Manufacturing in Microgravity

Bioengineering, Chemical & Petroleum, MEMS

PITTSBURGH (October 9, 2019) … Magnesium and magnesium alloys have the potential to become a revolutionary material for a variety of industries because of their lightweight structure and ability to quickly biodegrade in water or inside the human body. Researchers, however, are still struggling to process this very reactive metal to eliminate defects that accelerate corrosion. Prashant N. Kumta, the Edward R. Weidlein Chair Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, believes that a microgravity environment may positively affect the solidification mechanisms of these alloys. He received grant funding from the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory to examine microgravity’s influence on his lab’s novel patented magnesium alloys. The team is partnering with Tec-Masters, Inc., the commercial hardware facility partner that operates the high-temperature SUBSA furnace aboard the ISS National Lab. Once in the microgravity environment of the space station, the alloy composition will be melted in the SUBSA furnace, and then solidified for further analysis. This is the first selected project in the new Biomedical Research Alliance - a multi-year collaboration between the ISS U.S. National Laboratory and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine to push the limits of biomedical research and development aboard the orbiting laboratory. “The alloy’s improved mechanical properties, ability to store charge, and lightweight structure will make it an attractive material for aerospace, energy storage, and automotive applications,” said Kumta. He believes that this research will play a major role in the economical manufacturing of magnesium alloys, particularly in additive manufacturing and customized 3D printing of magnesium structures. “Magnesium and magnesium alloys are extremely light, with a density similar to natural bone,” explained Kumta. “They are two-fold lighter than titanium alloys and five-fold lighter than stainless steel and cobalt-chrome alloys – all of which are materials typically used in today’s implants and frameworks. Thus, the development of these materials could open new International Space Station applications as a lightweight structural framework material.” Because of their weight and earth abundance, the alloys may also prove to be beneficial for climate change and energy storage. “Fixtures or accessories in the aerospace industry - such as seats and lighting - that are made from magnesium alloys will be lighter which will consequently reduce fuel consumption,” said Kumta. “These benefits will help reduce costs and decrease greenhouse gas emissions – an advantage that can be applied to the automotive industry which accounts for a large amount of emissions in the United States. The material could also be used as a rechargeable battery similar to lithium-ion batteries.” The magnesium alloys developed by Kumta’s team may also serve as a cheaper and improved bioresorbable material for implanted medical devices. This type of material, which can be broken down and absorbed by the body, has a variety of applications in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, such as implanted scaffolds that help guide the growth of new tissue. “Despite expensive post-processing steps to minimize defects, magnesium alloys processed on earth react in a physiological fluid environment and form large amounts of hydrogen gas, resulting in gas pockets that must be aspirated by a syringe,” said Kumta. “We believe that processing the material in microgravity will considerably minimize or perhaps even eliminate melting and casting defects. As a result, the alloys will likely exhibit improved corrosion resistance, resulting in soluble hydrogen and salt products with better bioresorption response when implanted as scaffolds. Further, expensive post-processing will likely be eliminated, thereby reducing costs by almost 50 percent.” Kumta, who holds secondary appointments in chemical and petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, and oral biology, will work with a team of researchers from his laboratory in the Swanson School of Engineering, including Bioengineering Research Assistant Professors Abhijit Roy, Moni Kanchan Datta, and Oleg Velikokhatnyi. The research team hopes that this work will lead to the processing of better quality magnesium alloys, which will be free of many of the defects that form in terrestrially processed alloys, ultimately enabling improved functionality on Earth with significantly reduced processing steps and costs. “This work offers a tremendous opportunity for advancing the science and technology of microgravity metal casting, widening the translational potential of the versatile magnesium-based systems for biomedical, energy, and aerospace applications,” said Kumta. “Magnesium has not yet been studied in space so this project gives us the chance to explore a new frontier in scalable manufacturing of high quality magnesium and magnesium alloys in space.” ###

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Neural Tissue Electrode Interface and Neural Tissue Engineering Lab

Bioengineering, Open Positions

The Neural Tissue Electrode Interface and Neural Tissue Engineering Lab in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh has two postdoctoral research fellow positions open immediately. Seeking highly motivated and well trained individuals to conduct neural technology research funded by two NIH BRAIN initiative grants. Neural technologies designed for recording and modulate neural activity have shown enormous potentials in advancing brain science, treating diseases or restoring lost neurological function. Successful candidates will work on improving neural interface technologies with special focuses on understanding the safety of neural stimulation and implant induced brain injury, as well as developing biomimetic and therapeutic strategies to improve the implant-neural tissue integration. The successful candidate should possess a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience, biomedical engineering, materials science, chemistry or a related field. He/she should have a strong research background in neurobiology or neurophysiology. Experiences with some of the following areas are desired, including neuronal and glial cell cultures, molecular and biochemical assays, neural tissue histology, biomaterial and biosensor fabrication, in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology. He/she will be working with interdisciplinary teams of neural engineers, material scientists, chemists, neurosurgeons and neurobiologists, and have the opportunities to collaborate with top neuroscientists and neural engineers nation-wide. The initial appointment will be for one year with the strong possibility for an extension. The start date is flexible, with a preference for candidates ready to begin as soon as possible. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Your application should include: Cover letter Curriculum Vitae Contact information for three references. E-mail your materials to xic11@pitt.edu. For further information or questions about this position you may contact: Dr. Tracy Cui (xic11@pitt.edu). The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and values equality of opportunity, human dignity and diversity. EEO/AA/M/F/Vets/Disabled. The Department of Bioengineering is strongly committed to a diverse academic environment and places high priority on attracting female and underrepresented minority candidates.  We strongly encourage candidates from these groups to apply for the position. The University affirms and actively promotes the rights of all individuals to equal opportunity in education and employment without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, age, religion, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other protected class.

Setting Their Cytes on the Prize

All SSoE News, Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (October 1, 2019) … CyteSolutions, a bioengineering- and opthamology-led research group, was awarded $100,000 at the 2019 Pitt Innovation Challenge on September 25, 2019 for their novel contact lens that is coated with an immune modifying molecule for the treatment of dry eye disease. This research is led by Alexis Nolfi, a bioengineering graduate student in the Swanson School of Engineering, who works in the lab of Bryan Brown, PhD, associate professor of bioengineering and member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The CyteSolutions team also includes Mangesh Kulkarni, MD, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering, and Vishal Jhanji, MD, professor of ophthalmology. There are no effective treatments for dry eye, and the condition will only become more prevalent as the population continues to age. Current solutions are limited and may involve the frequent application of eye drops, which face product loss and may lead to compliance issues by the patient because of their cumbersome application. To address these drawbacks, CyteSolutions is developing a platform for ease of application and long-term relief of dry eye. Using natural biopolymers, an immune modifying drug is embedded into a coating that can be applied to silicone-hydrogel-based contact lenses. “When you visit your eye doctor, what is the first thing they hand you before they place an eye drop in your eye? A tissue,” said Nolfi, “because they know most of what they place will immediately fall out onto your cheeks, and what little remains will be quickly dissipated and blinked away.” “Eye drops are not an ideal drug delivery mechanism,” she continued. “Since our polymeric coating can only be broken down by enzymes found naturally on the eye, our lens will begin a slow, sustained release of the drug once it comes in contact with the patient's ocular surface. This equates to optimal doses delivered in a sustained way to exactly where it needs to be, with very little waste.” In addition to its unique drug delivery, the lens will also target macrophages - a class of cells recently identified as drivers of inflammation in dry eye that current treatments do not target. Brown said, “The unique strength of the CyteSolutions Lens is that we can actually target some of the underlying causes of dry eye - that is, innate inflammation, as opposed to just treating the symptoms or discomfort that come with dry eye.” He believes that targeting this underlying mechanism may lead to a cure or at least a long-term solution to this condition. “CyteSolutions has the potential to impact a significant number of people who suffer from dry eye and offers a much needed solution that patients currently have yet to find,” said Nolfi. The team plans to use PInCh funding to move the lens into preclinical animal studies with the hope that generation of key in-vivo data will help secure continued funding after PInCh and make the product more attractive to potential partners or licensees. Two Coulter-funded projects were also recognized in the 2019 Pitt Innovation Challenge: OneValve ($100,000) - this Coulter-funded project plans to develop a self-regenerating heart valve that uses the patient's natural healing process to replace diseased heart valves, decreasing the risk of blood clots and improving durability over current therapy. Push-to-Spin ($25,000) - this Coulter-funded project will develop a novel device to make surgical fat grafting procedures more efficient. ###

Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering Introduces New and Promoted Faculty

Bioengineering, Civil & Environmental, Electrical & Computer, Industrial, MEMS, Office of Development & Alumni Affairs

