Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration

2012 Summer Research Expo Winners

2012 Summer Research Expo

Each summer, the REU program culminates with the participants presenting their research posters in a campus wide expo. The Expo categories are Life Sciences (I,II,III), Physical Sciences and Engineering (I, II) and Public Health and Social and Behavioral Sciences (I, II). Because of the large number of participants in the Expo, all three categories are divided into multiple groups for judging purposes. Our REU participants presented posters in the Life Sciences and Physical Sciences and Engineering categories.

The posters are judged by volunteer faculty and postdocs according to their backgrounds. Awards are given to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in each category as well as honorable mentions. Below are our 2012 Summer Research Expo Winners:

Physical Sciences & Engineering 1

Naik_Aditi — Aditi Naik 2nd Place Cornell University

Wall_Phillip — Phillip Wall 3rd Place Davidson College

Stephanie Jacobs Honorable Mention Miles College — Stephanie Jacobs
Honorable Mention
Miles College

Zachary Palchak Honorable Mention Juniata College — Zachary Palchak
Honorable Mention
Juniata College

Physical Sciences & Engineering II

Sean Severson 2nd Place Washington State Universit — Sean Severson
2nd Place
Washington State U

Roman Garcia 3rd Place UAB — Roman Garcia
3rd Place
UAB

Lauren Guimond Honorable Mention University of Florida — Lauren Guimond
Honorable Mention
University of Florida

Congratulations to Our Expo Winners!

NIH, Vista Engineering and UAB CNMB

NIH Issues a Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II Award to Vista Engineering and UAB CNMB Scientists

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) has issued a two-year commercialization award entitled “Nanotechnology Enabled Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Prosthesis” to a Birmingham based company Vista Engineering and UAB CNMB researchers (Vista PI Dr. Raymond Thompson and UAB PI Dr. Yogesh Vohra, Dr. Aaron Catledge, and Dr. Patrick Louis).

This award of $746,369 is for a two-year period starting August 15th, 2011. It is estimated that over 10 million people in the United States experience pain and dysfunction in and near the TMJ. Typical symptoms include facial and jaw joint pain, neck and shoulder pain, headaches, locking of the jaw, and limited opening or inability to open the mouth comfortably. The vast majority of these patients can be treated with conservative, non-invasive therapies. However, some patients with severe TMJ degeneration may require a prosthetic replacement. Implants have been used primarily to replace the articular disc of the joint and the condylar head of the mandible. However, long-term success and functioning of these implants remains a serious problem.

Major factors contributing to the failure of TMJ devices include the choice of the design and materials of the implant, and the production of wear particles that can trigger a cascade of events that ultimately may result in the damage to TMJ structures. CNMB scientists and Vista engineering have been exploring the use of nanostructured diamond coatings on metallic components of TMJ to lower mechanical wear and improve clinical outcomes. The goal of this STTR Phase II program is to design a minimally invasive diamond-on-diamond articulating TMJ device using computational modeling approaches. This next generation of TMJ device will be fabricated and tested in a TMJ wear-simulator to have a service lifetime of more than ten-years of clinical use. The TMJ devices that show lowest mechanical wear in simulator studies will also be tested in an animal model. The clinical translational studies are planned to eventually allow testing of new TMJ devices for human use in the next few years.

From CNMB archives

NSF Awards CNMB Scientist Major Instrumentation Grant

National Science Foundation Awards Major Research Instrumentation Grant to CNMB Investigators Andrei Stanishevsky, (Principal Investigator), Sergey Vyazovkin (Co-PI), Ho-Wook Jun (Co-PI), Yogesh Vohra (Co-PI) and Derrick Dean (Co-PI).The proposed imaging microprobe X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) system is designed for spatially resolved chemical analysis of solid surfaces. This tool creates a new multi-user element of the core shared

The imaging microprobe X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) system is designed for spatially resolved chemical analysis of solid surfaces. This tool creates a new multi-user element of the core shared analytical facility in the interdisciplinary Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration (CNMB) at U of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). It serves a large team of users from CNMB, four UAB science and engineering departments, and fosters collaborations through the partnership with Alabama State U (ASU) and NSF-Materials World Network with Technical U of Lodz (Poland). XPS is critical for us due to its unique ability to discriminate between different oxidation states and chemical environments in a thin layer (<5 nm) of a material, yet capable of the depth profiling of chemical composition when using a sputtering accessory. Imaging XPS is the only tool that has a combination of features to address the challenges of microscale characterization in our projects on: (i) surface modification and functionalization of new multi-scale biomaterials; (ii) bio-active monolayers and self-assembled biomimetic

