Healing" at the US  Army Institute of Surgical Research in Fort Sam Houston, TX. Melissa is advised by Professor Francois Berthiaume.  
March 31, 2014

Dharm Patel Participates in Hill Day

Graduate Student, Dharm Patel, met with legislators and staff in Washington, DC to advocate for biomedical research on Hill Day organized by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). Dharm met with staff in the offices of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ), and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), in addtion to various other legislators from Massachusetts: Ed Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Steven Lynch (D-MA), and to personally meet with Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) from Massachusetts.
March 31, 2014

Agnes Yeboah Awarded "Faculty for the Future" Fellowship

Graduate Student, Agnes Yeboah, was awarded a 1-year, Schlumberger Foundation "Faculty for the Future" Fellowship to complete her PhD studies on developing an enhanced nanoparticle-based wound healing therapy. This program, now in its tenth year, supports women scientists from developing countries through grants to enable them to pursue PhDs and postdoctoral studies in scientific and engineering disciplines at leading universities worldwide. Agnes is advised by Professor Martin Yarmush.
March 21, 2014

Alvin Chen Awarded NIH F31 Grant

BME Graduate Student, Alvin Chen, was awarded a 2-year, $66,230, NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship to support his PhD dissertation project entitled, "A Low-Cost Compact and Portable Robot for Autonomous Intravenous Access using Near Infrared and Tactile Image Guidance". Alvin is leading a team of students developing a portable and lightweight autonomous medical robot that combines 3D near-infrared vein imaging and computer vision software to perform blood draws and other IV procedures for situations where medical professionals are unable to successfully access the veins.
March 13, 2014

BME Graduate Student Wins Bevier Award for 2014-2015

BME PhD Student Ana Rodriguez has been awarded a Louis A. Bevier Graduate Fellowship for 2014-2015. This is a Graduate School of New Brunswick prestigious fellowship given to advanced PhD students working towards finishing their dissertations. Ana works in the laboratory of Professor Bonnie Firestein.
March 13, 2014

BME Graduate Student Honored by Wound Healing Society

BME PhD Student Melissa Przyborowski Olekson has been awarded a Wound Healing Research Scholarship by the Wound Healing Society to attend the Spring 2014 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care. Her presentation abstract entitled "STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING GROWTH FACTOR FUNCTION IN DIABETIC WOUNDS", was ranked as the best submitted in the research category. Melissa is advised by Professor Francois Berthiaume.
March 7, 2014

BME Graduate Student Wins Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

BME Graduate Student Serom Lee was awarded a one-year $40,000 postdoctoral fellowship grant from the American Fund for Alternatives to Animal Research (AFAAR). Serom`s research is focused on developing a microfabricated in vitro alternative to animal testing to screen skin sensitizers. Her proposal was acknowledged for its commitment to scientifically superior, more humane non-animal research and the promise it holds for science, animal well-being and human health. Serom is advised by Professors Martin Yarmush and Rene Schloss.
February 20, 2014

Graduate Student Wins Best Poster at J&J 2014 Engineering Showcase

BME Graduate Student Corina White won "Best Graduate Poster" with her poster titled "Retinal Tissue Engineering Using Cell-Responsive Poly(ethylene) Glycol Hydrogel Scaffolds" at the J&J 2014 Engineering Showcase. This was at J&J Headquarters in New Brunswick on February 19th for Engineers Week. 8 students were chosen from Rutgers-SoE and only select posters were presented from Rutgers, Stevens Institute and NJIT. Corina is advised by Professor Ronke Olabisi in BME.
February 17, 2014

Research Performed by BME Graduate Students Spotlighted

Research performed by BME graduate students Nir Nativ, Alvin Chen, and Gabriel Yarmush on a new automated method for monitoring the state of steatotic livers was featured on the February cover of the journal Liver Transplantation. The key finding of the paper is that a combination of lipid droplet size and lipid droplet nuclear dislocation significantly improves the ability to separate small droplet versus large droplet steatosis.