PITTSBURGH (September 27, 2019) ... With expertise from biomaterials and autonomous sensing to cyber-physical systems, neural networks and renewable energy, 14 new faculty joined the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering this fall. "Here in the Swanson School, we have established our transformative purpose to create new knowledge for the betterment of the human condition. I’m excited that these outstanding new faculty will contribute toward that interdisciplinary pursuit," noted James R. Martin II, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering.  "Our new faculty bring incredible skill-sets that will help us address 21st-century challenges. In particular, the United Nations has outlined 17 sustainable development goals as a call to action for global socioeconomic and environmental sustainability by 2030. And we’re using those goals to track our own progress and inform our transformative purpose. I look forward to these new faculty joining in that important endeavor.” The new faculty include: Department of Bioengineering Elisa Castagnola, Research Assistant ProfessorDr. Castagnola received her PhD in robotics, neurosciences and nanotechnologies at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and continued her postdoctoral research on neurotechnologies at IIT in the departments of Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the Center for Translational Neurophysiology for Speech and Communication. Prior to Pitt, she was a senior postdoctoral researcher in bioengineering at the Center for Neurotechnology (NSF-ERC) and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at San Diego State University.For the last 10 years, Dr. Castagnola’s work focused on combining research in material science and new microfabrication techniques for the development of innovative neurotechnology, advancing state-of-the-art implantable neural devices and bringing them to a clinical setting. She is now conducting research with Dr. Tracy Cui, Professor of Bioengineering, in the Swanson School’s Neural Tissue Engineering (NTE) Lab. She is currently working on the development and in-vivo validation of innovative neural probes with superior capability in neurochemical and neurophysiological recordings. Her main interests are in material science, electrochemistry, neurochemistry and microfabrication. Mangesh Kulkarni, Research Assistant ProfessorDr. Kulkarni received his bachelor degrees in medicine and surgery from Grant Medical College, University of Mumbai, his MTech in biomedical engineering and science from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a PhD in biomedical engineering and science from the National University of Ireland, Galway.While pursuing his PhD he served as a graduate research fellow at the University of Ireland’s Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials where he developed spatiotemporally controlled gene delivery system for compromised wound healing.  He then joined The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, MR Division, Institute of Cell Engineering as a postdoctoral fellow where he was involved in development of MRI based non-invasive system to track the pancreatic islets transplants, and later was a postdoctoral scientist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Department of Biomedical Sciences and Regenerative Medicine Institute where he worked to unravel molecular signatures in corneal regeneration. At Pitt Dr. Kulkarni works with Dr. Bryan Brown associate professor of bioengineering and core faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Kulkarni’s research interests focus on the development of biomaterials-based delivery systems; molecular diagnostics and therapeutics (particularly involving non-coding RNA); and cell-free therapeutic strategies such as stem cells secretome therapy. Ioannis Zervantonakis, Assistant ProfessorDr. Zervantonakis  received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, master of science in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Munich, and PhD in the lab of Dr. Roger Kamm at MIT, where he engineered an array of microfluidic devices to study the tumor microenvironment. For his postdoctoral studies, he joined the lab of Dr. Joan Brugge at Harvard Medical School and developed systems biology approaches to study drug resistance and tumor-fibroblast interactions. He is a recipient of a 2014 Department of Defense Breast Cancer Postdoctoral Fellowship and a 2017 NIH/NCI Pathway to Independence K99/R00 award.In his Tumor Microenvironment Engineering Laboratory, Dr. Zervantonakis employs a quantitative approach that integrates microfluidics, systems biology modeling, and in vivo experiments to investigate the role of the tumor microenvironment on breast and ovarian cancer growth, metastasis and drug resistance. His research interests include cell and drug transport phenomena in cancer, mathematical modeling of cell-cell interactions, microfluidics, and systems biology of cell-cell interactions.Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Amir H. Alavi, Assistant ProfessorPrior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Alavi was an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Missouri. Dr. Alavi’s research interests include structural health monitoring, smart civil infrastructure systems, deployment of advanced sensors, energy harvesting, and engineering information systems. At Pitt, his Intelligent Structural Monitoring and Response Testing (iSMaRT) Lab focuses on advancing the knowledge and technology required to create self-sustained and multifunctional sensing and monitoring systems that are enhanced by engineering system informatics. His research activities involve implementation of these smart systems in the fields of civil infrastructure, construction, aerospace, and biomedical engineering. Dr. Alavi has worked on research projects supported by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), Missouri DOT, and Michigan DOT. He has authored five books and more than 170 publications in archival journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, and has received several award certificates for his journal articles. Recently, he was selected among the Google Scholar 200 Most Cited Authors in Civil Engineering, as well as Web of Science ESI's World Top 1% Scientific Minds. He has served as the editor/guest editor of several journals such as Sensors, Case Studies in Construction Material, Automation in Construction, Geoscience Frontiers, Smart Cities, ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, and Advances in Mechanical Engineering. He received his PhD in civil engineering from Michigan State University.Aleksandar Stevanovic, Associate ProfessorDr. Stevanovic previously served as an associate professor of civil, environmental and geomatics engineering at the Florida Atlantic University (FAU)., where he was also the director of the Laboratory of Adaptive Traffic Operations and Management (LATOM) and the Program Leader in Infrastructure Systems within the FAU Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE). At Pitt, he teaches courses in transportation and traffic engineering, transportation planning, and operations research and conducts research in a variety of subjects including traffic signal control systems, intelligent transportation systems, multimodal and sustainable operations, transportation simulation modeling, etc. Although Dr. Stefanovic’s main research interests emphasize arterial operations and traffic signal control, he is best known for his contributions in Adaptive Traffic Control Systems (ATCS). He is the sole author of the NCHRP 403 Synthesis Study – Adaptive Traffic Control Systems: Domestic and Foreign State of Practice and has been invited to present and teach about ATCSs, both nationally and internationally. He has published more than 150 journal and conference papers and presented at more than 80 international, national, and state seminars and professional meetings. He has been principal investigator on 31 research projects for a total of ~ $3.9 million in funding and has authored more than 30 technical reports for various transportation agencies including TRB/NAS, NSF, UDOT, UTA, FLDOT, NJDOT, and others. He is a member of TRB AHB25 Committee for Traffic Signal Systems and he is also a member of ITE, TRB, and ASCE. He serves as a paper reviewer for 30 scientific journals and conference proceedings, has advised more than 35 graduate students and five post-doctoral associates, and has served on PhD committees of several international university graduate programs. He has been awarded a position of Fulbright Specialist, in the area of urban network traffic control, for 2018-2021. He earned his bachelor’s in traffic and transportation engineering at the University of Belgrade (Serbia) followed by a master’s and PhD in civil engineering at the University of Utah. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mai Abdelhakim, Assistant ProfessorDr. Abdelhakim received her PhD in electrical engineering from Michigan State University (MSU) and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electronics and communications engineering from Cairo University. Her current research focuses on securing cyber-physical systems by leveraging machine learning, networks design, stochastic modeling and information theory. Following her PhD, she was a postdoctoral research associate at MSU where she worked on developing reliable communication networks and distributed decision making in sensor networks and high-speed communication systems. She later was a research scientist at OSRAM research center working on Internet of Things applications, security mechanisms, wireless optical communications and indoor positioning systems. Prior to her appointment at the Swanson School, she was a faculty member in Pitt’s School of Computing and Information. Her research interests include cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, machine learning, wireless communications, networks design, stochastic systems analysis and information theory.Mohamed Bayoumy, Assistant ProfessorDr. Bayoumy received his bachelor's degree in electronics and electrical communications engineering and a master's in engineering physics from the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University. He then joined the Swanson School’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as a graduate research and teaching fellow, and received his doctoral degree in 2019. His research features the development of optical fiber-based sensors for monitoring harsh environments. He is a recipient of the Swanson School of Engineering Dean’s Fellowship and multiple research and teaching awards. Since 2016 he has been appointed to the Postgraduate Research Program at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) administered through Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE).Theodore Huppert, Research Associate ProfessorDr Huppert received his bacehlor’s in biochemistry and genetics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and PhD in biophysics at Harvard University and the A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging of the Massachusetts General Hospital on the topic of statistical analysis models for multimodal brain imaging and models of the cerebral neural-vascular unit. Prior to joining the Swanson School, he served in the School of Medicine Department of Radiology and worked as one of the core MRI physicists in the MRI Research Center.Dr Huppert’s lab develops data analysis methods for brain imaging including near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and functional MRI with a focus on multimodal analysis and data fusion approaches. His lab also supports the NIRS brain imaging program at Pitt, which currently has over two dozen funded projects and more than a dozen different labs on campus working on projects ranging from infant development to gait impairments in the elderly. His lab also authored several open source data analysis packages for NIRS, with more than 1,400 users worldwide, and is a founding member of the Society for NIRS.   In Hee Lee, Assistant ProfessorDr. Lee received his PhD degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Michigan and served there as a postdoc and research scientist. His research interests include low-power energy-efficient circuit design to develop millimeter-scale energy-autonomous sensing/computing systems for biomedical, ecological, and industrial applications.In addition to publications and presentations, Dr. Lee holds six patents on technologies including analog to digital conversion, switched capacitor circuits, resistance detection and ultra-low-power temperature current sourcing. Amr Mahmoud, Visiting Assistant ProfessorDr. Mahmoud received his bachelor’s in electronics and electrical communications engineering and master’s in engineering physics from Cairo University, and a PhD in computer engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include, but are not limited to, machine learning, especially deep learning for image processing; memristor-based neuromorphic computing systems; and video prediction using generative adversarial recurrent neural networks. He has published five conference papers, one book chapter, and one journal paper in prestigious conferences and journals, including IEEE EMBC, ACM-DATE, IEEE IJCNN, and IEEE TNANO.Nathan Youngblood, Assistant ProfessorDr. Youngblood received his bachelor’s in physics from Bethel University and master’s and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, where his research focused on integrating 2D materials with silicon photonics for high-speed optoelectronic applications. Following, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford developing phase-change photonic devices for integrated optical memory and computation. His research interests include bi-stable optical materials, 2D material optoelectronics, and photonic architectures for machine learning. At his Photonics Lab, his research combines unique optoelectronic materials with nanophotonics to create new platforms for high-efficiency machine learning and high-precision biosensing. Principal to this is a fundamental understanding of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale and use of advanced nanofabrication techniques to address major challenges facing these disciplines.Department of Industrial Engineering Hyo Kyung Lee, Assistant ProfessorDr. Lee received her bachelor’s in information and industrial engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, master’s in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and. PhD in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research investigates healthcare analytics, data-driven decision support, and operational planning and management in the context of clinical data and practice. She has experience collaborating with medical professionals in UW Health, Mayo Clinic, Baptist Memorial Health System, SSM Health, and Dean Medical Group. She is the recipient of the Grainger Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship from the College of Engineering at UW Madison.Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Nikhil Bajaj, Assistant ProfessorDr. Bajaj earned his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, and has held research assistant positions on several projects in the areas of nonlinear dynamics, control systems, sensing and machine learning, computational design, and heat transfer. He has held a summer research position with Alcatel-Lucent Bell Laboratories and has also served as a consulting mechatronics engineer with two startup technology companies, in the areas of force sensing in gaming devices and the control of multi-actuator haptics. His research interests include nonlinear dynamical and control systems, and the analysis and design of mechatronic systems, especially in the context of cyber-physical systems—in particular making them secure and resilient.Tony Kerzmann, Associate ProfessorDr. Kerzmann received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Duquesne University followed by a bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. Following his PhD, he was an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Robert Morris University where his research focused on developing alternative vehicle fueling station optimization simulations. He advised student groups that won regional and international awards; the most recent team won the Utility of Tomorrow competition, outperforming 55 international teams. Additionally, he developed and taught thirteen different courses, many in the areas of energy, sustainability, thermodynamics, and heat transfer. He served as the mechanical coordinator for the Engineering Department for six years and was the Director of Outreach for the Research and Outreach Center in the School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science. Additionally, several faculty received promotions and named professorships and fellowships:Faculty PromotionsBioengineeringBryan Brown, Associate ProfessorTamer Ibrahim, ProfessorSpandan Maiti, Associate ProfessorWarren Ruder, Associate ProfessorChemical & PetroleumGiannis Mpourmpakis, Associate ProfessorJohn Keith, Associate ProfessorCivil & EnvironmentalJulie Vandenbossche, ProfessorElectrical and ComputerWei Gao, ProfessorMechanical & Materials ScienceMarkus Chmielus, Associate ProfessorAlbert To, Professor Professorships and FellowsWilliam Kepler Whiteford ProfessorsAlbert To (MEMS)Anne Robertson (MEMS)Lance Davidson (BioE)J. Karl Johnson (ChemE)   Julie Vandenbossche (CEE)William Kepler Whiteford FellowsWarren Ruder (BioE)Chris Wilmer (ChemE)Bicentennial Board of Visitors Faculty FellowSusan Fullerton (ChemE)CNG Faculty FellowGuofeng Wang (MEMS)Wellington C. Carl Faculty FellowVikas Khanna (CEE) ###

Renerva® Receives Funding to Expand Its Peripheral Nerve Repair Technologies

Bioengineering

Reposted from PRNewswire. Renerva, LLC is a medical device company whose technology is based on research from the University of Pittsburgh (Bryan Brown) and Cornell University (Jonathan Cheetham). PITTSBURGH, Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Renerva, LLC, a medical device company developing innovative technologies for peripheral nerve repair, announced today that they have received two additional grants totaling $500,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), rapidly accelerating development of their medical device products. The NIH support will enable the company to expand the applications of its first product, Renerva Peripheral Nerve Matrix (PNM) – an injectable gel derived from porcine tissue that promotes and supports repair and regeneration in injured peripheral nerves. The NSF funding will support the development of Renerva's second product, a novel graft for peripheral nerve gap applications (a $2 billion market today). Renerva's second product will offer surgeons the potential of an off-the-shelf graft with performance equivalent to or better than that of the gold standard nerve autograft. Renerva's graft will spare patients the discomfort, loss of function, and potential complications associated with nerve autografts, while facilitating the return of motor and/or sensory function in patients affected by complex and debilitating nerve injuries. Alexander Spiess, MD, Renerva's Medical Advisory Board Member and Division Chief of Hand Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's (UPMC), Department of Plastic Surgery, said: "This novel graft has the potential to become the new standard of care for patients requiring nerve bridges for long gap nerve injuries, nerve transfers, and muscle reinnervations. It has also the potential to open the door to new solutions in nerve surgical care". Jonathan Cheetham, PhD, VetMB, Associate Professor of Clinical Sciences at Cornell University and Chair of Renerva's Scientific Advisory Board, said: "The NIH award will allow to test Renerva PNM in yet another application. Recurrent laryngeal nerve injury is a condition that results in vocal fold paralysis in up to 10% of patients receiving thyroid surgery. By implementing PNM in the repair of this type of injury, we will help demonstrate the broader scope of capabilities and applications of Renerva's first product." Through this testing, and with the support of the NIH award, Renerva's technologies will expand their potential treatment applicability to ear, nose, and throat disorders. "In addition to our dilutive capital, Renerva has now received $3 million in active, non-dilutive funding from three U.S. federal agencies (i.e., DoD, NSF, and NIH). This support reflects the comprehensive peer-reviewed vetting for our technology and team by the main government agencies supporting medical technology development, the rigor of the underlying science, and the significant unmet need for our growing product portfolio," said Lorenzo Soletti, PhD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Renerva. "As Renerva transitions into a clinical stage company with our PNM product moving into first-in-human clinical trials next year, this support will help expand our core technology into other nerve injury applications and position us for Series A financing".About Renerva®, LLC. Renerva is a medical device company developing solutions for peripheral nerve injuries and damage. Renerva's initial therapeutic focus is on the 500,000 Americans suffering from acute nerve injuries every year, with other indications including the treatment of chronic compressive nerve injuries and other conditions affecting the peripheral nerves. Privately held, Renerva is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To learn more or stay in touch, please visit www.renerva.com.

Tenure/Tenure-Stream Faculty Position in Synthetic or Systems Biology

Bioengineering, Open Positions

The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering invites applications from accomplished individuals with a PhD or equivalent degree in bioengineering, biomedical engineering, or closely related disciplines for an open-rank, tenured/tenure-stream faculty position. We wish to recruit an individual with strong research accomplishments in Synthetic or Systems Biology, with preference given to research focus areas related to mammalian cellular engineering, immune engineering, or neural regeneration. It is expected that this individual will complement our current strengths in biomechanics, bioimaging, molecular, cellular, and systems engineering, medical product engineering, neural engineering, and tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In addition, candidates must be committed to contributing to high quality education of a diverse student body at both the undergraduate  and graduate levels. Located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh is a top-five institution in terms of NIH funding, and provides a rich environment for interdisciplinary research, strengthened through its affiliation with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The Department of Bioengineering, consistently ranked among the top programs in the country, has outstanding research and educational programs, offering undergraduate (~270 students, sophomore-to-senior years) and graduate (~150 PhD or MD/PhD and ~50 MS students) degrees. The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine (mirm.pitt.edu), Computational and Systems Biology (https://www.csb.pitt.edu/), the Vascular Medicine Institute (vmi.pitt.edu), the Brain Institute (braininstitute.pitt.edu), Starzl Transplantation Institute (http://www.stiresearch.health.pitt.edu/), and the Drug Discovery Institute (upddi.pitt.edu) offer many collaborative research opportunities. The Center for Medical Innovation (https://www.engineering.pitt.edu/CMI/), the Coulter Translational Partnership II Program (engineering.pitt.edu/coulter) and the Center for Commercial Applications of Healthcare Data (healthdataalliance.com/university-of-pittsburgh) provide biomedical innovation and translation opportunities. Interested individuals should send the following as a single, self-contained PDF attachment via email to bioeapp@pitt.edu (include “AY20 PITT BioE SynBio-SysBio” in the subject line): (1) cover letter, (2) complete CV (including funding record, if applicable), (3) research statement, (4) teaching statement, (5) three representative publications, and (6) names and complete contact information of at least four references. To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by January 31, 2020. However, applications will be reviewed as they are received. Early submission is highly encouraged. The Department of Bioengineering is fully committed to a diverse academic environment and places high priority on attracting female and underrepresented minority candidates. We strongly encourage candidates from these groups to apply for the position. The University affirms and actively promotes the rights of all individuals to equal opportunity in education and employment without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, age, religion, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other protected class.

Bioengineering Appoints Harvard Medical School Cancer Researcher Ioannis Zervantonakis as Assistant Professor

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (September 13, 2019) … Ioannis Zervantonakis joined the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering on September 1, 2019 as assistant professor of bioengineering and a member of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. Zervantonakis comes from a postdoctoral position at Harvard Medical School where he developed systems biology approaches to study drug resistance and tumor-fibroblast interactions in the lab of Joan Brugge, Director of the Ludwig Center and Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professor of Cell Biology. For his doctoral studies, Zervantonakis worked in the lab of Roger Kamm, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his research focused on the design of microfluidic devices to study cancer metastasis. He currently runs the Tumor Microenvironment Engineering Laboratory where they employ a quantitative approach that integrates microfluidics, systems biology modeling, and in vivo experiments to investigate the role of the tumor microenvironment on breast and ovarian cancer growth, metastasis, and drug resistance. He explained, “Understanding cell behavior in native tumor microenvironments and developing new strategies to deliver therapeutics directly to tumor cells are critical in improving and extending patients’ lives.” The tumor microenvironment is the collection of cells, molecules, and blood vessels that surround tumor cells. Tumor growth, metastasis, and response to therapy is governed by a complex interaction network between tumor cells and those components. “Our group aims to develop novel bioengineered tumor microenvironment platforms that will allow us to model, measure, and control the interactions between cancer cells and their environment at the single cell level,” said Zervantonakis. The goal of their research is to discover biomarkers that guide new drug development and improve prognosis, develop new strategies to optimize existing treatment protocols, and engineer microfabricated tools that enable screening and personalization of cancer therapies. “We are thrilled to welcome Yannis as a bioengineering faculty member,” said Sanjeev Shroff, Distinguished Professor and the Gerald E. McGinnis Chair of Bioengineering. “His focus on linking tumor microenvironment to cancer growth, metastasis, and drug resistance and his expertise in microfluidics and systems biology nicely complement the research efforts within the Department of Bioengineering and the efforts of the thriving cancer-related research community at the university as a whole.” ### About Ioannis Zervantonakis Ioannis (Yannis) received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, and his masters degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Munich in 2006. From 2006-2007 he was a graduate research assistant at the  Ultrasound Elasticity laboratory (Prof. Elisa Konofagou) in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York. Yannis completed his doctoral studies at MIT in the mechanobiology laboratory (Prof. Roger Kamm) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in December 2012. Since January 2013 he has been a postdoctoral fellow in cancer biology at Harvard Medical School in the lab of Prof. Joan Brugge and has been awarded the DoD Breast Cancer Postdoctoral Fellowship (June 2014) and the NIH Pathway to Independence K99/R00 Award (September 2017).

