BioEngineering News Updates

 

 

Awards
Disseration Award
Fellowship Awards
Publications
Presentation Awards

October 2009

Congratulations to Dean Mark Redfern and Professor William Federspiel who were reappointed to William Kepler Whiteford Professorships effective September 1, 2009.  The award is for five years.  In letters sent to Dean Redfern and Professor Federspiel, Dean Holder wrote, "Your selection reflects the high value placed upon your contribution to scholarship, graduate and undergraduate education, external research support, research quality and contributions to diversity. ... Further it reflects the strong support of your faculty colleagues and Chairman."

   
Sept 2009

Professor David Vorp has been elected to a second three-year term on the Board of Directors of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).

   
  PhD Candidate, Jong Kim is the recipient of the American Heart Association Claude R. Joyner M.D. Research Grant.  The AHA will be hosting a research reception on Thursday, October 13th to present Jong Kim with his award. Jong is the 1st BioE PhD candidate to win this prestigious award. Congratulations to Professor Guy Salama, (Jong's dissertation advisor) for this wonderful award.
   
 

BioE graduate student, Brad Impink's recent 1st author publication: Bradley G. Impink, Michael L. Boninger, Heather Walker, Jennifer L. Collinger, and Christian Niyonkuru. Ultrasonographic Median Nerve Changes After a Wheelchair Sporting Event. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2009;90:1489-94. This work was conducted in Professor Michael Boninger's lab.

   
July 2009

BioE Undergraduate, Steven Boronyak's BMES extended abstract was selected as one of two winners of the 2009 BMES Extended Abstract Student Awards - Undergraduate Student.  According to BMES HQ a record number of submissions was received this year for this award and the scholarship level was exceedingly high.  The award will be presented to Steven at the "BMES Award Ceremony" taking place Thursday, October 8th, in the David Lawrence Conference Center.  Steven is performing his undergraduate research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab under the direction of Dr. Sharan Ramaswamy.

   
 

PhD candidate, Kim Jong's American Heart Association Pre-doctoral Fellowship application entitled, "The Spatiotemporal Dispersion of Extracellular Potassium Accumulation and Its Role in Cardiac Arrhythmias," has been awarded funding for the period 7/1/2009 - 6/30/2011.  Kim is conducting this work in Professor Guy Salama's lab

   
June 2009

Professor David Vorp has been invited by Columbia University as the 2009-2010 speaker for the "Biomedical Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series."  Previous winners of this award were Professor Buddy Ratner and Professor Gerard Karsenty.  Professor Vorp will deliver his distinguished lecture in the fall.   

   
 

BioE graduate student, Suny Patel received an Honorable Mention for the Best Presentation Award in Biomechanics and Engineering of Cells and Tissues (MS level) for his presentation entitled, ”Characterization of Isolated Urethral Smooth Muscle Cells and Their Incorporation into a Tissue Engineered Urethral Wrap,” at the ASME's Summer Bioengineering Conference held last week in Lake Tahoe, CA.  Suny conducted this work in Professor David Vorp's lab.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been awarded the 2009 Van C. Mow Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).  The inscription on the medal diploma reads, "For contributions in advancing biomechanics of native and engineered heart valve tissues; and leadership in the development of the bioengineering profession, services to its community and inspired guidance and inspired guidance of young bioengineers."  BioE extends our heartiest congratulations to Professor Sacks for this most prestigious award in recognition of an exceptional career!

   
 

BioE graduate student, Ashish Parikh has been awarded an American Heart Association Pre-doctoral Fellowship for his project entitled, "Modeling the relative expression of cardiac ionic channels/currents to predict arrhythmias phenotype."  Ashish is conducting this work in Professor Guy Salama's lab.

   
April 2009

BioE undergraduate student, Samantha Horvath has been selected as a Beckman Scholar for the 2009-2010 academic year.  Samantha works in Professor George Stetten's laboratory on the Fingersight project as well as the Breadboard Laboratory Interface Processor (BLIP) and PittKit educational system used in BioE 1310. 

   
 

BioE undergraduate student, Emma Baillargeon has been selected to be the Keynote Speaker at the SSOE Senior Recognition Night this coming Saturday.  We are proud to include Emma on the list of BioE seniors who have been so honored over the years.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Chris Carruthers has been awarded a 2009 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.  This is a most competitive award, and Chris, who is undertaking his dissertation research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Jamie Haney has been selected to receive a 2009 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) award! Jamie who is undertaking her dissertation research in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab, is the second Pitt BioE undergraduate student who matriculated to our graduate program to receive the GRF award (other former Pitt undergraduate students have been awarded GRFs at their graduate institutions).  Dr. Jennifer Collinger, who recently completed her PhD in Professor Michael Boninger's lab, is the other former Pitt BioE undergraduate student to receive the GRF award.

   
 

BioE undergraduate, Patrick Vescovi was one of three Pitt undergraduate students recognized in the 2009 Barry M Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program.  Patrick received honorable mention.  Goldwater scholarships are awarded to outstanding students who intend to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering. Patrick intends to pursue the MD, PhD in radiology/bioengineering. Other the years BioE has had multiple Goldwater awardees, and all currently are pursuing advanced degrees at outstanding institutions.

   
 

Based on the unanimous recommendation of the Panel of Fellows, Professor Prashant N. Kumta has been elected to the grade of Fellow of the American Ceramics Society (ACerS).  Professor Kumta will be recognized at the ACerS Honors and Awards Banquet this coming fall.

   
Mar 2009

BioE graduate student, Bryan Brown's paper entitled, “The Effects of Sidedness and Crosslinking Upon the Surface Characteristics of Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds,” was nominated by the Surface Characterization and Modification SIG Special Interest Group as an outstanding contribution to the Society For Biomaterials 2009 Annual Meeting.  The Education and Professional Development Committee of the Society has awarded Bryan with a STAR!  (Student Travel Achievement Recognition).  Bryan is conducting this research in Dr. Stephen Badylak's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Carl Johnson has been selected to receive an American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) Fellowship for his abstract entitled, "Platelet Activation in Ovines Implanted with the Levitronix(r) PediaVas(tm) Using Custom Cannulae."  Carl who is conducting this research in Professor William Wagner's lab, will present his abstract at the ASAIO Annual Conference in Dallas, this coming May.

   
 

Dr. Kyong Tae Bae's R01 application entitled, "Assessing the prognosis of pulmonary embolism using clinical and imaging biomarkers," has been awarded funding via NHLBI.  Current efforts are focused on the study IRB and building infrastructures to fully operate the study.  

   
 

BioE graduate student, Matthew Fisher's paper entitled "In-Vitro Evaluation of Suture Augmentation Techniques After ACL Injury" received the Best Student Paper Award at the International Symposium on Ligaments and Tendons - IX held on Saturday, February 21, 2009. Matt is conducting this work in Professor Savio Woo's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Jonathan Kirk's poster presentation entitled, "Left Ventricular and Myocardial Function In Mice Expressing Constitutively Psuedo-Phosphorylated Cardiac Troponin I," was awarded 2nd Place in the Basic Science category in this week's American Heart Association Fellows Research Day.  Jonathan is completing his PhD dissertation research in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab.

   
Feb 2009

BioE PhD student, Fatima Naz Syed-Picard has been awarded an NIH F31 Ruth L Kirschstein Pre-doctoral Fellowship (effective March 1, 2009) to undertake the project entitled, "Cell-based scaffold-less three-dimensional construct, a model for dentinogenesis."  This work is being conducted in Dr. Charles Sfeir’s lab. 

   
  Professor William Wagner has been named a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering by the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering in recognition of his work applying biomaterials science and engineering principles to address cardiovascular disease and for his leadership in the international biomaterials community. Professor Wagner is the 1st Fellow from the University of Pittsburgh.
   
  Dr. Tracy Cui's NIH R01 application entitled, "Improving the Chronic Neural Recording via Biomaterial Strategies," has been awarded funding effective September, 2008.
   
  Dr. Lance Davidson's Beginning Grant-in-Aid proposal to the American Heart Association entitled, "Role of Fibronectin during Pre-cardiac Cell Migration and Establishment of the Heart Forming Region," has been awarded funding beginning July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2010.
   
  Dr. David Vorp has been elected to the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Fellows Class of 2008. Dr. Vorp is the 8th member of our BioE faculty to be so honored. BMES Fellows are recognized for their many significant contributions to the profession of bioengineering, as far as research, teaching and service. The citation on behalf of Dr. Vorp's election as BMES Fellow reads as follows: "For exceptional contributions to the biomechanical analyses of aortic aneurysms for improved clinical diagnoses, vascular tissue engineering and establishing biomechanical properties and function of the urethra in health and disease."
   
