Congrats to Physics Graduate Student Sonal Singh

Congrats to Physics Graduate Student Sonal Singh

SonalCongratulations to Sonal Singh and co-authors for their recently accepted manuscript. The paper entitled ”Spatially Controlled Fabrication of Brightly Fluorescent Nanodiamond-Array with Enhanced Far-Red Si-V Luminescence” (by Sonal Singh, Vinoy Thomas, Dmitri Martyshkin, Veronika Kozlovskaya, Eugenia Kharlampieva, and Shane Catledge) will appear in the JournalNanotechnology. The paper will be available online to readers at http://iopscience.org/. This work demonstrates a novel approach to precisely pattern fluorescent nanodiamond-arrays with enhanced far-red intense photostable luminescence from silicon-vacancy (Si-V) defect centers.The precision-patterned pre-growth seeding of nanodiamonds is achieved by a scanning probe “Dip-Pen” nanolithography technique using electrostatically-driven transfer of nanodiamonds from “inked” cantilevers. The enhanced emission from nanodiamond-dots in the far-red is achieved by incorporating Si-V defect centers in subsequent chemical vapor deposition treatment. The authors anticipate that the far-red intense photostable luminescence (~738 nm) observed from Si-V defect centers integrated in spatially arranged nanodiamonds could be beneficial for the development of the next generation fluorescent based devices and applications.

2015 NanoBio Summit


2015 NanoBio Summit @ UAB

BigBanner-03Registration for the 2015 NanoBio Summit @ UAB is now open.  This will be  the 3rd Annual NanoBio Summit and we are looking forward to another successful event.  Areas of focus at the Summit include: nanobioscience, nanoengineering, collaboration, discovery, and commercialization. The Summit will provide opportunities to accelerate new research and educational collaborations while focusing on the latest research findings, innovations, and implementations of nanotechnology.

Harsh Patel Recognized as BME Outstanding Graduate Student

Harsh Patel Recognized as BME Outstanding Graduate Student

Harsh_Patel-croppedCongratulations to BME graduate, Harsh Patel for being recognized by the Biomedical Engineering Department for outstanding graduate student of the year.  Harsh has also won outstanding graduate student for the UAB School of Engineering.

Patel’s dissertation project title is “Bio-hybrid Tubular Electrospun Scaffold for Vascular Tissue Engineering”. He has received numerous honors and scholarships while also taking on a variety of leadership roles. During his time at UAB, Harsh has received the ALSAM Bridge to Doctorate fellowship, the Ireland Research Travel Scholarship, and a 2014 Graduate Student Association travel grant.

For his research, he has received the first placed award for the oral presentation at UAB’s 2013 graduate student research day. Harsh has presented his research in many local and national level conferences such as TERMIS. Harsh has mentored many undergraduate students and helped them to learn polymer characterizations techniques. Harsh has published as a first author a research journal article and a review book chapter during his PhD. Harsh is also co-authored on a published journal article. Harsh served as the 2012-2013 president of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student organization (BMEGS) at UAB. He also chaired the 2013 UAB Biomedical Engineering Symposium. Harsh is a member of Tissue Engineering International and regenerative medicine society, biomedical engineering society, Alpha Epsilon Delta pre-health honors society, and Tau Beta Pi honors engineering society.

Dr. Vinoy Thomas on Tenure Track

Vinoy_ThomasDr. Vinoy Thomas, a UAB CNMB member has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor Faculty appointment in the UAB Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His new position began on February 1, 2015. Dr. Thomas has been working in many projects on Nanomaterials, Biomaterials and Polymeric Materials for Medical and Composite applications between UAB CNMB as a Research Scientist and the Department of Materials Science & Engineering as a Research Assistant Professor.

He started to work on the electrospinning technology for polymeric nanofiber scaffolds at UAB in the beginning of 2005 and continues his efforts on the basic and developmental aspects to integrate the nanofibers in Medical and Healthcare Devices in his new lab for Healthcare Materials & Devices at BEC 361.  His R&D works on Nano-biomaterials and 3D Printing fabrication blended with Materials Chemistry, and Structure- Property Relationships in functional polymeric materials spans different research units in the campus including Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Center for Nanoscale Materials & Bio-integration (CNMB), Materials Processing & Applications Development (MPAD) Center and School of Medicine.   Dr. Thomas teaches undergraduate and graduate courses related to Polymeric Materials, Polymer Characterization, and Nanomaterials etc.  He is also in charge of the polymer characterization facility at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering.

2014 REU Danna Nozik Takes 1st Place at AIChE Conference

2014 REU Danna Nozik Takes 1st Place at AIChE Conference

Danna Nozik - Transparent
Dana Nozik

Congratulations to 2014 REU Danna Nozik.  Danna won first place at the 2014  AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) poster competition in the category of Materials Engineering and Sciences.  We are exremely proud of Danna for such fine job.  Below is Danna’s abstract.

ABSTRACT:  There is a huge demand for small-diameter vascular grafts, as the majority of vascular disease cases involve small-caliber blood vessels. Recently, electrospinning has gained attention as a valuable technique for the fabrication of scaffolds for blood vessel engineering, as electrospinning produces nanofibers that closely approximate the structure of native extracellular matrix (ECM).

Accordingly, electrospun scaffolds were fabricated in a 3D tubular structure from a blend of the synthetic polymers, viscoelastic and durable polycaprolactone (PCL) and relatively fast-degrading shape memory poliglecaprone (PGC). The scaffolds were coated with a physiological biomatrix, HuBiogelTM. The biohybrid graft was found to exhibit mechanical properties comparable to those of native blood vessels, and the HuBiogelTM coating imparted bioactivity. The coating was crosslinked using EDC and the natural crosslinker genipin (Gp) to improve its stability in physiological conditions. This study evaluated the effects of EDC- and Gp-crosslinking on the scaffold mechanical, structural, and morphological properties. Additionally, coating stability was studied to assure the presence of collagenous biomatrix on the scaffold for effective cell-matrix interactions.

Mechanical testing showed little difference between EDC- and Gp-crosslinked scaffolds; both retained mechanical properties in the range of native human arteries (tensile strength 1-2 MPa, tensile modulus 9-12 MPa). SEM imaging revealed that while crosslinking with EDC resulted in an increase in fiber diameter compared to uncrosslinked scaffolds, Gp-crosslinking did not affect fiber diameter; the majority of fibers in EDC and Gp-crosslinked scaffolds had diameters ranging from approximately 0.9 – 1.4 microns and 0.7 – 1.2 microns, respectively. This is in the upper range of fiber diameters in native extracellular matrix. Coating stability studies using picrosirius red (PSR) stain showed that EDC-crosslinked scaffolds were more effective than Gp-crosslinked scaffolds in enhancing the stability of the biomatrix coating.