Sene Polamalu is named the Bioengineering 2019 Wesley C. Pickard Fellow

Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (August 30, 2019) … Sene Polamalu, a bioengineering graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, was named the 2019 Wesley C. Pickard Fellow by the Department of Bioengineering. Recipients of this award are selected by the department chair and chosen based on academic merit. Polamalu began his studies in applied mathematics at Millersville University of Pennsylvania where he received his bachelor’s degree in two years. He then joined the mechanical engineering graduate program at the Swanson School of Engineering for one semester before receiving a STRIVE Fellowship and switching to the bioengineering program. Polamalu is working on multiple biomechanical research projects in the Orthopedic Robotics Laboratory under the supervision of Richard E. Debski, William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow and Professor of Bioengineering and Orthopaedic Surgery, and Volker Musahl, Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery and Chief of Sports Medicine. “My primary research is focused on the association of tibiofemoral bony morphology and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries,” said Polamalu. “This research aims to improve ACL injury prevention and treatment by determining patient-specific bone shape parameters that increase the risk for ACL injury.” The ACL is a major ligament that stabilizes the knee, and injury to this ligament is most commonly experienced during sports that involve sudden stops or changes in one direction. Recovery from an ACL trauma can leave athletes out of practice for several months. “I have always been passionate about sports-related injuries,” said Polamalu. “My research in biomechanics at Pitt has further fueled my interest in orthopaedic injury prevention and treatment. I am grateful for the support I have received from this award.” Polamalu is starting his third year as a graduate student researcher in the Swanson School, and the Wesley C. Pickard Fellowship will provide funding for his research during the upcoming academic year. “I’m incredibly proud of what Sene has accomplished during his time in the Orthopaedic Robotics Laboratory, and this fellowship is a well-deserved recognition of his work,” said Debski. “His project has the potential to  determine which individuals are at more risk for ACL injury based on the bony morphology of their knee. Individualized treatments can then be developed to improve surgical success and reduce secondary injuries.” About Wesley Pickard: Mr. Pickard is an alumnus of the Swanson School of Engineering and earned his bachelor's degree in mining engineering at Pitt in 1961.  He retired from Synergy Inc, a DC based consulting firm as the CFO. Over a period of 33 years, Pickard helped the company grow from five staff members to more than 200 with revenues of approximately $25 million when it was sold in 2005. His support of Pitt includes the establishment of this fellowship, and he was recently inducted into the Cathedral of Learning Society at Pitt—a giving society that honors some of our most generous alumni. In 2010 Mr. Pickard was named the University of Pittsburgh Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumnus. He also received the Pitt Volunteer of Excellence Award in 2012 and was named a “Significant Sig” in 2017 by Sigma Chi Fraternity.  In 2018 he was selected as the overall honoree representing the entire Swanson School at the 54th annual Distinguished Alumni Banquet. ###

Pitt Bioengineer Aims to Change Stroke Patients’ Perception to Improve Gait Rehabilitation

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (August 23, 2019) … For stroke survivors whose ability to walk has been impaired by neurological damage, rehabilitation using robotics has proven to be an effective therapy to improve their gait. However, one of the major issues with this type of rehabilitation is that following training with a robotic device, motor improvements are not maintained in the patient’s daily life. Gelsy Torres-Oviedo, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, was awarded a $805,670 CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation to apply a novel approach to improve locomotor learning in stroke patients. She is the fifth Swanson School CAREER Award recipient in 2019, tying the school’s record from 2017. “Our bodies adjust their movement to adapt to changes in the environment, but the very first thing that we need to do is sense that environment,” explained Torres-Oviedo, who directs the Sensorimotor Learning Laboratory at Pitt. “We then use this sensory information as input to our motor system, which drives our movement.” The challenge with measuring sensation in people is that it is an internal variable; therefore, Torres-Oviedo’s group will use mathematical tools and perception experiments to estimate what individuals feel. “We think that some stroke survivors have difficulty perceiving their asymmetric movement, and these proposed studies will help us characterize this deficit and indicate if split-belt walking - in which the legs move at different speeds - can correct it,” she said. In the first part of this study, the lab will track how patients with brain lesions perceive asymmetries in their gait. They will then measure how their perception is adjusted once their movements are adapted in the split-belt environment. In the second part of this study, the lab will use these data and a unique method to manipulate how people perceive their movement and create the illusion of error-free performance during split-belt walking. They will use a human-in-the-loop (HITL) method, which is a closed-loop approach in which the behavioral output is feedback to tune the input to the motor system - in this case, the speed difference. This strategy creates an individualized outcome for each subject, which is a more effective method for training purposes. “The idea is that if we understand how each patient adjusts their perceived movements, we can create the illusion of error-free performance where they think that they’re walking normally even though their movements are changing,” said Torres-Oviedo. “If they never perceive that they are doing something different, the hope is that changes in their movements can be carried over to the patient’s daily life.” This research aims to enhance the generalization of movements from devices like treadmills and exoskeletons to daily activities. “If Professor Torres-Oviedo and her group are successful in their work, it could have a profound effect on gait rehabilitation for stroke survivors,” said Sanjeev G. Shroff, Distinguished Professor and the Gerald E. McGinnis Chair of Bioengineering. Torres-Oviedo will also use this project as a way to increase the participation of students from underrepresented minorities (URM) in science and engineering. She will recruit, mentor, and prepare URM students from K-12 and college to pursue advanced education, with the ultimate goal of broadening the professional opportunities for this population. ###

NTE Lab’s Asiyeh Golabchi Receives Poster Award at Pitt’s Data and Dine Symposium

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (August 16, 2019) … A poster presented by Asiyeh Golabchi, a bioengineering postdoctoral research associate at the University of Pittsburgh, was selected as one of the best poster presentations at the 2019 Postdoctoral Data & Dine Symposium. Hosted by the University of Pittsburgh Postdoctoral Association, the Data & Dine Symposium is an opportunity for postdoctoral associates and scholars at Pitt to present their research to colleagues, faculty, and administrators. The event recognizes 10 participants with a $750 travel award for the best poster presentations. Golabchi received an award for her work titled “Neuronal cell adhesion molecule L1 improves quality of the chronic neural recording in mouse visual cortex.” Golabchi works in the Neural Tissue Engineering (NTE) Lab directed by Xinyan Tracy Cui, professor of bioengineering in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering. Golabchi’s research focuses on developing a molecular-level understanding of neurobiological interactions to neural implants. Golbachi explained that these devices, which are used to record and stimulate the brain, have been an invaluable tool for neuroscience research and clinical applications, but their functional longevity has proven to be a hurdle for researchers. “Neural implants have been used to help people who have lost abilities due to trauma or disease regain those abilities and improve their quality of life,” said Golabchi. “However, many medical, biological, and technical considerations have to be taken into account when using these devices. “Current neural implants are limited by the body’s natural conditions to safely operate and avoid toxicity and degradation,” she continued. “The requirements for a functional and stable long-term neural interface are still relatively unknown.” Golabchi’s research develops biomaterial strategies and novel technologies to control neuroinflammatory responses, both acute and chronic, to implantable devices. “Asiyeh is most deserving of this award from Pitt’s Postdoctoral Association. Her work with neural implant technology demonstrated the potential to improve neural recording stability and longevity through biomimetic coating,” said Cui. “Such coating may be optimized for commercial translation and benefit many implantable devices in both research and clinical settings.” Golabchi received her PhD in neuroscience and brain technologies from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, in collaboration with the University of Genoa, under the supervision of Dr. Axel Blau. During Golabchi’s doctoral research, she used microfabrication methods to develop a flexible polymer-based microelectrode array for interfacing with neurons at a high spatiotemporal resolution for both in vivo and in vitro applications. ###

International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory and University of Pittsburgh’s McGowan Institute Form Biomedical Research Alliance

Bioengineering

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER (FL), August 12, 2019 – The International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory is embarking upon a multi-year research alliance with the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine (MIRM) at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to push the limits of biomedical research and development aboard the orbiting laboratory. This alliance — a core element of the ISS National Laboratory Industrial Biomedicine Program — was unveiled at the 8th annual ISS Research and Development Conference held in Atlanta earlier this month. This new partnership will serve as a benchmark for how the ISS National Laboratory develops similar programs in the future involving research and development activities aboard the space station. The ISS National Laboratory and MIRM will collaborate with partners from industry, other academic research centers, and government agencies to drive the progress of regenerative medicine research onboard the ISS.  As part of this alliance, Pitt will develop Earth-based facilities on campus to advance research and meet with potential partners, while working in coordination with the ISS National Laboratory on flight opportunities to the orbiting laboratory. The program will focus on microgravity life sciences research and development, with a line of sight toward products and services for clinical application on Earth. For instance, exploiting the unique behavior of stem cells in microgravity could improve cell-based therapies for a variety of diseases and impairments, such as traumatic brain injury and type I diabetes. Similarly, microgravity could allow 3D printers to create complex tissue structures that are difficult to achieve in the presence of full gravity. “As the premier partner for the Industrial Biomedicine Alliance with the ISS National Laboratory, we look forward to using the space station as a testbed for regenerative medicine advances and product development in low Earth orbit,” said MIRM Director William R. Wagner, Ph.D. “The McGowan Institute has built on its deep history advancing the development of artificial organs to establish a position of internationally recognized leadership in regenerative medicine,”said Rob A. Rutenbar, Ph.D., senior vice chancellor for research at Pitt. “The ISS National Laboratory will benefit from that deep expertise, as well as our commitment to rapid clinical translation.” The products of the Industrial Biomedicine Program and this research partnership will help build the fundamental business case for the industrialization of crewed platforms in low Earth orbit. In future alliances, the ISS National Laboratory will work with companies and research partners who seek to better understand and find solutions to common problems on Earth through space-based experimentation on the ISS National Laboratory. “The ISS National Laboratory is proud to announce this alliance with Pitt and MIRM in order to develop biomedical products in space that could benefit human health on Earth,” said ISS National Laboratory Chief Strategy Officer Richard Leach, Ph.D. “Part of the role of the ISS National Laboratory is to create and implement innovative strategies to enhance the research capacity of the orbiting laboratory, and we believe alliances like this will pave the way for future collaborations to advance the discoveries of space-based science.” To learn more about innovative research taking place aboard the ISS National Laboratory, visit www.ISSNationalLab.org. Media Contacts:Patrick O’Neill(321) 480-1054PONeill@issnationallab.org Erin Hare (MIRM)412-738-1097HareE@upmc.edu Amerigo Allegretto (Pitt)412-624-6128aallegretto@pitt.edu # # # About the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory: In 2005, Congress designated the U.S. portion of the ISS as the nation’s newest national laboratory to optimize its use for improving quality of life on Earth, promoting collaboration among diverse users, and advancing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This unique laboratory environment is available for use by non-NASA U.S. government agencies, academic institutions, and the private sector. The ISS National Laboratory manages access to the permanent microgravity research environment, a powerful vantage point in low Earth orbit, and the extreme and varied conditions of space. About the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine:  The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC established the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine in 2001. The McGowan Institute serves as a single base of operations for the university’s leading engineers, scientists and clinical faculty working in the areas of tissue engineering, cellular therapies, and medical devices. The Institute’s mission includes the development of innovative clinical protocols, as well as the pursuit of rapid commercial transfer of its technologies related to regenerative medicine. There are more than 250 McGowan-affiliated faculty who have collectively filed over 1,600 patents worldwide, licensed or optioned 185 patents with outside partners and produced more than 30 spinout companies. For more information, visit www.mirm.pitt.edu. About the University of Pittsburgh: A nonsectarian, coeducational, state-related, public research university founded in 1787, the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a member of the prestigious by-invitation-only Association of American Universities and internationally renowned as a leading center of learning and research in the arts, sciences, humanities, professions, and health sciences. Comprising a Pittsburgh campus, which is home to 16 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, and four Western Pennsylvania regional campuses, Pitt offers nearly 500 distinct degree programs and confers more than 8,500 degrees annually. Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998 and is ranked among the top 10 American research universities nationally in terms of total federal science and engineering research and development obligations. For more information, visit www.pitt.edu.

Associate Dean for Research David Vorp Receives Research Leader Fellowship from APLU

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (August 5, 2019) … The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities Council on Research (CoR) has named the University of Pittsburgh’s David Vorp as one of eight fellows in its third Research Leader Fellowship Program cohort selected nationwide. Dr. Vorp is Associate Dean for Research for Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, the John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering, and Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Surgery, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, and the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.According to APLU, the CoR Research Leadership Program is designed to provide training and skill development necessary in the breadth and depth of the academic research enterprise. The APLU notes that because many universities have segmented research support organizations, rising research leaders often oversee relatively confined areas such as research administration, research development, research compliance, research communication, economic development, or sponsored programs. The APLU CoR Fellowship is designed to allow rising research leaders to gain expertise outside of their respective portfolios and to foster connections with CoR’s extensive network of senior research officers through site visits and participation in CoR meetings. The fellowship is 18 months in duration.“This is a tremendous opportunity for me that I will ensure also greatly benefits Pitt and the Swanson School,” Dr. Vorp said. “In the past few years we have expanded and diversified our research portfolio, increased our public-private research partnerships through the creation of our Making Research Work initiative, and more. But there is so much more that we can do, and I’m excited to see up-close the best practices and novel programs developed by other research universities and learn from the best minds in the business.”During his fellowship, Dr. Vorp intends to focus on working more closely with Pitt’s Office of Community and Governmental Relations; integrating research data and analytics into proactive planning and research portfolio management; and developing more sustainable revenue models for the Swanson School’s several research centers and institutes. He also plans to investigate how the Swanson School can play a greater role in regional economic development as well as develop stronger multidisciplinary and sponsored research programs. ### About Dr. VorpDavid Vorp is the John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering, with secondary appointments in the Departments of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Surgery, and the Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition, he is the Associate Dean for Research, Swanson School of Engineering and serves as a Director of the Center for Vascular Remodeling and Regeneration, a Co-Director of the Center for Medical Innovation, as well as the Director of the Vascular Bioengineering Laboratory. He previously served as Interim Director of Pitt’s Petersen Institute for Nano-Science and -Engineering. he research in Dr. Vorp’s lab focuses on the biomechanics, “mechanopathobiology,” regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering of tubular tissues and organs, predominantly the vasculature. He is currently studying the biomechanical progression of aortic aneurysms by modeling the mechanical forces that act on the degenerating vessel wall. He is developing a treatment strategy for abdominal aortic aneurysms by delivering adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells to the periadventitial side of the aneurysm to inhibit the matrix degradation commonly seen in the disease progression and promote its regeneration. He is also using varied regenerative medicine-based approaches to develop a small diameter tissue engineered vascular graft to treat cardiovascular diseases. His research has been supported by $9 million in funding as principal investigator (PI), and an additional $4 million as collaborating investigator, from foundation and federal agencies, including the American Heart Association (AHA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Whitaker Foundation, Pittsburgh Foundation, and other sources.  He has several patents in the field of vascular bioengineering and was a co-founder of the start-up Neograft Technologies, Inc., a company that developed technology from Dr. Vorp’s laboratory relating to biodegradable support for arterial vein grafts.In 2011 Dr. Vorp was recognized with the Van C. Mow Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), was twice awarded a Pitt Innovator Award, and received the Carnegie Life Sciences Award in 2013.  He served on the Executive Committee of the ASME Bioengineering Division (BED; 2006-2015), serving as ASME BED Chair from 2013-2014. Dr. Vorp was elected to the Board of Directors of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) for two terms (2006-2009; 2009-2012), and was elected BMES Secretary, an executive post, for two terms (2012-2014; 2014-2016).  He was Co-Program Chair of the 2018 World Congress of Biomechanics. In 2012, Dr. Vorp became the first non-MD President of the International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology, and was re-elected for a second term in 2014.  Dr. Vorp is a Fellow of ASME, BMES and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.