  Dr. Lance Davidson's article entitled, "Apoptosis Turbocharges Epithelial Morphogenesis," was published in Science (341: 1641-1642).
   
 

Professor William Federspiel will serve as a member of the Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences Study Section, Center for Scientific Review (CSR) for the term beginning July 1, 2009 and ending June 30, 2013.   In his letter to meet regarding Professor Federspiel, CSR Director Dr. Toni Scarpa writes, "Study section members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements and honors ... I want to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of Dr. Federspiel's participation in assuring the quality of the NIH peer review process."

   
Jan 2009

Dr. Tamer Ibrahim's one year pilot grant to the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (through an NIH program grant.) has been awarded funding.  Dr. Ibrahim's RO1 supplement submitted in collaboration with Dr. Chu has also been awarded NIH funding. Dr. Chu is the P.I. on the RO1 supplement which is funded in collaboration with Dr. Ibrahim and colleagues in Radiology. The bulk of the work is for 7 tesla imaging.

   
 

The following paper has been accepted at the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering: David Wang, Roberta Klatzky, Bing Wu, Greg Weller, Allan Sampson, George Stetten, “Fully Automated Common Carotid Artery and Internal Jugular Vein Identification and Tracking using B-Mode Ultrasound.”   David Wang is in the Pitt/CMU MD/PhD program and the paper represents his dissertation research in Dr. George Stetten's lab through CMU's Department of BME.  Bing Wu is currently a Visiting Research Assistant Professor with BioE in Professor Stetten's lab. Greg Weller is a BioE MD, PhD graduate who completed his dissertation research in Professor Wagner's lab.

   
 

The upcoming University’s Honors Convocation on the afternoon of February 27 Professor Michael Sacks has been asked by Dr. Michael Levine to be the faculty responder following Dr. Levine's remarks commending the faculty honorees.  BioE graduate student Dr. Timothy Maul was asked to be the student responder following remarks commending the student honorees.  We can take considerable pride that BioE has been honored to serve as the responder for both faculty and students at the University’s Honors Convocations.

   
 

BioE graduate  student, Donna Haworth has been selected to receive the University /Post-Secondary Student Award at the 13th Annual Carnegie Science Awards.  Donna who is conducting her dissertation research in Professor David Vorp's lab, will receive the award on Friday, May 8, 2009 at the Carnegie Science Awards 2009.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Bryan Brown's 1st author paper that has been accepted in BIOMATERIALS. Bryan N. Brown, Jolene E. Valentin, Ann M. Stewart-Akers, George P. McCabe, Stephen F. Badylak. "Macrophage Phenotype and Remodeling Outcomes in Response to Biologic Scaffolds With and Without a Cellular Component." BIOMATERIALS (accepted for publication). Both Bryan and the 2nd author, BioE PhD candidate Jolene Valentin, are conducting their research in Dr. Stephen Badylak's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Morgan DiLeo's 1st author paper in the current issue of the ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING. Ms. DiLeo conducted this work in Professor Federspiel's lab. DiLeo MV, Kellum JA and Federspiel WJ. A simple mathematical model of cytokine capture using a hemoadsorption device."  Annals of Biomedical Engineering 2009;37:222-229

   
Dec 2008

The publication from Professor George Stetten's lab that has been accepted by the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine for publication in the first half of 2009: D. Wang, N. Amesur, G. Shukla, A. Bayless, D. Weiser, A. Scharl, D. Mockel, C. Banks, B. Mandella, R. Klatzky, G. Stetten, “Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter Placement with the Sonic Flashlight: Initial Clinical Trial by Nurses,” Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine (In press, 12/8/08). David Wang and Gaurav Shukla are MD/PhD students, and David Weiser, Adam Scharl, and Derek Mockel are(were) BioE undergraduates in Professor Stetten's lab. 

   
 

Kristin Wescoe presented her final meritorious project for Professor Michael Lotze's CTSI Catalyst Program.  Kristin worked with her mentor, Dr. Bridget Deasy  to submit an STTR proposal to the NIH on stem cells and the development of a company, CellStock.

   
 

The lead article in this month's issue of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering: Almarza AA, Augustine SM and Woo SL-Y. Changes in Gene Expression of Matrix Constituents with Respect to Passage of Ligament and Tendon Fibroblasts.  Annals of Biomedical Engineering 36 (12):1927-1933, 2008.

   
 

Two papers from the Dr. Lance Davidson’s Lab that have been accepted for publication in early 2009. M. von Dassow and L. A. Davidson (in press). Natural variation in embryo mechanics: gastrulation in Xenopus laevis is highly robust to variation in tissue stiffness in Developmental Dynamics and J. Zhou, H. Y. Kim, and L. A. Davidson (in press). Actomyosin stiffens the vertebrate embryo during critical stages of elongation and neural tube closure in development. Jian Zhou and Hye Young Kim are BioE graduate students in Dr. Lance Davidson's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Daniel Bacher presented a poster entitled, "An Experimental Rig for Closed-Loop Neural Prosthetics," at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting earlier this week.  Co-authors on Dan's poster were BioE alumnus Joe McFerron, Narayan Krishnamurthy and Dr. Aaron Batista, in whose lab this work was performed.

   
 

BioE Undergrad student, Craig Lehocky presented a poster entitled, "Fast-timescale correlations are weak and rare in macaque dorsal premotor cortex," at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.  Co-authors on Craig’s poster include faculty from Chicago, London, Stanford and Dr. Aaron Batista, in whose lab this work was performed. Craig has been admitted to the Pitt MD, PhD Program, which is testimony to his wonderful undergraduate career and outstanding mentorship provided by Dr. Aaron Batista

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks been selected to receive the initial Van C. Mow Medal "for contributions in advancing biomechanics of native and engineered heart valve tissues; and leadership in the development of the bioengineering profession, service to its community and inspired guidance of young bioengineers."  The ASME Van C. Mow Medal, established in 2004, is bestowed upon an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of bioengineering through research, education, professional development, leadership in the development of the profession, as a mentor to young bioengineers, and with service to the bioengineering community.

   
Nov 2008

Dr. David Merryman's K25 application entitled, "TGF beta 1 Activity in the Aortic Valve," has been awarded funding for 5-years.  Dr. Merryman, who completed his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks' lab, is currently Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

   
 

A recent 1st author publication by BioE Graduate student, Benjamin Schmidt,  Schmidt, BT, Feduska, JM, Witt, AM, and BM Deasy. 2008 Robotic cell culture system for stem cell assays. Industrial Robot. 35 (2):116-124.  Ben conducted this work as a Pitt BioE undergraduate in Dr. Bridget Deasy's lab. Ben is currently a 1st year graduate student in Dr. Huppert's lab

   
 

A recent 1st author publication by BioE PhD Candidate Kristin Wescoe,  Wescoe KE, Schugar RC, Chu CR, Deasy BM. 2008. The role of the biochemical and biophysical environment in chondrogenic stem cell differentiation assays and cartilage tissue engineering. Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics.  2008;52(2):85-102.  Kristin is conducting this work in Dr. Bridget Deasy's lab.

   
  Dr. Lance Davidson is speaking at the Workshop on "Morphogenesis, Limb Growth, Gastrulation, Somitogenesis, and Neural Tube Formation" at Mathematical Biosciences Institute in Columbus OH.
   
 

BioE graduate student, Jolene Valentin received a highly competitive Travel Award to attend the TERMIS-NA 2008 conference in San Diego.  Jolene is completing her Ph.D. in Professor Stephen Badylak's lab.

   
 

On October 23, Professor Savio Woo received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Engineering from the University Council of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  In the conferment ceremony, President Chung-Kwong Poon said this honor recognizes the contributions Professor Woo has made to the advancement of musculoskeletal biomechanics and engineering sciences, especially in the area of novel orthopedic sports medicine and rehabilitation treatments.

   
 

The project submitted by BioE undergrad students, Craig Lehocky and Bradley Morneweck entitled, Stand-OFF, has been selected as one of 5 finalists in the 2008 Energy-Efficient Building Technologies Challenge sponsored by the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and the Heinz Endowments.  The organizing committee received 29 very strong proposals so this is a very worthy accomplishment!