Imaging XPS is the only tool that has a combination of features to address the challenges of microscale characterization in our projects on: (i) surface modification and functionalization of new multi-scale biomaterials; (ii) bio-active monolayers and self-assembled biomimetic nanoarchitectures; (iii) novel phases formed under extreme pressures; (iv) chemistry of interfaces and thermally-induced processes in polymer and polymer-ceramic multifunctional nanocomposites; (v) surface and interface phenomena in wide band-gap semiconductor materials and structures; and (vi) nanostructured, multilayer, and gradient metal-ceramic and ceramic thin-film materials. This XPS system provides training in 3 graduate and 5 undergraduate courses with enrollment of ~135 per semester, enhances research opportunities in our interdisciplinary NSF-REU site where women and minorities account for 57% of the participants and in our partner ASU?s CREST and HBCUUP programs, and raises the awareness of surface science and engineering among K-12 students, teachers, and general public through our NSF-RET site and UAB day at McWane Science Center in Birmingham. CNMB provides necessary infrastructure and long-term support for the XPS system operation, accommodation of multiple users, and the initiation of new projects at local, national, and international levels.

Materials World Network in Nanomaterials

National Science Foundation Funds at UAB

National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a Materials World Network (MWN) program to support a project on international collaboration in nanomaterials in the Department of Physics (PI Andrei V. Stanishevsky, and Co-PI Yogesh K. Vohra). This Materials World Network project brings together faculty and students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham – Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration (UAB-CNMB) and the Technical University of Lodz – EU-supported Centre of Excellence NANODIAM (TUL-NANODIAM, Poland). This is a new three-year program that will start on September 1, 2008.

From CNMB archives

2007 REU Larry Lawal is named Barry M. Goldwater Scholar

UAB-REU Participant Larry Lawal is named Barry M. Goldwater Scholar for the Academic Year 2008-2009

Taoreed “Larry” Lawal of Hoover, Alabama is a junior majoring in biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In 2007, Larry Lawal was selected from a pool of 70 undergraduate students and supported under a NSF-REU-site program that is entitled “Regional Initiative to Promote Undergraduate Participation in Experimental and Computational Materials Research” (PI Yogesh Vohra, UAB).

Larry Lawal’s research project involves measuring intermolecular interactions of proteins in solution and their applications in structure-based drug design. Larry Lawal also won the first place prize in the 2007 Summer Research Poster session organized for physical sciences, engineering and computer science on UAB campus. Larry Lawal also serves as a chief editor of the undergraduate research publication “Inquiro” that operates by a blind, peer review process conducted by UAB faculty, researchers, and distinguished undergraduate students and maintains the highest standards of scholastic integrity.
Larry Lawal was among the three hundred twenty-one mathematics, science and engineering undergraduate students that were named Barry M. Goldwater Scholars from over a pool of thousand students that were nominated from various colleges and universities nationwide in 2008.Taoreed “Larry” Lawal of Hoover, Alabama is a junior majoring in biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In 2007, Larry Lawal was selected from a pool of 70 undergraduate students and supported under a NSF-REU-site program that is entitled “Regional Initiative to Promote Undergraduate Participation in Experimental and Computational Materials Research” (PI Yogesh Vohra, UAB). Larry Lawal’s research project involves measuring intermolecular interactions of proteins in solution and their applications in structure-based drug design.

Larry Lawal also won the first place prize in the 2007 Summer Research Poster session organized for physical sciences, engineering and computer science on UAB campus. Larry Lawal also serves as a chief editor of the undergraduate research publication “Inquiro” that operates by a blind, peer review process conducted by UAB faculty, researchers, and distinguished undergraduate students and maintains the highest standards of scholastic integrity.

After graduation Larry Lawal plans to pursue a MD/PhD degree.

NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant

In 2007, National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a Shared Instrumentation Grant entitled “Imaging/Mapping Fourier Transform Infrared Microscope”. PI for this NIH instrumentation grant is Dr. Andrei Stanishevsky of the Department of Physics. This new facility will be utilized by CNMB scientists to characterize biomaterials for applications in implants and tissue engineering.