Pitt Bioengineering Alumna Named NSF Program Director

Bioengineering

Laurel Kuxhaus, an associate professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at Clarkson University, has recently been named Program Director of the Biomechanics & Mechanobiology Program within the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation, Directorate for Engineering at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Kuxhaus comes to the position directly from serving as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Congressional Fellow in Bioengineering. She has been working on Capitol Hill this year in the office of Congressman Lipinski, learning about how Congress works and crafting science and technology policy.  Key accomplishments include the drafting of the Growing Artificial Intelligence Through Research (GrAITR) Act, and the Medical Device Sterilization Challenges Act of 2019. “It’s been an incredible experience to work on Capitol Hill for the year and see how policy is created at the top,” said Kuxhaus, “I look forward to serving at the National Science Foundation." At the National Science Foundation, her background in both bioengineering and policy will enhance the management, operation, and evaluation of programs within the Division. She will also gain experience in the development of large and complex Federal programs. In this position, Kuxhaus will be responsible for long-range planning and budget development for the Biomechanics & Mechanobiology Program. She will oversee the NSF award process for researchers in her program, which includes merit review, award and declination process, and identifying future funding opportunities. In 2018, Kuxhaus was named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. She was nominated for her continued dedication to engineering education, scholarly research, and service to the ASME Bioengineering Division.  She concentrates her research in orthopedic biomechanics. Kuxhaus received bachelor’s degrees in engineering mechanics and music from Michigan State University in 2001, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 2003, and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. As a private, national research university, Clarkson is a leader in technological education and sustainable economic development through teaching, scholarship, research and innovation. We ignite personal connections across academic fields and industries to create the entrepreneurial mindset, knowledge and intellectual curiosity needed to innovate world-relevant solutions and cultivate the leaders of tomorrow. With its main campus located in Potsdam, N.Y., and additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital Region, Beacon, N.Y., and New York City, Clarkson educates 4,300 students across 95 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, the arts, education, sciences and health professions. Our alumni earn salaries that are among the top 2.5% in the nation and realize accelerated career growth. One in five already leads as a CEO, senior executive or owner of a company.

STEM Camp Sparks Pittsburgh Kids’ Curiosity

Bioengineering, Student Profiles

Reposted from PittWire. Click here to view the original story. When Ameena Bradford entered the University of Pittsburgh Center for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, she didn’t know what went into the creation of a video game, but she was excited to see what was in store. What the 12-year-old Pittsburgh public school student found was a reignited interest in science and technology, with the help of a classic arcade game. Ameena and 14 other students from Pittsburgh’s Hill District put their coding skills to the test to recreate the 1978 game Space Invaders this June, using a computer program provided by Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering and the School of Computing and Information. The coding exercise was part of a three-day STEM mini-camp hosted by Pitt’s Hill District Community Engagement Center (CEC) as part of the larger Swanson School’s annual Camp BioE. At the camp, students ages 8 to 12 were helped along their interstellar journey by Pitt bioengineering and computing experts, as well as volunteer undergraduate students from bioengineering and biology. Using graphics created prior to the event, the students were able to input simple commands for the spaceship, alien invaders and the lasers — represented by cats — used to defeat the aliens. “Before, I liked science, but it kept getting harder and harder to learn. This made it kind of easier,” Ameena said. “This is more fun, because the teachers are nice and they help us to learn by making it more interesting,” said Alyssa, 9, Ameena’s younger sister. “It’s a lot of fun working with these kids,” said Dmitriy Babichenko, professor of practice at the School of Computing and Information, who led the students in coding the game. “They start out being skeptical and then you can see the light bulbs coming on as they get excited to see that something works. It’s fun to see that excitement develop.” The STEM camp comes at a transitional time for the students; some studies, such as one published in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, have shown that students, particularly girls, begin to lose interest in the sciences upon entering middle school. Camp leaders say they hope STEM learning opportunities like this encourage students — especially those from underrepresented populations — to further pursue science and technology studies during their high school and college years. This could lead to better employment opportunities, too: STEM jobs in computer analyst and development fields are projected to increase as much as 32% beginning in the 2020s, according to the U.S. Department of Education. While Camp BioE has been providing summer STEM activities for mostly middle school-age students for the past 10 years, this year was the first time it teamed up with the CEC and the School of Computing and Information. Camp director Steven Abramowitch said even though this year’s students were the youngest Camp BioE has worked with, they were also some of the most passionate and easily engaged. “They were interested and curious, so when we saw this opportunity to make the connection (with the CEC) for the summer, we knew this was something we wanted to do,” said Abramowitch, who is also an associate professor of bioengineering at the Swanson School. “The game design for Space Invaders is simple, so we thought this was something easy for the students to grasp in terms of game design. We hope that events like these give students confidence to pursue their passions.” June’s mini-camp was the first of many upcoming collaborations between the Pitt Community Engagement Centers, the Swanson School and the School of Computing and Information. One of these includes creating a STEAM Studio as part of the CEC’s permanent space at the New Granada Theater. The camp’s in-community and on-campus curriculum is also an example of how the Hill District Community Engagement Center seeks to build bridges between the University and the community for mutual benefit: Pitt faculty establish new partnerships, Pitt students learn from and with community members in a real-world setting and Hill District youth have the opportunity to explore STEM fields in an enriching and educational setting. “We wanted to help bring youth from the Hill District in one of the most underserved sections, Bedford Dwellings, here on campus to continue exploring possibilities in STEM fields,” said Kirk Holbrook, director of the Hill District CEC. “We hope to start planting the seeds of future realities for these children. With activities like coding a video game, they’re fun, but also educational. They’re intensive, but we saw engagement.” The CECs are part of Pitt's Neighborhood Commitments, which build stronger communities and a stronger University based on long-term place-based partnerships. In collaboration with local communities, the University is making a minimum 15-year commitment of investment, infrastructure, programming and dedicated staff in neighborhoods such as Homewood and the Hill District. The CECs aim to host events and offer services for community members related to youth education enrichment, employment, health and wellness, the cultural arts and small business growth and development, among other topics. The Hill District CEC is Pitt’s second Community Engagement Center — the CEC in Homewood opened in October 2018.
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NSF funds Bridges-2 supercomputer at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

Bioengineering, Chemical & Petroleum, Civil & Environmental, Electrical & Computer, Industrial, MEMS

PITTSBURGH (July 9, 2019) ... A $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding a new supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), a joint research center of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. In partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), PSC will deploy Bridges-2, a system designed to provide researchers in Pennsylvania and the nation with massive computational capacity and the flexibility to adapt to the rapidly evolving field of data- and computation-intensive research. Bridges-2 will be available at no cost for research and education, and at cost-recovery rates for other purposes. "Unlocking the power of data will accelerate discovery to advance science, improve our quality of life and enhance national competitiveness," said Nick Nystrom, PSC's chief scientist and principal investigator (PI) for Bridges-2. "We designed Bridges-2 to drive discoveries that will come from the rapid evolution of research, which increasingly needs new, scalable ways for combining large, complex data with high-performance simulation and modeling." Bridges-2 will accelerate discovery to benefit science, society, and the nation. Its unique architecture will catalyze breakthroughs in critically important areas such as understanding the brain, developing new materials for sustainable energy production and quantum computing, assembling genomes of crop species to improve agricultural efficiency, exploring the universe via multimessenger astrophysics and enabling technologies for smart cities. Building on PSC's experience with its very successful Bridges system, Bridges-2 will take the next step in pioneering converged, scalable high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI) and data. Designed to power and scale applications identified through close collaboration with the national research community, Bridges-2 will integrate cutting-edge processors, accelerators, large memory, an all-flash storage array and exceptional data-handling capabilities to let researchers meet challenges that otherwise would be out of reach. By enabling AI to be combined with simulation and modeling and through its focus on ease of use and researcher productivity, Bridges-2 will drive a new era of research breakthroughs. "Bridges-2 is a major leap forward for PSC in high-performance computing and data analytics infrastructure and research," said Alan D. George, Interim Director of PSC. "PSC is unique in combining the strengths of two world-class universities (CMU and Pitt) and a world-class medical center (UPMC). Bridges-2 will amplify these strengths to fuel many new discoveries." "Enabling the execution of science, engineering and non-traditional workflows at scale while leveraging and further developing artificial intelligence is vital to keeping the United States at the forefront of scientific discovery now and into the future," said Paola Buitrago, Director of Artificial Intelligence & Big Data at PSC and co-PI of Bridges. "The Bridges-2 system is the way to realize this and more. I look forward to all the knowledge, discoveries and progress this new system will produce." Bridges-2's community data collections and user-friendly interfaces are designed to democratize participation in science and engineering and foster collaboration and convergence research. The Bridges-2 project includes bringing the benefits of scalable data analytics and AI to industry, developing STEM talent to strengthen the nation's workforce and broadening collaborations to accelerate discovery. The NSF is funding Bridges-2 as part of a series of awards for Advanced Computing Systems & Services. "The capabilities and services these awards will provide will enable the research community to explore new computing models and paradigms," said Manish Parashar, Office Director for the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure at NSF. "These awards complement NSF's long-standing investment in advanced computational infrastructure, providing much-needed support for the full range of innovative computational- and data-intensive research being conducted across all of science and engineering." Bridges-2 will be deployed in the summer of 2020. ###

MEMS Professor Anne Robertson Delivers Keynote Lecture at International Conference

Bioengineering, MEMS

Anne Robertson, William Kepler Whiteford Endowed Professorship of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Professor of Bioengineering, was among a prestigious group of scholars invited to give a keynote lecture at the 6th International Conference on Computational and Mathematical Biomedical Engineering. The conference was hosted by Tohoku University in Sendai City, Japan earlier this June. The title of Dr. Robertson’s lecture was “Identifying Physical Causes of Failure in Brain Aneurysms.”  A subarachnoid hemorrhage, a type of stroke with high mortality and disability rates, is often caused by the rupture of a cerebral aneurysm. However, if the aneurysm is not ruptured, treatment for this condition can be more dangerous than the risk of rupture itself.  Therefore, there is a need to develop reliable methods for assessing rupture risk. Dr. Robertson’s presentation discussed her group’s recent findings which demonstrate the need to identify the actual physical causes for wall vulnerability as a vital component of accessing rupture risk.  This research is done by using data driven computational simulations obtained from human aneurysm tissue. New tools for mapping heterogeneous experimental data for the wall to the 3D reconstructed vascular model make it possible to evaluate the associations between critical aspects of aneurysm wall structure and both hemodynamic and intramural stress. Other Pitt members of this multi-institutional research team include Dr. Spandan Maiti, who holds a primary appointment in Bioengineering and a secondary appointment in MEMS and Dr. Simon Watkins, Distinguished Professor of the Department of Cell Biology and Director of the Center for Biologic Imaging.   Doctoral students Fangzhou Cheng, Michael Durka, Ronald Fortunato, Piyusha Gade and Chao Sang as well as postdoctoral researchers Yasutaka Tobe and Eliisa Ollikainen also made substantial contributions to this work. One of the main focuses of Dr. Robertson’s research is the relationship between soft tissue structure and mechanical function in health and disease for soft tissues such as cerebral arteries, cerebral aneurysms, tissue engineered blood vessels and the bladder wall.  Her research is heavily supported by the National Institutes of Health where she is a standing member of the Neuroscience and Ophthalmic Imaging Technologies (NOIT) Study Section.