   
 

Dr. George Engelmayr's 1st author publication appears on-line in Nature Materials.  Dr. Engelmayr is a Fellow in the Langer Lab @MIT and a PhD graduate from Professor Michael Sacks' lab. Accordion-like honeycombs for tissue engineering of cardiac anisotropy GEORGE C. ENGELMAYR Jr1, MINGYU CHENG1, CHRISTOPHER J. BETTINGER2;3, JEFFREY T. BORENSTEIN3, ROBERT LANGER1;4 AND LISA E. FREED1

1)     Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-330 Cambridge Massachusetts 02139, USA

2)     Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-330 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

3)     Biomedical Engineering Center, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, 555 Technology Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

4)     Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E25-330 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Published online: 2 November 2008; doi:10.1038/nmat2316

   
October 2008

The weekend of October 17 &18, 2008, Children's Hospital hosted an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) course.  The course was extremely well attended with over 80 participants for the Friday evening and all day Saturday course.  Both Dr. Timothy Maul and Erin Wacker played important roles in the development and conduct of this course, including presenting lectures on the topics of anticoagulation and biocompatibility. Dr. Maul is currently a Hartwell Foundation Fellow in Dr. William Wagner's lab.  Erin is also conducting her research in Dr. Wagner's lab, in collaboration with Dr. Peter Wearden @Children's Hospital.

   
 

Dr. Joie Marhefka's just published article, based on work conducted in Professor Marina  Kameneva's lab.  Joie N. Marhefka, Sachin S. Velankar, Toby M. Chapman and Marina V. Kameneva. "Mechanical degradation of drag reducing polymers in suspensions of blood cells and rigid particles." Biorheology 45 (2008) 599–609.

   
 

BioE undergraduate student, Craig Lehocky has been admitted to Pitt's MD, PhD Program.  As we all know, this is an outstanding achievement and recognizes Craig’s many achievements as an undergraduate scholar.  Congratulations particularly to Dr. Aaron Batista who has been a superb mentor to Craig in directing his undergraduate research in preparation for a career as a physician scientist. 

   
 

Professor Patrick Loughlin has been elected to the 2009 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Class of Fellows.  The citation on behalf of Professor Loughlin's elections as AIMBE Fellow reads: "For significant contributions in time-varying signal processing and modeling of physiological systems, including human postural control and anesthetic delivery".  Professor Loughlin is the 22nd BioE faculty to be elected to AIMBE Fellowship!

   
 

1st author publication by Dr. Robert Tamburo, with co-authorship by Dr. Aaron CoisRobert Tamburo, Greg Siegle, George Stetten, Aaron Cois, Charles Reynolds, Howard Aizenstein “Amygdala Morphometry in Late-Life Depression,” special issue Neuroimaging in Geriatric Psychiatry, in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.  Drs. Tamburo and Cois got their Ph.D.s in Professor Stetten's lab. Dr. Tamburo is currently a post-doctoral fellow working with Dr. Howard Aizenstein. 

   
Sept    2008

National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERC) was officially funded and launched on September 1.  Dean Gerald Holder, Dr. William Wagner, Dr. Savio Woo and Dr. Harvey Borovetz attended Media Day September 4th in Greensboro, NC where the official announcement was made.  In addition, a number of BioE faculty have been key participants in the development of the ERC Program including Professor Arthur Ciarkowski and Drs. Xinyan Cui, Prashant Kumta, Kacey Marra, Mark Redfern and Charles Sfeir.

   
 

Professor George Stetten has been invited to serve on a Special Study Section for the NIBIB – Howard Hughes T32 training grants in mid-November.  In 2005 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) partnered with the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) to create a new funding mechanism to develop and sustain interdisciplinary graduate education.  Professor Stetten will participate in the Phase II program review, which is aimed to sustain recently established interdisciplinary training programs through their early critical years.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Erin Wacker has been invited by Children's Hospital to give a lecture entitled, "Anticoagulation Strategies in ECMO," as part of the ECMO Training Conference.  Erin is conducting this research in Dr. William Wagner's lab.  Also presenting at the Conference is BioE PhD graduate Dr. Tim Maul. The title of Dr. Maul's presentation is: "Biological Response to ECMO."  Dr. Maul is currently a Hartwell Foundation Fellow in Dr. William Wagner's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Kelly Clause's 1st author publication.   Clause KC, Tinney JP, Liu LJ, Keller BB, Tobita K. Engineered early embryonic cardiac tissue increases cardiomyocyte proliferation by cyclic mechanical stretch via p38MAP kinase phosphorylation. Tissue Engineering, 2008.  This work was conducted in the labs of Dr. Kimimasa Tobita and Dr. Bradley Keller.

   
August 2008

Professor Bradley Keller's R01 application entitled, "Engineered Early Embryonic Cardiac Tissue," has been awarded funding for the period 7/1/08 - 5/31/12. Professor William Wagner is co-investigator on this award. A brief description follows: We have developed an Engineered Early Embryonic Cardiac Tissue, termed EEECT, using embryonic cardiac cells isolated during the period of primary morphogenesis in order to investigate the regulation of embryonic CM proliferation and differentiation and to generate tissues with optimal properties for cardiac repair. Our EEECT construct uses a simple cylindrical geometry which is reproducible, scalable, and preserves the unique proliferative and contractile properties of developing myocardium. Using EEECT we can investigate the regulation of CM proliferation and maturation within a functioning in vitro 3D environment. EEECT proliferation and force production increases in response to cyclic mechanical stretch. With prolonged culture EEECT acquires a post-natal myocardial phenotype (reduced proliferation, increased calcium and β-adrenergic sensitivity, and increased force production). Preliminary data show that cylindrical EEECT can be implanted onto recipient injured adult myocardium as part of a cardiac repair/recovery strategy. Implanted EEECT survive, proliferate, and functionally contribute to recipient cardiac functional recovery.

   
 

Dr. Kevin Toosi's publication in the current edition of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering.  Dr. Toosi performed this work in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.  KK Toosi, Nagatomi J, Chancellor MB and Sacks MS. "The effects of long-term spinal cord injury on mechanical properties of the rat urinary bladder."  Annals of Biomedical Engineering 36:1470-80, 2008.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo received an Honorary Professorship from Beijing University of Aeronatics and Astronautics (BUAA), while he and Mrs. Woo were attending the Olympic Games in Beijing as guests of IOC President Jacques Rogge.  BUAA’s President Li, a member of the Chinese national Academy of Engineering, conducted the ceremony and Dean Fan of the School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering introduced Professor Woo.  The honor was bestowed upon Professor Woo for his many seminal contributions to Biomedical Engineering research and education.  Professor Woo will also serve as Chair of the International Advisory Committee of the School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering at BUAA. 

   
 

Dr. Richard Debski received a Faculty Partner Award from Career Services for excellent work in helping to establish a network of companies for employment and internship opportunities for our undergraduates.  As you know this is critically important for those among our students whose professional ambitions are a career in industry; and under Dr. Debski's leadership, the Department is making great strides in this regard.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo delivered the Keynote Address at the 2008 Pre-Olympic Congress of the International Convention on Science Education and Medicine in Sports (ICSEMIS) in Guangzhou, China.  The congress was attended by more than 2,000 participants. Professor Woo will also attend the Olympic Games in Beijing as a Distinguished Guest of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

   
July 2008

PhD candidate, Bryan Brown's NIH F31 Ruth L Kirschstein Pre-doctoral Fellowship application entitled, "ECM Scaffolds and Macrophage Polarization-Induced Tissue Remodeling," received a priority score of 115 and a percentile in the top 1.0%.  Bryan is undertaking his fellowship research in Dr. Steven Badylak's lab.  Bryan is the 2nd BioE PhD candidate in the "Badylak Lab" to be awarded an F31 this year; Ellen Brennan has also been awarded an NIH F31 Ruth L Kirschstein Pre-doctoral Fellowship.

   
 

Professor George Stetten's recent publication in MICCAI 2008, the top meeting in the field: John Galeotti, Mel Siegel, Richard Rallison, George Stetten, "In-Situ Visualization of Medical Images Using Holographic Optics," Augmented Medical Imaging including Augmented Reality in Computer-aided SurgeryWorkshop, MICCAI 2008.  Dr. Galeotti is a post-doc at the Robotics Institute working with Professor George Stetten. Dr. Galeotti also teaches our Methods in Medical Imaging course (BioE 2630) to rave reviews.

   
 

BioE’s participation at the 13th International Congress of Biorheology and 6th International Conference on Clinical Hemorheology, The Pennsylvania State University, July 9 -13.

