Registration 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
Congratulations 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, 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
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.
RET Keshia Williams Gets Creative With Fund Raising
Keshia Williams
2014 RET Keshia Williams went through the website DonorChoose.org to design a project for her AP Biology classroom. DonorsChoose.org is a US based 501 nonprofit organization that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects. The website was designed by teacher, Charles Best. Williams says that given that technology is so influential in the field of science and while preparing her students for college and science related careers, she decided to design a project titled “Flipping Science with Technology.” This school term, she is implementing the “flipped classroom” with her Advanced Placement Biology class, which means that she inverts traditional teaching methods, delivering some of the instruction online outside the classroom and moving homework into the classroom.
She uses web 2.0 tools in class to aid in meeting the needs of diverse learning styles. Therefore, the use of tablets requested through her DonorChoose.org project will allow her to truly differentiate instruction among her students. After designing the project (i.e. purpose, goals, and its relation to discipline) it had to go through review from the website. After being approved, she solicited for donations via email to family, friends, community, leaders, etc. Within the first seven days, if the persons donating includes the special “spark” code in their donation, the funds are matched up to $100.
Ms. Williams project was funded within 3 days via the DonorsChoose.org website. Congratulations to Ms. Williams
NIH Funds UAB-Vivo Biosciences Research Team in Vascular Grafts
12 cm long vascular graft fabricated at UABElectro-spinning apparatus for fabricating graft
NIH-National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) has funded a UAB-Vivo biosciences research team for conducting translational research on vascular grafts led by Principal Investigator Yogesh K. Vohra, PhD. This Phase-I award of $192,314 is under the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. Approximately 1.4 million surgical procedures that require arterial prostheses are performed annually in the US due to peripheral vascular disease and ischemic heart disease; approximately 500,000 of these are coronary artery bypass operations. The current commercially available synthetic grafts have not been found suitable for small vessel (<6 mm) applications, with a <50% patency rate at 12 months. Disadvantages of prosthetic grafts include increased risk of thrombosis, poor tissue response and integration and poor biomechanics of graft, leading to additional interventions. Because there are no acceptable synthetic prostheses for small-diameter blood vessels, there is a huge demand for tissue engineered vascular grafts, especially small diameter vascular grafts for coronary replacement. The overall goal of this new program is the development and evaluation of a novel functionally-graded biohybrid vascular graft for small diameter for coronary bypass applications. Tissue engineered vascular constructs developed to date have been engineered mostly using synthetic and animal-derived biomaterials and require pre-seeding of cells before implantation to overcome the complications of prosthetic vascular grafts. However, these biohybrid systems exhibit many limitations including poor cellular adhesion, inadequate biomechanical and functional properties. The UAB research group has recently demonstrated an in vitro regenerated human endothelium on functionally-layered polymeric scaffolds containing bioactive proteins (Figure below). Moreover, Vivo Biosciences has developed a unique human biomatrix (HuBiogel™) that allows viable tissue constructs by cultivating single or multiple cell types. The research team will combine our functionally-layered graft strategy with this physiological HuBiogel culture technology for fabricating an advanced 3D vascular construct demonstrating enhanced lumen endothelialization and biocompatibility. Our research team includes Dr. Yogesh Vohra (PI, UAB Physics/College of Arts and Sciences) Dr. Vinoy Thomas (UAB MSE/School of Engineering) Dr. Steven Pogwizd (School of Medicine – Cardiovascular Disease)
and Dr. Raj Singh (President -Vivo Biosciences).
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Registration 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.
Congratulations 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.
Dr. 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.