Climbing the Ladder of Safety Success: Erika Pliner receives 2019 Pre-doctoral Young Scientist award from the American Society of Biomechanics

Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (June 6, 2019) … Erika Pliner, a bioengineering PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, received the 2019 Pre-doctoral Young Scientist award from the American Society of Biomechanics (ASB) in recognition of her scientific achievements. Her work with Kurt Beschorner, associate professor of bioengineering in the Swanson School of Engineering, focuses on determining individual, environmental, and biomechanical factors that contribute to ladder fall risk. “Ladder falls are a frequent and severe source of injuries,” explained Pliner. “Environmental changes - such as ladder setup and design - have been suggested to prevent ladder falls, yet there remains a lack of knowledge on individual factors that influence ladder fall risk; in particular, individual factors that contribute to safe and effective ladder use are unknown.” According to Pliner, the majority of ladder fall research aims to mitigate factors that initiate a falling event, but individual and environmental factors and the biomechanical responses in response to a climbing perturbation are not well understood. Pliner takes a novel, multifaceted approach to determine risk factors. She has tested younger and older adults, designed occupational and domestic-based ladder experiments, and investigated factors that precede and follow a ladder falling event. This advances her long-term goal of reducing injuries by targeting a diverse range of ladder falling events. Outcomes from her work have already revealed impactful knowledge to reduce ladder fall injuries. Her work determined that ladders installed too close to a wall or surface dramatically increase slip and fall risk. She explained, “This finding puts many workers at risk, particularly truck and train operators whose ladders are often installed too close to the surface of the vehicle.” Her work also revealed the importance of upper body strength in recovering from a ladder climbing perturbation. She said, “Strength training and health screenings are safety interventions that can aid in preventing ladder falls.” In addition to her safety research, Pliner also dedicates her time to improving diversity in STEM. “There is a poor representation of women and minorities in engineering disciplines, which has a negative impact on applicability of research to different populations,” said Pliner. “For example, ladder design has been primarily based on male climbers, affecting the efficacy and inherent fall risk of ladder use for female climbers..” Pliner believes that relating engineering concepts to student interests may be a useful tool to improve engagement of underrepresented persons in STEM. She aims to promote diversity in these fields by investigating the relationship between student interests and engagement in biomechanical activities. As the recipient of the Pre-doctoral Young Scientist award, Pliner will present her work at the ASB annual meeting, July 31-August 4, 2019. She is also expected to submit a full-length manuscript for publication in the Journal of Biomechanics. “I am delighted that Erika is receiving this recognition for her research accomplishments,” said Beschorner. “Her work with ladder fall risk has the potential to prevent a substantial amount of injuries, and her passion for increasing diversity in STEM will hopefully help make the field of engineering more inclusive.” ###

New Partnership Expands Research into Rechargeable Battery Systems

Bioengineering, Chemical & Petroleum, MEMS

PITTSBURGH (May 24, 2019) — Energy storage influences every part of modern life, from the cell phone in your pocket to the electric car on the highway. However, seeing the chemistry of what is happening inside a battery while it is in use is indeed tricky, but it could have remarkable opportunities for identifying new materials as well as improving the battery itself. Now, the Next-Generation Energy Conversion and Storage Technologies Lab (NECSTL) at the University of Pittsburgh’s Energy Innovation Center has announced a new energy research partnership with Malvern Panalytical that will enable the lab to do exactly that. The NECSTL, headed by Prashant N. Kumta, PhD, focuses on energy conversion and storage, including rechargeable battery systems. Malvern Panalytical’s Empyrean X-ray Platform, a multipurpose diffractometer, will be used in the lab to identify solid-state materials by determining their internal structure, composition and phase while they are in use. “For example, it can be used to determine what happens to an electrode and electrolyte material as the main active component is removed and brought back during a electrochemical reaction, such as in the case of a lithium-ion rechargeable battery,” explains Prashant N. Kumta, PhD, Edward R. Weidlein Chair professor of Bioengineering. Dr. Kumta also holds appointments in chemical and petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, and oral biology. “This understanding will lead to new discoveries of mechanisms and operation, which can result in new materials discovery and new designs for significantly increasing the performance of batteries and fuel cells.” Dr. Kumta also believes that the partnership will enable the design of new instrumentation for further in-situ diagnostics of energy storage and conversion systems. The new partnership and equipment was celebrated on May 23 at the Energy Innovation Center, where attendees got a first look at the Empyrean up close.
Maggie Pavlick

The New Wave of Brain-Computer Interface Technology

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (May 20, 2019) … Researchers have made groundbreaking strides in brain-computer interface (BCI) research, allowing paralyzed individuals to connect mind to machine and control robotic devices with their brains. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to tap into this breakthrough technology and develop a nonsurgical option that provides a new way for able-bodied individuals to interact with machines. Through the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program, the agency selected Battelle and Carnegie Mellon University to lead projects and awarded each institution funding totaling nearly $20 million over four years. Both projects include the University of Pittsburgh’s Doug Weber, Robert Gaunt, and Jennifer Collinger. The most effective neural interfaces require surgery to implant electrodes into the brain, but DARPA’s N3 program aims to develop a high-resolution, portable neural interface system that is either completely noninvasive or only minutely invasive, making the technology accessible to a wider population of potential users. Most current BCI technology helps individuals with disabilities perform everyday tasks, but DARPA wants to progress the technology to able-bodied individuals, starting with military service members. Weber, an associate professor of bioengineering in the Swanson School of Engineering, directs the Rehab Neural Engineering Labs where his group has developed systems that enable individuals to control and feel prosthetic limbs through direct connections to the nervous system. He will lead the preclinical safety and efficacy studies for designs from Battelle and CMU. “The goal of this program is to create and demonstrate new, noninvasive technologies for interfacing with the brain at high resolution,” said Weber. “The Battelle and CMU investigators are working on unique technologies that may suit this purpose, and I will work with those teams to validate and refine the technology in animal and human BCI studies.” The CMU team is led by Pulkit Grover, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), along with Maysam Chamanzar, assistant professor of ECE, and Jana Kainerstorfer, assistant professor of biomedical engineering. The group will apply novel concepts in physics, biology, and engineering to fight dispersion of waves as they enter the head. “Our team has taken on the ambitious goal of completely noninvasive sensing and stimulation at unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution,” said Grover. “The noninvasive aspect will make our solutions widely applicable, but it is also what makes our goal extremely challenging. Fundamentally, all waves - light, ultrasound, electrical currents - disperse in the head due to presence of a thick skull. To compensate for this, we are leveraging two completely new technologies being developed at CMU. In Doug Weber, Rob Gaunt, and Jen Collinger at Pitt, we have the ideal collaborators to validate and improve these technologies and bring them that much closer to practice.” Battelle is the prime on a second N3 program. Gaurav Sharma, a senior research scientist in the Medical Devices and Neuromodulation group, and his team have created a concept for the N3 program called BrainSTORMS (Brain System to Transmit Or Receive Magnetoelectric Signals). This technology involves the development of a novel nanotransducer that would be delivered through an intravenous injection and then targeted to a specific area of the brain. When the task is complete, the nanotransducer will be magnetically guided out of the brain for clearance out of the body. “This is one of the most exciting and challenging projects I have worked on,” said Sharma in a prepared statement. “With BrainSTORMS, we will again be pushing the limits engineering and physics. If successful, this technology would not only provide a safe and efficient way to facilitate human-machine interactions but also has the potential to revolutionize how the nervous system is probed and studied.” Fellow RNEL Lab members Robert Gaunt and Jennifer Collinger, assistant professors of physical medicine and rehabilitation, will help to validate these technologies in first-in-human trials. All three researchers have experience with BCI technology and neuroprosthetics; they aim to better understand how humans use sensory information to regulate actions and apply that knowledge to prosthetic devices. They will use their expertise in this field to run the human trials of the developed N3 program technologies. ###

Postdoctoral Position in Cancer Bioengineering - Zervantonakis lab

Bioengineering, Open Positions

A postdoctoral position is available at the Tumor Microenvironment Engineering lab in the Department of Bioengineering and UPMC Cancer Institute. We employ a quantitative approach that integrates microfluidics, systems biology modeling, and in vivo experiments to investigate the role of the tumor microenvironment on breast and ovarian cancer growth, metastasis and drug resistance. Our group has projects in three main areas: (1)  Drug-resistant microenvironments in breast cancer: modeling cellular dynamics. (2)  Metastatic dissemination in ovarian cancer: macrophages and fluid flow. (3) Localized drug release technologies and single-cell functional assays. Applicants should hold a PhD in bioengineering, biomedical sciences or related fields. A strong background in cancer biology is preferred, including experience with quantitative assay development and optimization, microscopy. Openings are also available for candidates with a computational/mathematical background with expertise in mechanistic modeling and systems analysis. The Tumor Microenvironment Engineering laboratory offers the opportunity to work at the forefront of cancer bioengineering, learn cutting edge techniques and collaborate with an interdisciplinary group of scientists and clinicians. The candidate will benefit from the rich biomedical research environment in the University of Pittsburgh, including the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, the Department of Computational and Systems Biology, the Drug Discovery Institute and the Magee-Women’s Research Institute. The city of Pittsburgh is one of the “most livable” cities in the US and is a leader in medicine, engineering and high-tech industries. Openings are available starting September 2019. Please visit the website (www.zervalab.com) to find out more about research projects, publications, mentoring and collaborations. Interested applicants please submit a CV, statement of research interests and contact information for three references to: Ioannis Zervantonakis, Assistant Professor ioz1@pitt.edu. The Department of Bioengineering is strongly committed to a diverse academic environment and places high priority on attracting female and underrepresented minority candidates. We strongly encourage candidates from these groups to apply for the position. The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, gender identity, marital status, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Zervantonakis Laboratory

Nine Pitt Students Awarded 2019 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

Bioengineering, Chemical & Petroleum, Civil & Environmental, MEMS, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH—Nine University of Pittsburgh students were awarded a 2019 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Seven Pitt students and one alumnus also earned an honorable mention. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is designed to ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce in the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees. Fellows receive an annual stipend of $34,000 for three years, as well as a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees. The support accorded to NSF Graduate Research Fellows is intended to nurture awardees’ ambition to become lifelong leaders who contribute significantly to both scientific innovation and teaching. “Receipt of an NSF Fellowship award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our undergrad and graduate students, and to their faculty mentors and advisors. It is also one of the most highly recognized indicators of early success in a scientific research career,” said Nathan Urban, vice provost for graduate studies and strategic initiatives at Pitt. “The University is committed to increasing support for future NSF-GRFP applicants through the application process while we congratulate this year’s winners.” Four Swanson School students received an award: Nathanial Buettner, a civil engineering undergraduate student, works in the Pavement Mechanics and Materials Laboratory where he aims to advance research on concrete pavements. Starting in summer 2019, he plans to pursue a Ph.D. in civil engineering at the University of Pittsburgh under the advisement of Dr. Julie Vandenbossche. Charles Griego, a chemical engineering graduate student, works with Dr. John Keith to evaluate computational models used for high-throughput screening of catalysts that improve chemical processes. He graduated from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 2017 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. He serves as President of Pitt’s Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association and plans to become a professor to fulfill his desire for teaching and inspiring students in STEM. Dulce Mariscal, a bioengineering graduate student, works in the lab of Gelsy Torres-Oviedo where she aims to identify biomechanical factors that modulate the generalization of treadmill learning to ultimately improve rehabilitation treatments for patients with gait impairments. She graduated from the Universidad del Turabo, PR in 2014 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. Kalon Overholt, a bioengineering undergraduate student, has worked under the mentorship of Dr. Rocky Tuan in the Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering (CCME) for the past three years. His research focused on developing a device to study how biochemical crosstalk between bone and cartilage may contribute to the mechanism of osteoarthritis. He plans to pursue a graduate degree in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology starting in fall 2019. Two Swanson School students received honorable mentions: Ethan Schumann graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2018 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He worked on medical device development with Dr. Jeffrey Vipperman at Pitt and hardware design and testing of a bipedal robot with Dr. C. David Remy at the University of Michigan. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University with Dr. Conor Walsh in the Biodesign Lab starting fall 2019. Sommer Anjum, a bioengineering graduate student, is pursuing a Ph.D. in the area of computational modeling and simulation. She works in the MechMorpho lab of Dr. Lance Davidson where she aims to develop computational models capturing the complex biophysical properties of developing organisms. She graduated from the University of Georgia in 2018 with a degree in Biological Engineering, where she discovered her passion for trying to understand the behaviors of biological systems through computational models. Andrea Sajewski, an undergraduate student from Duquesne University who works with Dr. Tamer Ibrahim, was also awarded a fellowship. She will join the bioengineering graduate program in the fall and continue her magnetic resonance imaging research in the Radiofrequency Research Facility. Nathan Brantly, who also recently accepted an offer to join the bioengineering graduate program, received an award and will join Dr. Jennifer Collinger's group in the fall. Current Swanson School students who hold or previously held the NSF-GRFP award include, Sarah Hemler (BioE), Angelica Herrera (BioE), Monica Liu (BioE), Patrick Marino (BioE), Erika Pliner (BioE), Donald Kline (BioE), Megan Routzong (BioE), Michael Taylor (ChemE), Drake Pedersen (BioE), Natalie Austin (ChemE), Gerald Ferrer (BioE), Alexis Nolfi (BioE), Carly Sombric (BioE), and Elyse Stachler (CEE). ###

Swanson School’s Department of Bioengineering Presents Thomas Gilbert with 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (April 11, 2019) ... This year’s Distinguished Alumni from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering have worked with lesson plans and strategic plans, cosmetics and the cosmos, brains and barrels and bridges. It’s a diverse group, but each honoree shares two things in common on their long lists of accomplishments: outstanding achievement in their fields, and of course, graduation from the University of Pittsburgh. This year’s recipient for the Department of Bioengineering is Thomas Gilbert, PhD BioE ‘06, Chief Science Officer at ACell, Inc. The six individuals representing each of the Swanson School’s departments and one overall honoree representing the entire school gathered at the 55th annual Distinguished Alumni Banquet at the University of Pittsburgh’s Alumni Hall to accept their awards. James R. Martin II, US Steel Dean of Engineering, led the banquet for the first time since starting his tenure at Pitt in the fall. “Dr. Gilbert’s research in scaffold materials for regenerative medicine led him to faculty positions in surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, and bioengineering here at Pitt,” said Dean Martin. “His fascinating work shows how the engineering principals we studied for complex systems can just as easily, and successfully, be applied to healing the human body.” About Thomas W. Gilbert Thomas Gilbert has a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Gilbert has served as Chief Science Officer at ACell, a leading regenerative medicine company, since 2015 and provides leadership to the Research and Development, Clinical Research, and Quality organizations.  In this role, Dr. Gilbert has responsibility for the continuum of product development from concept through clinical evaluation, with careful attention given to regulatory requirements.  Previously, he served as ACell’s Vice President of Research and Development from 2012-2015. During his time at ACell, Dr. Gilbert has provided technical and organizational leadership, and has overseen renewal within each of his departments. Before joining ACell, Dr. Gilbert was Assistant Professor of Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery, and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a faculty member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. His research includes the study of processing and use of extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold materials for the development of regenerative medicine strategies in a variety of body systems. Dr. Gilbert has co-authored several book chapters and more than sixty peer-reviewed articles. In addition, he has received five patents related to ECM technology. His research funding sources include the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He has also worked as a Metallurgist for the Perryman Company in Houston, PA. ###

University of Pittsburgh Appoints Medtech Executive and Alumnus Scott Morley as Director of its Coulter@Pitt Medtech Accelerator