(1)   Poster 47: Viscoelastic behavior of ovine blood and its implication for in vitro and in vivo testing of pediatric VAD ,A.R. Daly, P.J. Marascalco, M.V. Kameneva

(2)   Symposium: Potential clinical applications of blood soluble drag-reducing polymers.  Co-Chair: M.V. Kameneva, Microscale effects of drag-reducing polymers J.N. Marhefka, S.S. Velankar, R. Zhao, Z. Wu, J.F. Antaki and M.V. Kameneva, Effects of blood-soluble drag-reducing polymers on macro- and microhemodynamics: Potential clinical applications M. Kameneva

(3)   Symposium: Hemorheological aspects of mechanical blood trauma., Co-Chairs: J. Antaki and M.V. Kameneva, Computational indices for prediction of flow-induced blood trauma J.F. Antaki Experimental and theoretical investigation of blood microflow dynamics associated with blood contacting devices R. Zhao, M. Massoudi, S.J. Hund, M.V. Kameneva and J.F. Antaki

(4)   Symposium: Hemorheological modelling and simulation, A new approach to modeling blood viscosity S.J. Hund, M.V. Kameneva and J.F. Antaki

(5)   Professor Marina Kameneva was elected as a Council Member of the International Society of Biorheology.

   
 

Dr. Candace Brayfield, who is completing the Ph.D. in Dr. Kacey Marra's lab, was awarded a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the 2008-09 Provost's Development Fund. Also, Erinn Joyce in Professor Michael Sacks' lab also has been awarded a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the 2008-09 Provost's Development Fund.  

   
 

Dr. Timothy Maul has been selected to receive a Travel Award from the International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology (ISACB) to present his abstract entitled, "Mechanical Stimulation differentially controls Proliferation, Morphology and Protein Expression in Mesenchymal Progenitor Cells."  The ISACB Meeting is being held in Bordeaux, France on September 17 - 20, 2008.  Dr. Maul's work to be presented was conducted in Dr. David Vorp’s lab.  Dr. Maul's current Fellowship is being undertaken in Dr. William Wagner's lab.

   
 

Professor George Stetten has been promoted to Research Professor at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute effective today, July 1, 2008.

   
June 2008

David Brooks a graduate from our BioE undergraduate program is a co-author of the following publication: Shushma Aggarwal, David M. Brooks, Yoogoo Kang, Peter K. Linden, John F. Patzer II: Noninvasive monitoring of cerebral perfusion pressure in patients with acute liver failure using transcranial doppler ultrasonography. Liver Transplantation 2008;14: 1048-1057.  David conducted this work as part of his intramural research internship under the mentorship of Dr. Jack Patzer

   
 

Dr. Karin (Corsi) Payne's post-doctoral application entitled, "Effect of cell sex on the chondrogenesis of human mesenchymal stem cells" has been awarded funding by the Arthritis Foundation.  Dr. (Corsi) Payne, who completed the Ph.D. in Professor Johnny Huard's lab, is conducting the post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Constance Chu's lab.

   
 

Professor TK Hung has been invited to write a textbook on Computation Fluid Dynamics by Cambridge University Press.  Professor Hung's text would be housed within the 1st textbook series for biomedical engineering.  Congratulations to Professor Hung for this recognition and invitation to write a much needed textbook for bioengineering.

   
  The 2007 impact factors for Professor William Wagner's journal, Acta Biomaterialia, have just been released.  This is the second impact factor for this journal which is now in its 4th year of existence.  Acta Biomaterialia has risen to the #2 ranked journal in the biomaterials category (16 ranked journals). The impact factor for 2007 is 3.113.  Journal submissions have tripled since the initial impact factor was released last summer!  Congratulations to Professor Wagner for his editorship/leadership of Acta Biomaterialia.
   
 

Pitt BioE faculty and students made numerous presentations at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs in San Francisco, June 19 - 21:

 ASAIO FELLOWSHIP AWARDEE: Jeremy Kimmel (Ph.D. candidate in Professor William Federspiel's lab), “Cytokine Hemoadsorption Dynamics Using Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy”

Marina Kameneva, Ph.D., "Drag-Reducing Polymer Solution as a Test Fluid for Evaluation of Blood Trauma in Blood Pumps"

Jack Patzer, Ph.D., "Thermodynamics of Solid Sorption for Acute Liver Failure"

CARDIAC SYMPOSIUM: William Wagner, Ph.D., "Temporary Elastic Support for the Ventricular Wall Post- Infarct: Altering Remodeling"

William Federspiel, Ph.D., "Respiratory Assist Devices for the Pulmonary Intensivist"

Amanda Daly (PhD candidate in Professor Marina Kameneva's lab), "Blood Parameter Assessment in Sham and Pediaflow™ VAD Implanted Sheep"

Josh Woolley (PhD candidate in Professor William Wagner's lab), "Clotting Time Assessment of Candidate Materials for Use as Blood Contacting Surfaces in Blood Pumps"

Carl Johnson (PhD candidate in Professor William Wagner's lab), "Platelet Activation in Ovines Implanted with the Levitronix® Pedivas™"

James Antaki, Ph.D., "Progress with Extremum-Seeking Feedback Controller for a Rotary Blood Pump"

Andrew Hunsberger (MS graduate from Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab now working for Mohawk Innovative Technology, Inc., Albany NY), "Durability of Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings for Rotary Blood Pump Applications"

Trevor Snyder, Ph.D. (Dr. Snyder is a graduate from Professor William Wagner's lab and is now @University of Maryland School of Medicine), "HMGB1 Elevation in VAD Patients.

   
 

Melanie  Ruffner's NIH F30 Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA for Individual MD/PhDs entitled, "IL-4 Overexpressing Dendritic Cells and Exosomes for Treatment of Type 1 Diabetes," has been awarded funding.  Melanie is conducting this research in Dr. Robbins' lab. 

   
 

Dr. William D. Merryman, who completed his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks' lab and is currently Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering University of Alabama at Birmingham, has been awarded a Coulter Foundation Early Career Award entitled"Radiofrequency Ablation to Treat Mitral Valve Disease."  

   
 

1st author publication by Jennifer (Mercer) Collinger, who is completing the PhD in Professor Michael Boninger's lab. Collinger JL, Boninger ML, Koontz AM, Price R, Sisto SA, Tolerico ML and Cooper RA. Shoulder Biomechanics During the Push Phase of Wheelchair Propulsion: A Mulisite Study of Persons with Paraplegia."  ARCH PHYS MED REHABIL 2008;89:667-76.

   
 

Publications of two graduates from our Department: Kwarciak AM, Cooper RA and Fitzgerald SG. Curb Descent Testing of Suspension Manual Wheelchairs."  Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development  45:73-84, 2008.  (Andrew obtained his BioE MS degree working in Professor Rory Cooper's lab) Karmarkar A, Cooper RA, Liu H-y, Connor S and Puhlman J. Evaluation of Pushrim-Activated Power-Assisted Wheelchairs Using ANSI/RESNA Standards."  Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2008;89:1191-1198. (Jeremy is a B.S. BioE graduate)

   
 

Dr. Kevin Toosi's manuscript entitled, "THE EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM SPINAL CORD INJURY ON THE MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF THE URINARY BLADDER WALL," has been accepted for publication in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering.  The complete citation is: Kevin K Toosi, M.D., M.S.; Jiro Nagatomi, PhD; Michael B Chancellor, MD; and Michael Sacks, Ph.D.  Dr. Toosi conducted this work in Professor Sacks' lab.

   
 

Professor George Stetten's paper that has been accepted for publication: Bing Wu, Roberta Klatzky, George Stetten.  Learning to Reach to Locations Encoded from Imaging Displays,” Spatial Cognition and Computation. The 1st author, Dr. Wu, is a post doc at CMU who is joining Pitt BioE this summer as a Visiting Research Assistant Professor.

   
 

The new issue of ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING contains two 1st author publications by BioE graduates: (1) Vande Geest JP, Schmidt DE, Sacks MS and Vorp DA. The Effects of Anisotropy on the Stress Analysis of Patient-Specific Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms. ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 2008;36:921-932.  (2) Svitek RG and Federspiel WF. A Mathematical Model to Predict CO2 Removal in Hollow Fiber Membrane Oxygenators. ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 2008;36:992-1003. Dr. Vande Geest (BioE PhD in Dr. David Vorp's lab) is assistant professor of mechanical engineering @U Arizona.  Dr. Svitek (B.S. in BioE) works for EvaHeart in the area of ventricular assistance.

   
May 2008

BioE PhD candidates Sagi PerelChance Spalding and Andrew Whitford are co-authors on a paper in the current issue of Nature (Cortical control of a prosthetic arm for self-feeding). The senior author of the paper is Professor Andrew Schwartz in whose lab this wonderful work was conducted! http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06996.html

   
 

Dr. Timothy Maul was awarded the William Williams Young Investigator Award at the Fourth International Conference on PEDIATRIC MECHANICAL CIRCULATORY SUPPORT SYSTEMS & PEDIATRIC CARDIOPULMONARY PERFUSION being held in Portland, OR for his presentation entitled, "Coagulation Times and Heparin Management for Pediatric Patients Requiring Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenator Support."  Dr. Maul, who completed his PhD dissertation in Dr. David Vorp's lab, is currently a Hartwell Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow in Dr. William Wagner's lab investigating/developing pediatric cardiopulmonary support technologies and their clinical management.

   
 

Dr. Donald Freytes, who completed his PhD dissertation research in Dr. Stephen Badylak's lab, has taken a position as a post-doctoral research scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic at the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering @Columbia University.  

   
 

BioE graduate student, Chad Eckert's American Heart Association (AHA) Pre-doctoral Fellowship application entitled, "Quantifying the Ability of the Mitral Valve to Adapt to Abnormal Stress States Following Repair," received a priority score: 1.3867 (a score of 1.0 - 1.4 being considered 'excellent') and a percentile rank: 6.76. The scientific review was glowing; for example one reviewer noted, "The proposed research is of high significance in science, bioengineering, biological science and clinical practice. Anticipated results will lead to improved basic understanding of valve mechanics and possible improvements in mitral valve repair surgical procedures." Chad is the 3rd PhD candidate in Professor Michael Sacks' lab to be awarded an AHA Pre-doctoral Fellowship. Drs. George Engelmayr and David Merryman were also  AHA Pre-doctoral Fellows.

   
 

Please see the URL below for an update regarding Adam Iddriss, who graduated in 2007 and is now a medical student at Johns Hopkins.  http://www.hopkinsglobalhealth.org/our_work/frameworks_program/Framework_grant_recipients/Spring_2008/Adam_Iddriss/index.html

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been elected a Fellow of ASME.  The Fellow grade recognizes exceptional engineering achievements and contributions to the engineering profession. Professor Sacks is recognized for his international leadership in the field of soft tissue biomechanics; in particular Professor Sacks' ground breaking work in the biomechanics of native and prosthetic heart valves and in the development of tissue engineered heart valves.

   
 

Professor Mark Redfern has achieved a truly stratospheric evaluation for Spring 2084.  Professor Redfern's "line 10" evaluation is 4.93 for his undergraduate course, "Biodynamics of Movement!"  Also, Dr. Kacey Marra's "line 10" evaluation is 4.73 for the undergraduate course, "Introduction to Tissue Engineering!"

   
 

The article below in the NIDCD/NIH Newsletter that highlights the medical virtual reality center (MVRC) work of Professors Mark Redfern and Joseph Furman. This work was initiated with an R21 obtained a few years ago from NIDCD, and subsequent NIH funding. The work involves faculty from Bioengineering, Otolaryngology, and Physical Therapy.    It is now translating into patient care research.    http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/inside/spr08/pq1.asp  

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited as the 2008-2009 keynote speaker for the Richard Skalak Bioengineering Colloquium @Columbia University.  The Richard Skalak Biomedical Eengineering Colloquium was established in 1996 to honor Professor Richard Skalak for his contributions to Columbia University and his accomplishment in the development of biomedical engineering at Columbia.  Professor Sacks joins distinguished researchers in biomechanics and biomedical engineering who have delivered these lectures.  Professor Sacks will speak in the Spring 2009.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Erinn Joyce has been awarded a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the 2008-2009 Provost's Development Fund. Erinn is conducting her dissertation research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

Submission by BioE graduate student, Rebecca Long entitled, "Mechanical Stimulation Induced Elastogenesis In Collagenous Scaffolds Seeded With Badder Smooth Muscle Cells," authored by Rebecca Long , Julia Ivanova, Dr. Aron Parekh and Professor Michael Sacks has been accepted for presentation in the Student Paper Competition (SPC) poster session at the 2008 ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference (SBC).  

   
 

BioE undergraduate student, Bartholomew Bacak has been selected as a Computational Neuroscience Research Fellow.  This award is intended to support Bartholomew's research and education in computational neuroscience in the next year. Mr. Bacak is conducting his research in Dr. Henry Zeringue's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Kristin Wescoe received the Poster Award for 3rd Place at the Midwest Tissue Engineering Consortium.  Kristin's work, which is being conducted in Dr. Bridget Deasy's lab, is entitled: Wescoe KE, Schugar RC and BM Deasy. "Examination of Behavior of Umbilical Cord (UC)-Derived Stem Cells on 3D Tissue-Engineered Scaffolds."  Midwest Tissue Engineering Consortium. Cincinnati, OH.

   
 

Dr. George Engelmayr's new 1st author publication in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering. Engelmayr GC, Soletti L, Vigmostad SC, Budilarto SG, Federspiel WJ, Chandran KB, Vorp DA and Sacks MS.  "A Novel Flex-Stretch-Flow Bioreactor for the Study of Engineered Hear Valve Tissue Mechanobiology."  Annals of Biomedical Engineering 2008;36:700-712.  Dr. Engelmayr, who completed his dissertation research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab, is currently completing a post-doc in the "Langer Lab" @MIT. The 2nd author, Lorenzo Soletti is completing his PhD research in Dr. David Vorp's lab.

   
April 2008

BioE graduate students, Phil Marascalco and Mohammed El-Kurdi successfully defended their PhD dissertations.  Dr. Marascalco conducted his work in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab.  Dr. El-Kurdi performed his research in Dr. David Vorp’s lab

   
 

Professor T.K. Hung’s recent scholarly publication:  Biomagnetic Hydrodynamics in a 2-Dimensional Non-Darcian Porous Medium: Finite Element” by H.S. Takhar, R. Bhargava, S. Rawat, T.A. Beg, O.A. Beg and T.K. Hung, J. of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Volume 37, Number 2, pages 40-60, 2007.

   
 

Two of  Dr. Mark Gartner’s senior design teams have submitted their projects for the National BMEidea competition:

NAME OF BMEidea PROJECT: Neonatal Incubator for Developing Nations (Burhanuddin Mahmood: Mentor)

APPLICANT INFORMATION Bradley Morneweck team

BRIEF PROJECT SUMMARY: Births that occur in developing countries, such as Haiti, do not always occur at the hospital. For instance, in Haiti’s Hospital Albert Schweitzer, there are two to three off-site facilities that must be able to support newborns. Thermoregulation is important due to infants’ increased susceptibility to cold stress and vulnerability to changes in environmental temperature and convective heat and moisture loss due to air movement. This is a greater problem in premature or low-birth weight infants, due to their increased surface area to volume ratios. To fill this gap in medical care, we designed a simple, low-cost incubator that does not rely on a power grid. These facilities have very limited accessibility and have no electrical or water supply. A solar panel and battery array are used to power this incubator. Low-cost parts that are all available for replacement by mail order from their respective sources were used. The unit is modular in nature and is simple enough to be maintained by a limited infrastructure and technical support staff.

NAME OF BMEidea PROJECT: Sublaminar Vertebral Hook (Boyle Cheng: Mentor)

APPLICANT INFORMATION Amy McCarty team

BRIEF PROJECT SUMMARY: Vertebral hooks for spine stabilization and fusion surgeries are underutilized due to their difficulty of implantation. Pedicle screws are more common, a fact associated with the simplification of surgeries resulting from polyaxial heads. Hooks are more biomechanically stable and provide applications in damaged or compromised (i.e. cancerous) bone not fit for drilling. Thus, we are going to design a hook that overcomes some of the problems associated with current implementations by adding a polyaxial head.

   
 

Oneximo Gonzalez has been awarded a 2008 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!  As you know this is among the most prestigious and competitive awards that a graduate student can win.  Oneximo is undertaking his dissertation research in the MSRC under the direction of Professor Savio Woo.  Professor Woo is also the mentor for a 2nd NSF Graduate Fellow, Serena Augustine.  Our 3rd NSF Graduate Fellow, Jennifer Mercer, is completing her PhD dissertation in Professor Michael Boninger’s lab.

   
 

Gaurav Shukla has been accepted into the 2008 CTSI Predoctoral Fellowship program in Clinical and Translational Science for 2008-2009.  Gaurav is conducting his dissertation research in Professor George Stetten's lab.

   
 

Dr. Steven Little's Beckman Foundation Young Innovator Award application entitled, "Synthetic Dendritic Cells," has been selected for funding.  Dr. Little may be the 1st Pitt faculty member to receive this prestigious award!

 

 

March 2008

BIRM trainee, Michael  Hill (BioE graduate student), has received a prestigious NSF EAPSI grant to work with Dr. Akira Takahashi at Tohoku University.  Chad Eckert was the other recipient.

   
 

Graduate student, Ellen Brennan has been awarded a prestigious F31 Pre-doctoral Fellowship for her project entitled, "Antibactrial degradation products of extracellular matrix bioscaffolds." Ellen who is conducting this research in Dr. Stephen Badylak's lab, is the 7th BioE PhD candidate to recently be awarded an F31, and the 2nd student (along with Donald Freytes) in Dr. Badylak's lab to receive this wonderful award.