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (April 8, 2019) ... Building upon its successes in translational biomedical research and commercialization at the University of Pittsburgh, the Swanson School of Engineering has named Scott Morley as Director of its Coulter@Pitt medtech accelerator program.  Morley succeeds Allison Formal who left the University in February to pursue new opportunities outside of the region. Morley is a seasoned life sciences executive with broad experience in technology development, clinical trials, regulatory strategy, marketing, and sales.  He began his career at ALung Technologies, a Pittsburgh-based medical device company spun out from the University of Pittsburgh.  As ALung’s fourth employee, he quickly rose to become the lead engineer responsible for design and development of ALung’s artificial lung technology, the Hemolung RAS, which was originally developed in the lab of Bioengineering Professor William Federspiel. Morley went on to lead clinical studies in India and Germany resulting in global product approvals. Simultaneously, he built a new therapeutic market for the technology, establishing ALung’s leadership position through a strategy of clinical collaboration with global key opinion leaders and medical societies. After running a global product launch, Morley oversaw the start of ALung’s VENT-AVOID Trial, a 40-center pivotal IDE trial aimed at securing US FDA approval. Most recently, he founded 3Rivers MedTech LLC, providing innovation and commercialization services to the medtech industry. Morley is a two-time graduate of the University of Pittsburgh having earned a BS from the Swanson School of Engineering (Bioengineering) and an MBA from Katz Graduate School of Business (Marketing).  “We are excited to welcome Scott back to Pitt,” said Sanjeev Shroff, Distinguished Professor and Gerald E. McGinnis Chair of of Bioengineering. “Scott brings extensive experience in developing and commercializing medical devices from bench to the bedside, and our translational research teams across campus will be well served by his expertise.” In tandem with his duties as the Coulter@Pitt Program Director, Morley is also an Entrepreneur in Residence with the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute where he is supporting the commercialization of life science innovations with a focus on medical devices and diagnostics. “There is a great collaboration between the Coulter Program and the Innovation Institute,” said Evan Facher, Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Director of the Innovation Institute. “Scott’s dual-role on campus will only further strengthen our partnership as we collaborate to build a robust engine for commercialization of Pitt’s biomedical technologies.” “Pitt has taken great strides to develop a new culture of innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Morley. “University research is a primary catalyst for growth of the Pittsburgh life sciences industry. I am very appreciative of the opportunity to work with our partners across Pitt and the region as we seek to drive important advances in healthcare to successful commercialization for the benefit of patients and our regional economy.” ### About the Coulter@Pitt Program The Coulter Translational Research Partners II Program (Coulter@Pitt) is a University based accelerator which helps faculty researchers translate their innovations to commercialization. By way of a competitive grant program, training processes, and collaborative services, University technologies are de-risked and viable commercial pathways identified. Coulter@Pitt extensively engages with business partners, mentors and clinical experts to bring industry perspectives to translational research. In 7+ years, the Coulter Program has attracted over 260 applications and funded 36 projects leading to eight Pitt start-up companies and 5 licenses. About the Department of Bioengineering at the Swanson School of Engineering Bioengineering is the application of engineering principles to analyze native biological systems and to design and manufacture tools, structures, and processes for solving problems in the life sciences. Successful patient-focused and commercialization-oriented collaborations between engineers and physicians who traditionally employ differing methodologies are critical to the burgeoning field and to regional economic development. Pitt's Department of Bioengineering, established in 1998 as part of the Swanson School of Engineering and ranked as one of the nation's top bioengineering programs, is credited for developing many major biomedical technologies: cardiac-assist device for infants, a blood-treatment tool that can free patients from ventilator dependence, materials that help regenerate various tissues and organs, to name a few. About the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute Established in 2013, The University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute is the University’s hub for innovation and entrepreneurship.  The Innovation Institute provides a comprehensive suite of services for Pitt Innovators, from protecting intellectual property to the commercialization of new discoveries through licensing and/or new enterprise development. The Institute also provides a wealth of educational programming, mentoring and networking for Pitt faculty, students and partners. The Innovation Institute strengthens the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at Pitt and is eager to facilitate and support entrepreneurial initiatives across the university and beyond. It is also invites alumni, entrepreneurs and industry partners to collaborate with our faculty and students to help achieve societal impact through commercialization.
Lindsay Rodzwicz, Coulter@Pitt Manager

Good Vibrations: Pitt Undergraduates Create a Device to Help Deaf Kids Experience Music Through Tactile and Visual Feedback

Bioengineering, Electrical & Computer, MEMS, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (April 4, 2019) … Through the Swanson School of Engineering’s The Art of Making class, an interdisciplinary group of eleven University of Pittsburgh undergraduate students connected with the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (WPSD) and Attack Theatre to create a device that can help hearing-impaired children experience music and express themselves through dance. Attack Theatre holds a recurring dance workshop for three-to-six-year-olds at WPSD. The group previously tried using a Bluetooth speaker in a trash can to produce a vibratory effect that the children could touch and interact with, but this design was not kid-friendly and lacked mobility for lessons that necessitate free movement. The Pitt team saw an opportunity to take a fresh look at the problem and design a new system that addresses the needs of both the instructors and the children. However, with no hearing-impaired members, the undergraduates had to find a way to step into the shoes of their end users to better understand their needs. “This was a profoundly human-centered design problem with multiple stakeholders,” said Dr. Joseph Samosky, assistant professor of bioengineering and director of The Art of Making course. “A new technology, even if it works perfectly, is useless if it isn’t accepted by and accessible to the end user. This team of student innovators really understood and acted on that insight.” Issam Abushaban, a sophomore bioengineering and computer engineering student, said that the group learned more about their target audience from WPSD teachers. “We discovered that the rhythm of music and the visualization of colors can reflect a certain mood and affect the way that you feel,” he said. “That was something we really wanted to incorporate into our design.” To better understand the dance element of their task, the group participated in one of Attack Theatre’s workshops catered to deaf and hard-of-hearing children. “A lot of their dance moves were geared toward expressing an emotion, such as stomping to express anger or frustration or skipping to express joy,” said Farah Khan, a senior bioengineering student. “I think this demonstration gave us a different perspective and helped us view music in a new, productive way.” After completing their background research, the team decided to explore the use of both visual and tactile feedback for their design. They created several early prototypes, including a wrist strap with haptic motors and a disc “floor mat” with multi-hued illumination around the periphery. When the vibrating wrist strap was sampled by the children, the team learned the value of making early prototypes and getting feedback from their users to empirically test design concepts. “During our first round of testing, we wanted to pay attention to the reactions that the kids made, rather than focusing on the messages that the interpreter relayed,” said Abushaban. “Some of the kids seemed to be wary or afraid of the wrist strap so the lesson we learned from that meeting was that our product perhaps wasn’t kid-friendly. We then brainstormed new ideas of how to provide vibrational feedback in a more toy-like system.” The custom-designed plush toy houses sound transducers and a wireless communication system. The soft straps of the backpack/frontpack are adjustable, comfortable for the kids, and allow greater mobility for the dance workshop. Natalie Neal, a junior mechanical engineering and materials science student, was inspired to create patterns and hand sew a series of plush toy monkeys that incorporate a Bluetooth receiver, audio amplifier, vibrational transducers and battery power supply. This new iteration, dubbed Vibrance, can be worn either as a backpack or a “frontpack” - what the team calls “hug mode.” Additional testing and user feedback led to supplementing the tactile feedback with a projected visualizer that produces colorful circles based on the audio input. The Vibrance team presented their work at the Swanson School of Engineering’s fall 2018 Design Expo and swept the top three awards: first place in The Art of Making category, the People’s Choice Award, and the Best Overall Design. “Receiving those three awards really validated all of the hard work we did throughout the semester,” said Khan. The students’ innovative design has also received an enthusiastic response from kids, teachers, and parents. One parent of a child at WPSD wrote to the team, “I hope I’ll get the chance to see my son experience the vest vibration device. What an awesome idea!” Dr. Samosky was recently awarded a Provost’s Personalized Education Grant to support high-potential – and potentially high-impact – student design projects like Vibrance, enabling them to continue beyond the class in which they originate and be nurtured toward real-world impact. The Vibrance team will continue to develop and improve Vibrance under this new Classroom to Community initiative in Dr. Samosky’s lab. The goal is to create a device that meets the needs of both WPSD and Attack Theatre, but most importantly, the team wants to continue to positively affect the lives of the children using their device. As stated by Jocelyn Dunlap, a senior communication science student, “We are heading back to WPSD to continue building a project that claims a spot in all of our hearts.” ### This video of the Vibrance project, also created as part of the students’ coursework in The Art of Making, shows the system in action as it is used by instructors and kids at WPSD and with Attack Theatre. The Vibrance team includes, Issam Abushaban, a sophomore bioengineering and computer engineering student; Dani Broderick, a senior mechanical engineering student; Tom Driscoll, a junior computer engineering student; Jocelyn Dunlap, a senior communication science student; Austin Farwell, a junior mathematics student; Farah Khan, a senior bioengineering student; Stephanie Lachell, a senior mechanical engineering student; Evan Lawrence, a junior mechanical engineering student; Natalie Neal, a junior materials science and engineering student; Jesse Rosenfeld, a junior mechanical engineering student; and Caroline Westrick, a junior bioengineering student.

BioE graduate student Piyusha Gade to advance to university-wide Three Minute Thesis competition

All SSoE News, Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (March 29, 2019) … The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition, developed by The University of Queensland, helps higher degree students hone their research communication skills by challenging them to effectively explain their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience. The University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering held a school-wide event where the Department of Bioengineering swept all three awards. Piyusha Gade, a graduate student researcher in the lab of Dr. Anne Robertson, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, captured first place. Her work involves rationally designing in situ engineered vascular grafts in young and aged hosts. “I think effective science communication is extremely vital,” said Gade. “Especially today, it is not enough to just do good scientific work; you also need to communicate its relevance and impact to really make a change. Being a part of this competition helped me to take a step back and look at the big picture to understand where my work fits into it. I loved trying to figure out how to boil down five years worth of research into three minutes!” Gerald Ferrer, a graduate student in the Orthopaedic Robotics Lab helmed by Bioengineering Professor Richard Debski, tied for second place with Aneesh Ramaswamy, a graduate student in the Vascular Bioengineering Lab of David Vorp, Associate Dean for Research and John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering. 3MT is designed to encourage students to communicate the importance of their research to the broader community. Since its launch in 2008, the 3MT competition has expanded to 67 countries, and events are currently held at more than 600 universities worldwide. This was the first time that the Swanson School hosted its own prequalifying event. Gade will move on to the university-wide competition on April 1, and the winner of the university competition will go on to compete in the 2019 Trans-Tasman 3MT Competition. “The Three Minute Thesis competition provided an excellent opportunity for our graduate students to reflect on their work and strengthen their ability to clearly and effectively communicate their research,” said Mary Besterfield-Sacre, Nickolas A. Dececco Professor of Industrial Engineering and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. “These professional development activities help inspire our students to pursue academic excellence, and I look forward to holding this event again next year.” ###

Sound sense: Brain 'listens' for distinctive features in sounds

Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (March 26, 2019) … For humans to achieve accurate speech recognition and communicate with one another, the auditory system must recognize distinct categories of sounds - such as words - from a continuous incoming stream of sounds. This task becomes complicated when considering the variability in sounds produced by individuals with different accents, pitches, or intonations. In a recent Nature Communications paper, Shi Tong Liu, a bioengineering PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, details a computational model that explores how the auditory system tackles this complex task. The research is led by Srivatsun Sadagopan, assistant professor of neurobiology, whose lab studies the perception of complex sounds in realistic listening conditions. “A ‘word’ may be pronounced in different ways by different voices, but you are still able to lump all of these utterances into a category (a specific word) with a distinct meaning,” said Sadagopan. “In this study, we examined how the brain achieves this by using animal calls as a greatly simplified model system. Vocal animal species such as marmosets, macaques, and guinea pigs produce several types of calls which carry distinct behavioral ‘meanings,’ but they also face the problem that different animals produce these calls with a lot of variability.” The published paper, “Optimal features for auditory categorization” (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09115-y), focuses on vocalizations of the common marmoset. Xiaoqin Wang, professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, provided a large set of marmoset vocalizations that captured the wide range of variability in these sounds. The team then used information theory and a “greedy” search algorithm to find features of each vocalization type that consistently occurred despite all of the variability. Their strategy was to select a set of features that jointly maximized performance, but avoid features that were too similar to each other. “We fed our algorithm a bank of marmoset calls and asked it to find the most informative and consistently recognizable features,” explained Liu. “The final output was a set of ‘most informative features’ that are characteristic to a particular call type - much like the distinguishing features of a face (e.g. finding eyes or a nose in an image). By detecting the presence or absence of these most informative features in incoming sounds, the model can identify the vocalization type with very high accuracy.” After the features were shown to be effective in the theoretical model, the team returned to the animals to test if the brain was in fact looking for these informative features. They found interesting results when they compared data from their model to neural responses recorded from marmoset auditory cortex by Sadagopan when he was a graduate student in Xiaoqin Wang’s lab. “The neural evidence supports our model, which means it can be used as a solid foundation for future studies,” said Liu. “Our model gives powerful and accurate predictions of what the brain is listening for in vocalizations. This research has applications in advancing speech recognition technology and auditory prostheses, and I plan to use this work to better understand how the brain can isolate relevant sounds in crowded spaces.” The team’s work was supported by research grants from the National Institutes on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), the Pennsylvania Lions Hearing Research Foundation, and the Samuel and Emma Winters Foundation. ###

Pitt researchers receive $550,000 NSF CAREER award to develop new brain-computer therapy method for people with autism

Bioengineering, Electrical & Computer

PITTSBURGH (March 21, 2019) … Autism was first described by U.S. researchers more than 70 years ago, and today the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 1 in 59 children are identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), affecting more than 3.5 million Americans. Although clinical techniques are used to help patients with ASD respond to stress and other factors, none are known to couple with technology that could monitor brain response in real time and provide the patient with feedback. However, thanks to a $550,000 award from the National Science Foundation, engineers at the University of Pittsburgh and clinicians at the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, a new intervention using electroencephalography (EEG)-guided, non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) technology could complement clinical treatments and improve emotion regulation in people with ASD. The multidisciplinary team includes Murat Akcakaya, PhD, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, and Carla A. Mazefsky, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology in Pitt’s Department of Psychiatry. The proposal is funded through an NSF CAREER award, which supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.“People on the autism spectrum today have access to effective clinical strategies or technologies, but none are coupled effectively to provide real-time feedback in real-life activities. This limits reinforcement techniques that the patient can utilize on his or her own, without the need for a clinical appointment,” Dr. Akcakaya explained. “However, by utilizing EEG to couple clinical techniques with BCI technologies, we can develop a closed-loop system that will help patients better learn how to recognize emotional triggers and respond with appropriate techniques generalizing the effects of clinical treatment strategies to real-life activities.” Akcakaya and Mazefsky will develop social interaction scenarios in virtual environments while recording EEG responses simultaneously in order to detect patterns that represent changes in distress levels. The virtual scenario will then present audio or visual cues to help remind them how to handle stress. The project will also develop new machine learning algorithms and neuroscience methods to identify EEG features associated with emotion regulation to classify between distress and non-distress conditions, and to distinguish among different distress levels.The two will also investigate the promise of these EEG and virtual reality approaches within the context of Mazefsky’s randomized controlled clinical trial funded by the US Department of Defense. The clinical trial is testing the efficacy of an intervention Mazefsky and colleagues developed, called the Emotion Awareness and Skills Enhancement (EASE) program, in 12- to 21-year-old verbal youth with ASD. “EASE emphasizes awareness of one’s own emotional responses as a foundational skill that promotes the ability to manage intense negative emotions, which is taught through mindful awareness,” Mazefsky explained. “By coupling the clinical strategies we teach in EASE with technological interventions, we believe we can enhance patients’ ability to distinguish different distress levels and therefore potentially reap even greater (and more generalized) benefit.”The CAREER award will also enable Akcakaya to develop courses related to the research and outreach activities to promote STEM and ASD research to K-12 populations and the broader public. Outreach will focus especially on individuals with ASD, their families, and caretakers.  “Early diagnosis and intervention can help patients with ASD and their families improve quality of life, and so providing clinicians with a new tool that both enhances and reinforces what patients learn is critical to closing the loop between triggers and responses,” Akcakaya said. “Additionally machine learning based on biological responses could also be integrated in to the existing technologically driven intervention techniques targeting patients across the autism spectrum.  Eventually, the technology could be incorporated in an accessory like a smart watch or glasses, enhancing patient privacy and building confidence.” ###