 

 

 

Philip Marascalco, who will defend his PhD dissertation in two weeks, has accepted a position at Terumo Heart as a Clinical Technical Support Specialist.  In addition to his dissertation research in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab, Phil has also served as a Clinical Artificial Heart Biomedical Engineer for the UPMC Artificial Heart Program; and it is through this experience that Phil was considered for the Terumo position.

   
February 2008

Professor Michael Sacks has been selected to receive a 2008 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award in the Senior Scholar Category. In his letter to Professor Sacks regarding this award, Chancellor Nordenberg writes, “Your known accomplishments … show that you have achieved national and international eminence as an outstanding scholar in your field … You have conducted pioneering work in the experimental and theoretical understanding of soft tissue mechanics.  You possess noted expertise in heart valve analysis and replacement.  Your peers conclude that you are at the top of your field … a world class leader in tissue mechanics and the world leader in heart valve tissue mechanics.”

   
January 2008

Dr. Mark Gartner’s senior design class won $500 stipends from NCIIA for their projects.  The project titles and groups are: “Design of an Incubator for Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti” Ted Kastenhuber, Bradley Morneweck, Christopher Withers and Bailey Roche andDesign of an Anatomical Polyaxial Vertebral Hook” Kate Campbell, Benjamin Schmidt, Shawn Burton and Amy McCarty.

   
 

Dr. Savio Woo has been made the first recipient of the College of Engineering, University of Washington’s prestigious Diamond Award for Distinguished Achievement in Academia. The UW College of Engineering has long honored outstanding alumni in industry, but this is the first time that the Diamond Award has been extended to an outstanding alumnus for exceptional knowledge and significant contributions to the field of engineering in academia. The award celebrates Dr. Woo’s academic, professional and personal accomplishments. He is a rare scientist who is honored by membership in both the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering, as well as in Academia Sinica (PRC). For his work, Dr. Woo has been recognized with highest honors by many professional societies including the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Biomechanics, the International Society of Biomechanics, as well as the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine.

   
December 2007

Dr. Steven Abramowitch has been selected as a Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Scholar, effective January, 2008. The purpose of this program is to support the development of young faculty members with research interests in the field of women's health as independent investigators.  Dr. Abramowitch was selected for his innovative research in the biomechanics of pelvic disorders being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Pam Moalli at Magee Women's Research Institute.

   
November 2007

Professor Fernando Boada has been elected as a member of the 2008 AIMBE Class of Fellows.  Formal induction of the 2008 AIMBE Class of Fellows will occur in February in D.C.  Professor Boada is being honored "For pioneering contributions to functional and metabolic magnetic resonance imaging and its applications to cancer and stroke diagnosis and treatment monitoring in humans."

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to serve as a reviewer for the spring, 2008 American Heart Association Cell Transport, Physiology & Metabolism Study Group.

   
 

At the annual BioE Board of Visitors dinner on November 16th, Professor Mark Redfern was honored with the 2007-2008 Board of Visitors Faculty Award.  In making the presentation to Professor Redfern, Provost Maher noted Professor Redfern's research contributions in the area of postural control; Professor Redfern's funding portfolio which approaches $20 M overall in P.I. and collaborative funding over the years; Professor Redfern's scores of publications; Mark's outstanding leadership in BioE educational programs; Professor Redfern's commitment to mentorship; and of course, Mark's perfect "5.0" teaching evaluations which are at the very top across the entire campus!

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to contribute a review article on "Heart Valve Tissue Engineering" for the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, Volume 11.  The Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering is the highest impact factor journal (among 42) ISI includes in the category "Engineering, Biomedical."

   
 

BioE graduate student, Alan Degengart has been selected to receive a one year fellowship in the Multimodal Neuroimaging Training Program (MNTP) beginning January 1, 2008.  MNTP is funded through an NIH/NIDA T90 Program, which may be another funding mechanism for our graduate students that we need to explore. MNTP is co-directed by Professor Seong-gi Kim @Pitt and Professor William Eddy @CMU. Alan is conducting his research in Dr. Douglas Weber's lab.

   
 

Tom Robey, who is an MD, PhD candidate at the University of Washington, has been awarded the PhD degree and is now completing his medical degree.  Dr. Robey was a triple major during his years as an undergraduate student @Pitt.  He was awarded the B. Phil in BioE by completing an honors thesis in Dr. William Wagner’s lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, John Stella’s 1st author publication in the current issue of the JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS: Stella JA, J Liao and MS Sacks. Time-dependent biaxial mechanical behavior of the aortic heart valve leaflet.  JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 40 (2007) 3169-3177.  John is performing this work in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo has been elected LIFE FELLOW, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

   
 

Recent publications by two of our BioE PhD graduates (Dr. Carmen DiGiovine and Dr. Erik Wolf), who performed their dissertation research in Professor Cooper’s Human Energy Research Labs.  (1) Koontz AM, Yang Y, Price R, Tolerico ML, DiGiovine CP, Sisto SA, Cooper RA and Boninger ML. Multisite comparison of wheelchair propulsion kinetics in persons with paraplegia.  Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development 2007; 44:449-458.  (2) Wolf E, Cooper RA, Pearlman J, Fitzgerald SG and Kelleher A. Longitudinal assessment of vibrations during manual and power wheelchair driving over select sidewalk surfaces.  Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development 2007; 44:573-580.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo received the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Bay Area Knee Society, November 1 in San Francisco, CA.  The Bay Area Knee Society is an academic organization based in San Francisco, which for the past two decades, has annually recognized outstanding individuals who have made lifelong contributions in advancing the art and science of knee surgery.  Dr. Woo will be the 21st recipient of this prestigious, internationally recognized award that many consider as the “Nobel Prize” of the knee.

   
October 2007

BioE graduate student. Xiaoyan  Zhang was awarded the 2007 Erin McGurk Research Grant from the Orthopaedic Research Laboratory Alumni Council (ORLAC) for her project entitled, “A Subject-specific Model of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament.”  Xiaoyan is conducting this work in the Musculoskeletal Research Center, under the direction of Professor Savio Woo.  The award provides funding for a female graduate student to perform musculoskeletal research during the summer.   

   
 

Dr. Joie Marhefka, who completed her PhD dissertation in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab, has accepted an offer for a postdoctoral position at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) beginning January, 2008.

   
 

Professor George Stetten is launching for the MD, PhD Program which also serves as the basis for a training grant being submitted to NIH. The Medical Imaging, Neural Engineering, and Robotics (MINER) Training Program for M.D./Ph.D. Predoctoral Students.  "Our goal is create physician researchers engaged in the discovery, development, and clinical translation of new knowledge and technology in the interrelated fields of medical imaging, neural engineering, and robotics. The proposed training program would solidify existing bridges between the biomedical and engineering communities through a shared curriculum and other activities to promote collaborative research. In particular, we would involve three programs that already host M.D./Ph.D. students in these areas, namely, Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, the Robotics Institute at CMU, and Biomedical Engineering at CMU."

   
 

Dr. James Wang has received conferral of tenure as Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery in the School of Medicine.  BioE extends our heartiest congratulations to Dr. Wang on this career achievement.

   
  Professor George Stetten has been appointed Co-Director of the Pitt/CMU Medical Scientist Training Program (MD, PhD Program). This appointment is most fitting for Professor Stetten who has been totally committed to the academic success of our outstanding MSTP Program. Professor Stetten has been particularly successful at recruiting top bioengineering recruits to our MSTP and Pitt BioE.
   
 

A recent plenary presentation by Dr. Tamer Ibrahim’s: T.S. Ibrahim, "Electromagnetics and Field Modeling for UHF MRI and B1 Shimming" in the 6th BI-ANNUAL 2007 MINNESOTA WORKSHOPS on HIGH FIELD MR IMAGING AND SPECTROSCOPY and MR IMAGING of BRAIN FUNCTION, October 2007.  http://www.cmrr.umn.edu/workshops/Workshop_07/2007faculty.shtml

   
 

Dr. J. Scott Van Epps’ recent 1st author publication co-authored with Dr. David Vorp, Dr. J. Scott Van Epps’ PhD adviser.  JS Van Epps and DA Vorp. Mechanopathobiology of Atherogenesis: A Review. JOURNAL OF SURGICAL RESEARCH Vol 142: 202-217, 2007.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks is an invited speaker at the FDA/NIST-Sponsored Workshop on “In Vitro Analyses of Cell/Scaffold Medical Products.”  The Workshop is to be held on December 6-7, 2007 in Washington D.C. 20594.  Professor Sacks will speak for 30 minutes on the topic, “Novel Methods to Quantify Tissue Structure and Multi-Axial Mechanical Testing.