Pitt Bioengineering Graduate Students Take Their “Smarter Cardiac Triage” Technology to the Rice Business Plan Competition

Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (March 20, 2019) … More than 400 student startups applied to the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition, and only 42 teams were selected from the world’s top institutions to compete for over $1,500,000 in prizes. Among this elite group of teams will be Heart I/O, a digital diagnostics startup led by University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering graduate students Utkars Jain and Adam Butchy. Their “smarter cardiac triage” technology uses artificial intelligence to detect problems with a patient’s heart more quickly and accurately at a fraction of the cost of current technology. The Heart I/O team includes four co-founders: Mr. Jain, a bioengineering graduate student and the chief executive officer; Mr. Butchy, a bioengineering graduate student and the chief strategy officer; Michael Leasure, a Pitt School of Business alumnus and the chief operating officer; and Nick Flanigan, a business student at Carnegie Mellon University and the chief technology officer. “When an individual reports to the hospital with chest pain, they enter triage, which determines treatment based on the severity of presented symptoms,” explained Butchy. “Using artificial intelligence to read an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal, our technology will more efficiently determine if the patient is experiencing a serious cardiac event in a mere 10 seconds - a vast improvement from the current process, which can take 8-72 hours for a diagnosis.” The Heart I/O technology feeds ECG signals to an artificial intelligence model, which takes the delivered data, learns from it, and determines the most efficient pattern recognition based on what it has learned. In time, the computer trains itself on how to diagnose cardiac events from an ECG. Their inexpensive and cloud-based tool will help emergency providers rapidly and effectively sort patients that need further diagnostic testing from those who can be safely discharged. “Heart I/O is the result of a class project during my undergraduate studies at Pitt,” said Jain. “ECGs are one of the first tests that patients reporting with chest pain receive, and I thought that if I could equip ECGs with the computational power of artificial intelligence, I could improve the accuracy of diagnoses.” Jain’s grandfather, who passed away from the misdiagnosis of a cardiac event, was the inspiration for this project. “When my grandfather reported to the hospital with chest pain, physicians assumed it was a heart attack and prescribed blood thinners,” explained Jain. “This caused an ulcer to burst, and he died almost instantly. If they had more information about whether or not he was actually experiencing a cardiac event, it might have saved his life.” The team tested their technology by feeding it a collection of ECG data to see if the computational results matched the actual diagnosis. Based on their studies, their tool is currently 95-97 percent accurate. “Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, which also makes it one of the most costly,” said Butchy. “Not only will our tool help save lives, but it will also save money for patients and insurance providers.” Before heading to the Rice Business Plan competition, the Heart I/O team will participate in the Innovation Institute’s Randall Family Big Idea Competition, an event that awards $100,000 in cash prizes to Pitt student innovations with the goal of helping teams discover how to take their idea to the next level towards startup creation. The team plans to continue developing their technology and raising money with the hope of eventually moving their tool toward commercialization. ### Acknowledgement: Heart I/O would like to thank all the great minds and leaders at the Innovation Institute. In particular, Babs Carryer for her endless enthusiasm, support, and guidance; Joanna Sutton for being an early sounding board, really refining a lot of our ideas to what they are today; Philip Marzolf for all his work with us on our Rice application, Don Morrison for his feedback on revenue models and commercialization; Ketaki Desai for her incredible insight into the healthcare market; and Jess Malandro for all the work she does behind the scenes. In addition, Heart I/O has had the support of many University of Pittsburgh students who have contributed their time, effort, and passion to making Heart I/O into a reality. In particular, Katherine Poduska, a senior Bioengineering student; Mazen Megahed, a sophomore Mechanical engineering student; and Adam Duca, a junior in Rehabilitation Science and Assistive Technology. Lastly, Heart I/O would like to thank, Matt Kesinger, John Cordier, and Lou Camerlengo for their endless patience with revisions, guidance, and support; John Marous, a great mentor who is helping us through the commercialization process; and Dr. Veronica Covalesky and Dr. Emerson Liu,  great physicians helping us with clinical studies and overall medical knowledge.

BioE’s Brown Lab Receives Two Carnegie Science Award Honorable Mentions

Bioengineering, Student Profiles

PITTSBURGH (March 19, 2019) … Bryan Brown, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, and Alexis Nolfi, a graduate student researcher in Brown’s lab, were recognized by the Carnegie Science Awards, announced on March 13 by the Carnegie Science Center. Brown received an honorable mention for the for the Post-secondary Educator Award, and Nolfi received an honorable mention for the College/University Student Award. The Post-secondary Educator Award recognizes educators for innovation and impact in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, including: inspiring students to understand, appreciate, and apply science, technology, engineering, or math; and strengthening the teaching profession through the spread of innovative practices. Brown, who joined the Department of Bioengineering in 2011, has mentored two visiting scholars/junior faculty, four post-doctoral fellows, nine PhD students, and one MS student. He has taught three distinct courses, with a total of 13 course offerings. He is also a member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where he serves as the Director of Educational Outreach. In July 2014, Brown organized and launched the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine Summer School, a hands-on experiential learning program that aims to provide regional, national, and international students an opportunity to explore the multidisciplinary field of regenerative medicine. Through lectures and laboratory experiences, undergraduate students have the opportunity to interact with more than 20 faculty members from across the University. A goal for this program is to recruit students from underrepresented backgrounds, including those from universities that lack significant bioengineering and/or regenerative medicine programs. “We want to reach a diverse audience of students and help them develop a better understanding of the field and career options within regenerative medicine,” said Brown. In addition to the summer camp, Brown also started a course on regenerative medicine through the Carnegie Mellon University Osher Center for Lifelong Learning. “The Osher course, which continues to be well attended every semester, targets continuing learners and is intended to make the possibilities of regenerative medicine understandable to a lay population,” said Brown. “Dr. Brown’s educational outreach efforts have improved awareness and understanding of the University’s world class regenerative medicine efforts,” said Sanjeev Shroff, Distinguished Professor and Gerald E. McGinnis Chair of Bioengineering. “His work with our graduate students and the McGowan Institute Summer School helps to build the nascent careers of future engineers and innovators.” The student award recognizes an individual working towards a degree in a STEM field, for impact and innovation: preparing youth to consider career opportunities in STEM fields and pursuing research that contributes to the societal or economic well-being of the region. Nolfi is involved in numerous projects centered on how the immune system is involved in the pathogenesis of disease and how we can modify immune response to biomaterials and with biomaterials-based approaches. Much of her work has a distinct focus in women’s health applications, including a polypropylene mesh often used in pelvic surgery and a novel ovarian hydrogel that could one day be used to generate a tissue-appropriate model of endometriosis. “Since joining Dr. Brown’s lab, I have realized that the immune system is really at the core of most disease processes,” said Nolfi. “It’s not that we are trying to ‘turn off’ the immune response to biomaterials or in disease; rather, we are trying to harness and modify this response so that we can engage the body to help us generate better outcomes. “This research is incredibly important to me - aside from having a vested interest in women’s health initiatives, the field of basic science research in women’s health topics is underserved by the biomaterials and regenerative medicine community,” continued Nolfi. “This research helps to shine light on topics deserving of more attention, and the experimental findings and developments will be applicable to not only biomaterials-based urogynecologic applications, but also to furthering advancement of other biomaterial and immunology-based fields.” ###

Renerva Receives $2.4 Million DoD Award to Advance Its Peripheral Nerve Matrix Technology to the Clinic

Bioengineering

Renerva, LLC, a medical device company whose technology is based on research from the University of Pittsburgh (Bryan Brown) and Cornell University (Jonathan Cheetham), received a $2.4 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense.Click here to read the original article. PITTSBURGH, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --  Renerva, LLC, a medical device company developing innovative technology for peripheral nerve injuries, announced today that they have received $2.4 million in nondilutive financing from the U.S. Department of Defense through a Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) Award (https://mtec-sc.org/press-releases/). Renerva's first product, peripheral nerve matrix (PNM), is an injectable gel derived from porcine tissue that promotes and supports repair and regeneration in injured peripheral nerves. The award will enable Renerva to complete its preclinical program and begin human clinical trials. PNM has the potential to play a significant role in accelerating and improving structural and functional recovery following different modalities of nerve injury. "Remarkably, based on the impact shown in several animal studies, PNM has the potential to return functionality to patients that are left otherwise disabled from different types of nerve injury," noted Chief Technology Officer Dr. Bryan Brown, who holds equity in the company and also serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Renerva's PNM technology is based on 4 years of research in Dr. Brown's laboratory and the laboratory of Dr. Jonathan Cheetham, Associate Professor of Clinical Sciences at Cornell University and Chair of Renerva's Scientific Advisory Board.  PNM is protected by five patents licensed from the University of Pittsburgh and Cornell University. "With 20 million patients suffering from different types of peripheral nerve injuries in the U.S. alone, our technology has the potential to treat a broad range of nerve injuries. A peripheral nerve surgeon enthusiastically called PNM the 'Neosporin® of Nerve Repair', hinting at its broad potential and widespread adoption," said Lorenzo Soletti, PhD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Renerva. "Our commercial rollout will first focus on PNM as an adjunct treatment for existing surgical procedures to repair or release traumatically or chronically injured peripheral nerves. That market will then be expanded to treat patients affected by nerve injury through ultrasound or image-guided delivery of PNM to the affected nerves." Renerva's Chief Medical Officer, Paul Gardner, MD, said, "While our initial clinical focus for PNM is in the upper extremities, which are associated with the highest incidence of traumatic nerve injuries, I treat many patients affected by nerve injuries in the head and neck as a result of tumors, traumatic injuries and other conditions. Facial nerve injuries have a very debilitating social impact on patients as the face is so intimately involved in our nonverbal communication and appearance. Indeed, nerve injury affects everything from facial sensation to swallowing and speech.  Giving these patients even a portion of their function back would make a world of difference. Enhancing the ability of a nerve to heal would represent a true paradigm shift in this space." Dr. Gardner holds equity in the company and is an Associate Professor in the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery and the Executive Vice Chair of Surgical Services and Neurosurgical Director of the UPMC Center for Cranial Base Surgery. "Renerva combines solid IP and innovative science with broad applicability to several clinical applications, and has a management team that has the experience, dedication, and passion to bring this technology to patients," said Pete DeComo, Chairman and CEO of ALung Technologies, Inc. and member of Renerva's Board of Managers. "Renerva has a platform core technology with the potential to ameliorate several conditions of the peripheral nerve system in a space ripe for adoption of new therapeutic solutions." About Renerva, LLC.Renerva is a medical device company developing solutions for peripheral nerve injuries and damage. Renerva's initial therapeutic focus is on the 500,000 Americans suffering from acute nerve injuries every year, with other indications including the treatment of chronic compressive nerve injuries and other conditions affecting the peripheral nerves. Privately held, Renerva is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To learn more or stay in touch, please visit www.renerva.com. About MTECMTEC is a biomedical technology consortium collaborating with multiple government agencies under a 10-year renewable Other Transaction Agreement with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.  To find out more about MTEC, visit mtec-sc.org. Media Contact InformationLorenzo Soletti(412) 841-7966206433@email4pr.com Related Links https://www.renerva.com
Renerva, LLC

2019 Carnegie Science Awards include six honorees from the Swanson School of Engineering

Bioengineering, Civil & Environmental

PITTSBURGH (March 12, 2019) ... Each year, Carnegie Science Center celebrates some of the Pittsburgh region’s most inspiring science and technology innovators with the Carnegie Science Awards. Today, the Science Center announced the recipient of the Chairman’s Award and the winners and honorable mentions in 16 categories, who will be celebrated at the 23rd Annual Carnegie Science Awards Celebration on Friday, May 10, 2019. Carnegie Science Award winners are selected by a committee of peers—both past awardees and industry leaders—who rigorously reviewed more than 200 nominations and selected the most deserving scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, communicators, educators, and students whose contributions have led to significant economic or societal benefit in western Pennsylvania. This year’s exceptional innovators include a tuition-free technical education program that has connected thousands of unemployed and underemployed individuals to a job and living wage; a graduate student who trains residents in under-served neighborhoods to identify environmental concerns in their homes; a team that created an open-source database that will assist research teams in taking energy-saving action to reduce methane leaks; and the fastest-growing food recovery organization in the country whose app brings fresh food to those who need it most. “The Carnegie Science Awards provide an opportunity to celebrate the remarkably talented individuals and organizations in our region’s science community,” said Jason Brown, Henry Buhl, Jr., Interim Director of Carnegie Science Center. “These innovators have had immeasurable impact on Pittsburgh’s healthcare, manufacturing, energy, environmental, and education industries. Their achievements, dedication, and perseverance are truly inspiring.” Winners and honorable mentions along with three student winners who will be selected later this month at the Covestro Pittsburgh Regional Science & Engineering Fair, will be honored during the 23rd Annual Carnegie Science Awards Celebration at Carnegie Science Center on Friday, May 10, 2019. The Swanson School recipients include: Life Sciences: Dr. William J. Federspiel, William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh Dr. Federspiel is an internationally recognized pioneer, innovator, and technical expert in the medical devices arena. His research has led to the design and development of novel artificial lung devices, membrane and particle-based blood purification devices, and oxygen depletion devices for blood storage systems. His success lies in his commitment to ensure that each project begins with and is supported by a strong foundation in life science and engineering. His contributions have strengthened Pittsburgh’s stance as a hub for medical device development and manufacturing, and his work has led to the formation of new companies that provide more than 50 high-tech jobs to the Western Pennsylvania region. Leadership in Career and Technical Education: University of Pittsburgh Manufacturing Assistance Center Since 1994, the University of Pittsburgh Manufacturing Assistance Center (MAC) has connected thousands of people with meaningful careers in manufacturing. The programs at MAC are accelerated and often available at no cost to the students, so unemployed and underemployed individuals can be connected to a job and a living wage in as little as six weeks. In addition, MAC has strengthened career pathways for high school students across Southwestern Pennsylvania by offering certification opportunities to partnering high schools and career and technical centers. With the opening of the MAC Makerspace in 2018, MAC has provided a place for future manufacturers to engage with technological tools and resources that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. College/University Student: Harold Rickenbacker, Swanson School Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation While pursuing his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, Harold has integrated engineering and environmental justice with community-based organizations to address the pressing issue of indoor and ambient air quality in under-served Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Through an initiative in Pittsburgh’s East End called the Environmental Justice Community Alert Matrix, Harold led trainings to provide over 200 residents with the technical knowledge to identify environmental concerns within their homes, while detailing the importance of addressing environmental sustainability at the nexus of water use, energy consumption, and air pollution. Harold is committed to paying it forward, and his efforts are improving the health and quality of life of the communities he works with for years to come. Honorable Mentions: Postsecondary Educator – Bryan Brown, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering College/University Student – Alexis Nolfi BSBioE ‘11 BSPsych ‘11, Department of Bioengineering PhD Candidate Science Communicator – Paul Kovach, Director of Marketing and Communications, Swanson School of Engineering About Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh Established in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is a collection of four distinctive museums: Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and The Andy Warhol Museum. In 2017, the museums reached more than 1.4 million people through exhibitions, educational programs, outreach activities, and special events. ###
Kaitlyn Zurcher, Carnegie Science Center Senior Manager of Marketing