   
 

Professor Partha Roy has received a 4-year Minority Graduate Research Supplement (MGRS) for his NCI award entitled, “Profilin as a Target to Suppress Invasive Breast Cancer.”  BioE graduate student,  Maria Jaramillo will be supported via this MGRS.

   
 

The BioE Department truly distinguished itself at the just completed 2007 BMES Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, CA. Below please find the 37 presentations made by our faculty (bold) and students (underlined bold).

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Dynamic Myocardial Contractile Parameters From Left ventricular Pressure-Volume Measurements S.G. SHROFF, W.C. HUNTER AND K.B. CAMPBEL

 

Current and Future Considerations In The Use Of Mechanical Circulatory Support M.A. SIMON, W.R. WAGNER AND H.S. BOROVETZ 

 

Biocompatibility In Ventricular Assist Devices: How Can You Improve What You Cannot Measure? W.R. WAGNER

Probing Intracellular Ca2+ Signaling Through Mechanical stimulation Of Focal Adhesion Complexes W.C. RUDER, E.D. PRATT, N.Z. BRANDY, D.A. LAVAN, J.F. ANTAKI AND P.R. LEDUC

 

BCI – A Novel Paradigm For Studies Of Neural Plasticity S.M. CHASE, R. KASS AND A.B. SCHWARTZ 

Characterization of Aortic Valve Endothelial Cell Strain Response To Global Tissue Stretch S.A. METZLER, S.C. WALLER, M.S. SACKS, J. LIAO AND J.N. WARNOCK 

 

Hemodynamic Analysis of Echocardiogram S. BALASUBRAMANIAN, M. SIMON, M. SUFFOLETTO, J. GORCSAN, H.S. BOROVETZ AND T. HUNG  

 

Stress Overload of The In Situ Aortic Valve Interstitial Cell Under Circumferential Strain W.D. MERRYMAN, H.D. LUKOFF, R.A. HOPKINS AND M.S. SACKS 

 

Effects Of Passages On The Gene Expression Profile Of Medial Collateral Ligament Fibroblasts S. AUGUSTINE, A.J. ALMARZA AND S.L. WOO

 

Assessment Of A Biomimetic, Composite, Tubular Scaffold or Vascular Tissue Engineering Applications L. SOLETTI, A. NIEPONICE, J. GUAN, Y. HONG, J. STANKUS, W. WAGNER AND D.A. VORP 

 

Ventricular Function In Mice Expressing Constitutively Phosphorylated Cardiac Troponin I J.A. KIRK, C. EVANS, A.F. STEWARD, G.A.MCGOWAN, and S.G. SHROFF

 

A Finite Element Analysis Rupture Index (FEARI) As A New Tool For AAA Burst Prediction B.J. DOYLE, A. CALLANAN, D. VORP AND T. MGLOUGHLI

 

Biomechanical Properties of Active Urethral Smooth Muscle Are Altered In A Rat Model Of Birth Trauma R. PRANTIL, M. MIYAZATO, D.J. HAWORTH, M.B. CHANCELLOR, W.C. DE ROAT, N. YOSHIMURA AND D.A. VORP

 

Providing Somatosensory Feedback Via Multichannel icrostimulation of Primary Afferent Neurons D.J. WEBER, J.A. HOKANSON AND J.B. WAGENAAR

 

The Effect of Sampling Location On Optical Coherence Tomography Nerve Fiber Layer Measurements M.L. GABRIELE, H. ISHIKAWA, G. WOLLSTEIN, R. BILONICK, L. KAGEMANN, J.G. FUJIMOTO AND J.S. SCHUMAN

 

Using Mechanical Stimulation To Control The Response Of Muscle-Derived Stem Cell Transplantation T.R. CASSINO, M. OKADA, L. DROWLEY, J. FEDUSKA, B.M. DEASY, J. HUARD AND P. LEDUC

 

Development of A Selective Immunoadsorption Device For The Treatment Of Sepsis M.V. DILEO, J. KELLUM AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL 

 

Decellularization of Pancreatic Extracellular Matrix For A Tissue-Engineered Pancreas R. TCHEN, J. TENGOOD, H. JIANG, S. BADYLAK AND J.B. OGILVIE 

 

Dissolvable, Synthetic Vasculature J. TENGOOD, A.J. RUSSELL AND S.R. LITTLE

 

Comparison of Ligament And Tendon Fibroblast Behavior through Passages For Tissue Engineering A.J. ALMARZA, S. AUGUSTINE AND S.L. WOO

 

Cellular Deformations In Micro-Integrated Electrospun Scaffolds For Heart Valve Tissue Engineering J.A. STELLA, L. JUN, Y. HONG, W. MERRYMAN, W.R. WAGNER AND M.S. SACKS

 

Assessment of Biomechanical Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Rupture Potential Indices Over Time D.A. VORP, S. SHAH, J. BARBATO AND M.S. MAKAROUN

 

Influence of Simulated Physiological Hemodynamics On Engineered Heart Valve Tissue Formation S. RAMASWAMY AND M.S. SACKS

 

Elevated Regional RV Wall Stress In Chronic Pulmonary Hypertension Regardless Of Hemodynamics M.A. SIMON, C. DEIBLE, M.R. PINSKY, M. MATHIER, S. MADAN2, J. LACOMIS S.G. SHROFF

 

Development of New Integrated Affinity Bead And Microfiltration Fiber Specific Antibody Filters A. ALIKHANI, S. GAUTAM AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

Ex Vivo Strain Induced Bladder Wall Remodeling R.A. LONG, A. PAREKH AND M.S. SACKS

 

Electrospinning Biodegradable Polymers Onto Living Vascular Tissue M.S. EL-KURDI, Y. HONG, J. STANKUS, L. SOLETTI, W.R. WAGNER AND D.A. VORP

 

Structural Properties of Extracellular Matrix In Decellularized Rabbit Carotid Arteries C. WILLIAMS, E.M. JOYCE, J.B. LEAH, M.S. SACKS, J. LIAO AND J.Y. WONG

 

Bioactive Hollow Fibers Towards Compact Artificial Lungs H OH, J.L. KAAR, A.J. RUSSELL AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

Investigating Cue-Signal-Response of Mesenchymal Stem ell Migration S. WU,  A. WELLS, L.G. GRIFFITH AND D.A. LAUFFENBURGER

 

Conducting Polymer Based Neurochemical Release System W. STAUFFER, G. BI AND X.T. CUI

 

Viscoelastic Deformation of The Aortic Valve Interstitial Cell During Diastole W.D. MERRYMAN, F. GUILAK AND M.S. SACKS

 

Specific Antibody Filter (SAF) Binding Capacity Enhancement To Remove Anti-A Antibodies S. GAUTAM, A. ALIKHANI AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

Gene Regulation Through Controlled Release From A  Biodegradable Poly(ester urethane) Urea P. RAMASWAMI, A. KATAKAM, J. FRIZ, D. CRESS, J. GUAN AND W.R. WAGNER 

 

Effects Of Intermittent Hypoxia on Cardiac Muscle Contractile Function In Mice S.H. SMITH, A.M. JANCZEWSKI, J. NAGHSHIN, Y. HE, C.P. O'DONNELL AND S.G. SHROFF 

 

Potential Role of Src In Pressure-Induced Regulation Of Arterial Gap Junctions: An Ex Vivo Study Y. HE AND S.G. SHROFF 

 

Blending Structural and Non-Thrombogenic Polymers To Form A Nanofibrous Small Diameter Blood Vessel Y. HONG, S. YE, D.A. VORP AND W.R. WAGNER 

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Our BioE faculty also organized and co-chaired the following sessions:

Cardiovascular Engineering: Ventricular Assist Devices and Heart Valves  -- Co-Chairs: Harvey S. Borovetz & Keffe Manning   

 

Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Engineering: Orthopedic Soft Tissue Biomechanics -- Co-Chairs: James Wang & Ketul Popat

 

Cardiovascular Engineering: Thrombosis in Circulation -- Co-Chairs: Shmuel Einav & William Wagner

 

Neural Engineering: Neural Interfacing -- Co-Chairs: Tracy Cui & Daryl Kipke

 

Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Engineering: Joint Biomechanics -- Co-Chairs: Thay Lee & Zong-Ming Li

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September 2007

1st author paper Lauren Johnson who is a PhD candidate in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab. Professor Michael  Pinsky is co-advising Lauren on this project. Lauren Johnson, Hyung Kook Kim, Masaki Tanabe, John Gorcsan, David Schwartzman, Sanjeev G. Shroff, Michael R. Pinsky Differential effects of left Ventricular pacing sites in an acute canine model of contraction dyssynchrony.  Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. (in press), 2007.