BioE Alumna Sossena Wood Featured on NBC

Bioengineering

Reposted from PittWire. Read the original here. Sossena Wood, a Pitt alumna twice over who most recently earned a Doctor of Philosophy in bioengineering in 2018, developed a realistic phantom head for magnetic resonance research while at the Swanson School of Engineering. Now, Wood and her research are featured in NBC News Learn’s new online video collection “Discovering You: Engineering Your World.” Debuting during National Engineers Week, which runs through Feb. 23, the series highlights the careers of engineers in a variety of sectors and offers insights to the next generation of students. The video segment on Wood’s research delves into her work while she was a doctoral student at Pitt. She is now a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. Read more about her work and watch the NBC segment.

Pitt Bioengineers Create Ultrasmall, Light-Activated Electrode for Neural Stimulation

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (February 15, 2019) … Neural stimulation is a developing technology that has beneficial therapeutic effects in neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease. While many advancements have been made, the implanted devices deteriorate over time and cause scarring in neural tissue. In a recently published paper, the University of Pittsburgh’s Takashi D. Y. Kozai detailed a less invasive method of stimulation that would use an untethered ultrasmall electrode activated by light, a technique that may mitigate damage done by current methods. “Typically with neural stimulation, in order to maintain the connection between mind and machine, there is a transcutaneous cable from the implanted electrode inside of the brain to a controller outside of the body,” said Kozai, an assistant professor of bioengineering in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering. “Movement of the brain or this tether leads to inflammation, scarring, and other negative side effects. We hope to reduce some of the damage by replacing this large cable with long wavelength light and an ultrasmall, untethered electrode.” Kaylene Stocking, a senior bioengineering and computer engineering student, was first author on the paper titled, “Intracortical neural stimulation with untethered, ultrasmall carbon fiber electrodes mediated by the photoelectric effect” (DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2018.2889832). She works with Kozai’s group - the Bionic Lab - to investigate how researchers can improve the longevity of neural implant technology. This work was done in collaboration with Alberto Vasquez, research associate professor of radiology and bioengineering at Pitt. The photoelectric effect is when a particle of light, or a photon, hits an object and causes a local change in the electrical potential. Kozai’s group discovered its advantages while performing other imaging research. Based on Einstein's 1905 publication on this effect, they expected to see electrical photocurrents only at ultraviolet wavelengths (high energy photons), but they experienced something different. “When the photoelectric effect contaminated our electrophysiological recording while imaging with a near-infrared laser (low energy photons), we were a little surprised,” explained Kozai. “It turned out that the original equation had to be modified in order to explain this outcome. We tried numerous strategies to eliminate this photoelectric artifact, but were unsuccessful in each attempt, so we turned the ‘bug’ into a ‘feature.’” “Our group decided to use this feature of the photoelectric effect to our advantage in neural stimulation,” said Stocking. “We used the change in electrical potential with a near-infrared laser to activate an untethered electrode in the brain.” The lab created a carbon fiber implant that is 7-8 microns in diameter, or roughly the size of a neuron (17-27 microns), and Stocking simulated their method on a phantom brain using a two-photon microscope. She measured the properties and analyzed the effects to see if the electrical potential from the photoelectric effect stimulated the cells in a way similar to traditional neural stimulation. “We discovered that photostimulation is effective,” said Stocking. “Temperature increases were not significant, which lowers the chance of heat damage, and activated cells were closer to the electrode than in electrical stimulation under similar conditions, which indicates increased spatial precision.” The lab recently showed how electrical stimulation frequency can activate different populations of neurons. “What we didn’t expect to see was that this photoelectric method of stimulation allows us to stimulate a different and more discrete population of neurons than could be achieved with electrical stimulation.” said Kozai, “This gives researchers another tool in their toolbox to explore neural circuits in the nervous system. “We’ve had numerous critics who did not have faith in the mathematical modifications that were made to Einstein’s original photoelectric equation, but we believed in the approach and even filed a patent application” (patent pending:US20170326381A1), said Kozai. “This is a testament to Kaylene’s hard work and diligence to take a theory and turn it into a well-controlled validation of the technology.” Kozai’s group is currently looking further into other opportunities to advance this technology, including reaching deeper tissue and wireless drug delivery. Stocking anticipates  graduating in April 2019 and plans to pursue a doctoral degree. She said, “The University of Pittsburgh has amazing resources that have allowed me to gain meaningful research experience as an undergraduate, and I’m grateful to Dr. Kozai and the Department of Bioengineering for giving me the opportunity to do impactful work.” ###

Making a Mark on Cardiovascular Disease Detection

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (February 12, 2019) … According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the number one cause of death in the United States.1 Conditions for cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease leading to heart failure, are clinically silent until serious complications arise, and current diagnostic tools are unreliable, time consuming, and expensive. Moni K. Datta, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, received a $300,000 award from the Department of Defense to develop a quicker, simpler, and more reliable diagnostic technology related to cardiomyopathy so that the signs of disease can be spotted and treated earlier. One method currently applied to cardiovascular disease diagnosis is biochemical marker testing, using only bodily fluids or tissues to search for substances that signal disease or other abnormalities. The goal of this project, “Novel Aptamer-Based Biosensor Platforms for Detection of Cardiomyopathy Conditions,” is to create a tool that more efficiently senses and detects various essential cardiac biomarkers in the bloodstream. This work has previously received funding from the Department of Bioengineering’s Coulter Program as well as the Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Translational Research Pilot Award. Prashant N. Kumta, Edward R. Weidlein Chair and Distinguished Professor of bioengineering, chemical and petroleum engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, and professor of oral biology in the School of Dental Medicine, is co-investigator on the project with Robert L. Kormas, Brack G. Hattler Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Datta said, “Dr. Kumta has extensive experience related to materials functionalization and generation of materials platforms for detection and sensing of biological markers while Dr. Robert Kormas is a renowned cardiologist and an expert in understanding the cardiac biomarkers connected to various cardiovascular diseases.” The group will develop a portable biosensor specific to the cardiac biomarkers using only a few drops of blood to detect and provide the levels within minutes. “The design will include a vertical array of metallic wires functionalized with biological sensing agents, namely the aptamer specific to binding the relevant cardiac biomarkers in the blood,” said Datta. “The resulting platform will measure the change in overall resistance due to the binding of the specific cardiac biomarker to the sensing element. The developed biosensors are extremely sensitive to the resistance changes and as a result, will accurately measure the levels of relevant cardiac markers in the blood, thereby serving as an effective measuring device.” Current biochemical marker assays in hospitals and clinics are benchtop machines that lack portability and require expensive instrumentation and training. Datta’s design will be optimized for precision, reliability, and portability, making biochemical marker testing more accessible in hospitals, emergency room settings, ambulances, and perhaps even at home. “This device will allow patients and clinicians to screen for and circumvent cardiovascular diseases at early stages, thus reducing the cardiovascular disease risk and eventual healthcare costs,” said Datta. “Development of this biosensor will create a simple, inexpensive, and efficient point-of-contact device. We hope to eventually make this versatile technology useful for detection and monitoring disease conditions outside of cardiovascular disease states.” ### 1 According to the AHA… https://www.heart.org/-/media/data-import/downloadables/heart-disease-and-stroke-statistics-2018---at-a-glance-ucm_498848.pdf

Pitt’s Center for Medical Innovation awards five novel biomedical projects with $60,000 in Round-2 2018 Pilot Funding

All SSoE News, Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (January 29, 2019) … The University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Medical Innovation (CMI) awarded grants totaling $60,000 to three research groups through its 2018 Round-2 Pilot Funding Program for Early Stage Medical Technology Research and Development. The latest funding proposals include a new drug-eluting contact lens for treatment of dry eye disease, a new method of measuring ocular changes in glaucoma, and a new instrument for management of ketogenic diets. CMI, a University Center housed in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering (SSOE), supports applied technology projects in the early stages of development with “kickstart” funding toward the goal of transitioning the research to clinical adoption. Proposals are evaluated on the basis of scientific merit, technical and clinical relevance, potential health care impact and significance, experience of the investigators, and potential in obtaining further financial investment to translate the particular solution to healthcare. This is our eighth year of pilot funding, and our leadership team could not be more excited with the breadth and depth of this round’s awardees,” said Alan D. Hirschman, PhD, CMI Executive Director. “This early-stage interdisciplinary research helps to develop highly specific biomedical technologies through a proven strategy of linking UPMC’s clinicians and surgeons with the Swanson School’s engineering faculty.”AWARD 1:  “Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Coating for Delivery of IL-4 from Contact Lenses for Dry Eye Disease” For the development of a drug-eluting contact lens for treatment of chronic “dry eye” disease.Bryan Brown, PhD, Assistant Professor, Depts. of Bioengineering, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences; McGowan Institute for Regenerative MedicineVishal Jhanji, MD, FRCSG, FRCOphth, Professor of Ophthalmology, Cornea, External Eye Diseases and Refractive Surgery Services, UPMC Eye Center Mangesh Kulkarni, MD, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and department of Bioengineering AWARD 2: “On the quantitative analysis of a new tonometer to manage/prevent glaucoma” For the development of a novel pulse wave device for measurement of ocular tissue characteristics in the detection and treatment of glaucoma.Piervincenzo Rizzo, PhD, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of PittsburghIan A. Sigal, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Eye & Ear InstituteIan Conner, PhD, MD, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Pittsburgh AWARD 3: “Acetone Breathalyzer for Monitoring the Ketogenic State” For the development of a cost-effective, rapid acetone “breath-alayzer” for clinical and consumer usage in ketogenic diets.Sung Kwon Cho, PhD, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Swanson School of EngineeringDavid Rometo, MD, Div of Endocrinology and Metabolism, U of Pittsburgh Medical CenterDavid Finegold, MD,  Department of Human Genetics, Graduate School of Public HealthAlex Star, PhD,  Department of Chemistry, Dietrich School of Arts and Science ### About the University of Pittsburgh Center for Medical InnovationThe Center for Medical Innovation is a collaboration among the Swanson School of Engineering, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Innovation Institute, and the Coulter Translational Research Partnership II (CTRP). CMI was established in 2011 to promote the application and development of innovative biomedical technologies to clinical problems; to educate the next generation of innovators in cooperation with the schools of Engineering, Health Sciences, Business, and Law; and to facilitate the translation of innovative biomedical technologies into marketable products and services. Over 60 early-stage projects have been supported by CMI with a total investment of over $1.2 million since inception. Nine companies have been formed to commercialize these early stage University of Pittsburgh technologies.
Alan Hirschman, PhD Executive Director, CMI

Changing Frequencies: Pitt Bioengineers Look Deeper Into How Electrical Stimulation Activates Neurons

Bioengineering

PITTSBURGH (January 7, 2019) … Electrical stimulation of the brain is common practice in neuroscience research and is an increasingly common and effective clinical therapy for a variety of neurological disorders. However, there is limited understanding of why this treatment works at the neural level.  A paper published by Takashi D. Y. Kozai, assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, addresses gaps in knowledge over the activation and inactivation of neural elements that affect the desired responses to neuromodulation. The article, “Calcium activation of cortical neurons by continuous electrical stimulation: Frequency dependence, temporal fidelity, and activation density” (DOI: 10.1002/jnr.24370), was published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research. Co-investigator is Kip Ludwig, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For this study, Kozai’s group - the BIONIC Lab - used in vivo two-photon microscopy to capture neuronal calcium activity in the somatosensory cortex during 30 seconds of continuous electrical stimulation at varying frequencies. They imaged the population of neurons surrounding the implanted electrode and discovered that frequency played a role in neural activation - a finding that conflicted with earlier studies. “Electrical stimulation has a large number of parameters that can be used to activate neurons, such as amplitude, pulsewidth, waveform shapes, and frequency,” explained Kozai. “This makes it difficult to compare studies because different stimulation parameters are used in other studies. Based on the parameters that were previously employed, it was thought that activation occurs in a sphere centered around the electrode where neurons near the electrode would activate more than neurons far from the electrode. “Recent research, however, shows that stimulation mostly activates distant neurons whose axons are very close to the electrode by transmitting action potentials backward to the neuron cell body,” he continued. “We demonstrate that both of these things can be true depending on stimulation frequency and duration.” According to Kozai, the fact that researchers can use varying stimulation parameters to activate different neurons in the same location has huge implications in basic science research. The findings will allow them to activate different neural circuits with the same implant to elicit different behaviors. Beyond its research applications, Kozai believes that this knowledge may also help in clinical settings. “Empirical evidence in the field suggests that frequency plays a role in deep brain stimulation, but the why and how have puzzled scientists since the beginning,” said Kozai. “This research is a first glimpse into understanding the mechanisms underlying the role of frequency in clinical therapies. In the long-term, this research could also give insight on how to activate distinct glial and vascular populations, which could have a prolonged impact on behavior, attention, and tissue regeneration.” Kozai believes that more research needs to be done to understand neuronal activation properties and hopes that this work will lead to new tools in neuroscience and improved neuromodulation therapy by explaining why electrical stimulation produces its effective responses. ###