   
 

Drs. Rakie Cham and Mark Redfern are highlighted in the just released issue of Pitt Magazine (Summer 2007).  The article entitled, “Footloose – Giving Injuries the slip” on pp, 30 – 31, describes the exciting research being conducted in the Human Movement and Balance Laboratory by Drs. Cham and Redfern.

   
 

Drs. Mark Gartner and George Stetten will receive Pitt Innovator Awards as part of the second annual Celebration of Innovation on September 24.  Pitt Innovator Awards are given to those whose innovations were licensed to industry or start-up companies this past year.

   
 

Professor Marina Kameneva's recent publication with Dr. James Antaki.  Zhao R, Kameneva MV, Antaki JF. Investigation of platelet margination phenomena at elevated shear stress. Biorheology, 44(3):161-177, 2007.

   
 

A recent chapter authored by Professor Marina Kameneva and Dr. James Antaki entitled, “Mechanical Trauma to Blood,” will be published in: Handbook of Hemorheology and Hemodynamics, Volume 69 Biomedical and Health Research, Editors: O.K. Baskurt, M.R. Hardeman, M.W. Rampling and H.J. Meiselman, September 2007.

   
 

The publication. Orthopedics This Week, includes an article entitled, “Carpal Tunnel Research: A View Out of the Tunnel,” that features Dr. Zong-Ming Li’s recognized work in this area.

   
  Professors William Federspiel, Sanjeev Shroff and William Wagner have been elected to the BMES class of 2007 Fellows. Fellow status is awarded to Society members who demonstrate exceptional achievement and bring experience to the field of biomedical engineering, and hold a record of membership and participation in the Society. The BMES class of 2007 Fellows will be inducted formally later this month at the annual BMES meeting in Los Angeles
   
 

A recent publication by Dr. George Stetten’s publication.  G. Stetten, R. Klatzky, B. Nichol, K. Rockot, K. Zawrotny, D. Weiser, J. Galeotti, N. Sendgikoski, S. Horvath, “Fingersight: Fingertip Visual Haptic Sensing and Control,” IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments (HAVE), Ontario, Canada, 12-14 October 2007.  The underlined authors are/were all BioE undergraduate students! 

   
 

BioE graduate student, Kevin Mihelc, completed his MS in Dr. William Federspiel’s lab this past summer.  He has accepted a job at Levitronix in Boston, where he will be working as a Design & Development Engineer in the mechanical circulatory support area.

   
 

Dr. Lance Davidson's publication in NATURE CELL BIOLOGY, J. B. Green and L. A. Davidson (2007). Convergent extension and the hexahedral cell.  NATURE CELL BIOLOGY, 9: 1010-1015.

   
 

An update on publications/presentations from Dr. Tamer Ibrahim's lab:

PUBLICATIONS: (1) T. S. Ibrahim, and L. Tang, "Insight into RF power requirements and B1 field homogeneity for human MRI via rigorous FDTD approach ", Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Vol 25 (6), pp 1235-1247, June, 2007. (2) Jacobs MA, Ibrahim TS, Ouwerkerk R. AAPM/RSNA physics tutorials for residents: MR imaging: brief overview and emerging applications. Radiographics 2007;27(4):1213-1229. (Invited Paper)

PLENARY LECTURE:  (1) "Electromagnetics and Field Modeling for UHF MRI and B1 Shimming" in the 6th BI-ANNUAL 2007 MINNESOTA WORKSHOPS on HIGH FIELD MR IMAGING AND SPECTROSCOPY and MR IMAGING of BRAIN FUNCTION http://www.cmrr.umn.edu/workshops/Workshop_07/2007program.shtml , (2) T. S. Ibrahim, "Understanding RF Safety Using Computational Electromagnetics'', MR Safety Study Group, The 15th International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Annual Meeting, Berlin, Germany, May 2007.  http://ismrm.org/07/saf.htm   (3) T. S. Ibrahim, "Electromagnetics of High Field MRI'', Hardware and Physics, The ISMRM Workshop on Advances in High Field MR, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, CA, March 2007. http://www.ismrm.org/workshops/HighField/program1.htm

INVITED PRESENTATIONS: (1) T. S. Ibrahim and L. Tang, "RF power requirements in human MRI: Does higher field strength necessitate higher RF power?" Special Session on Bioelectromagnetics in the 23rd Annual Review Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics, Verona, Italy, pp 841-845, March 2007.  (2) L. Tang, and T. S. Ibrahim, "On the radio-frequency power requirements of human MRI", Special Session on Bioelectromagnetics in the Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Beijing, China, pp 511-514, March 2007.

   
August 2007

Professor Michael Sacks has been elected to serve on the Editorial Board for the journal, Cardiovascular Pathology, the official journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks’ recent publication in the JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS.  Nirmalanandhan VS, Rao M, Sacks MS, Haridas B and Butler DL. Effect of length of the engineered tendon construct on its structure-function relationships in culture. JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 40 (2007) 2523-2529

   
 

A recent 1st author publication by BioE graduate student, Erica Authier, who conducted this work in Professor Rory Cooper’s lab.  Authier EL, Pearlman J, Allegretti AL, Rice I and Cooper RA. A sports wheelchair for low-income countries. DISABILITY AND REHABILITATION, June 2007; 29(11 – 12): 963-967.

   
 

BioE Undergraduate student, Bradley Morneweck spent this current summer as an Honors College Brackenridge Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow.  The title of Brad’s summer project is, “The Many Escapades of Caveolin-3 and the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor.”  This work was conducted in the lab of Dr. Ferruccio-Galbiati in Med-Pharmacology.  Brad is pursuing a dual major in Bioengineering and Biological Sciences, and currently maintains a 4.0 QPA.

   
 

Dr. Christopher Deible, who completed his PhD in Pitt BioE in 1998 working in Dr. William Wagner’s lab, is featured in the Summer 2007 Pitt Radiology magazine.  In particular, Dr. Deible, a staff radiologist at UPMC Presbyterian, is cited as one of the radiologists leading the development of cardiac imaging at UPMC including the use of 64-slice cardiac CT.

   
 

BioE graduate student. Rebecca Long has been selected as one of only 5 recipients of the BMES 2007 Graduate Research Award.  Rebecca was selected in recognition for outstanding biomedical engineering research for her paper entitled, "Ex Vivo Strain-Induced Bladder Wall Remodeling."  Rebecca is conducting this work in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

An upcoming publication, first authored by Dr. Lawrence Kagemann, in the Journal of Biomedical Optics entitled, "Spectral oximetry assessed with high-speed ultra-high resolution optical coherence tomography."  Co-authors include Dr. Hiroski Ishikawa, BioE graduate student, Michelle Gabriele and Professor Joel Schuman (in whose lab Michelle is undertaking her research).  Dr. Kagemann and colleagues are publishing here the first measurements of retinal blood oxygen saturation obtained with Fourier domain optical coherence tomography imaging.

   
 

Dr. Gusphyl Justin, who this summer completed his PhD in BioE in Drs. Robert Sclabassi's and Mingui Sun's labs, has accepted a postdoctoral position working in the areas of biocompatibility and in vivo biosensors in the laboratory of Professor Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, at the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department and the Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors, and Biochips (C3B) at Clemson University's College of Engineering and Science.

   
 

Two invited lectures that Dr. David Vorp will deliver next week at the by-invitation only Cardiovascular Conference being held in Darwin, Australia. (1) Tissue engineered blood vessels, including their use in the study of vascular tone pathophysiology” and (2) “Stem cells in cardiovascular tissue engineering”.

   
  The University of Pittsburgh has named Dr. Savio L-. Woo University Professor.  The title University Professor is given by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg in recognition of eminence in several fields of study as well as transcending accomplishment in - and contributions to - a single discipline.  Dr. Woo founded and directs the University of Pittsburgh Musculoskeletal Research Center (MSRC), a multidisciplinary research and educational center that has hosted more than 450 orthoopaedic surgeons, bioengineering students, and staff. Throughout his career, Dr. Woo has focused his research on knee ligament healing and repair, particularly on the medial collateral (MCL) and anterior cruciate (ACL) ligaments, two of the knee's four major ligaments.  He has published 295 refereed journal papers, 130 book chapters, and more than 740 abstracts.  Dr Woo has also edited 12 books and 15 conference proceedings.
   
 

BioE undergraduate student, Daniel Wilkinson won the SRI "Best Research Presentation Award" for the 2007 Excel Summer Research Internship program.  The title of Dan’s talk was "Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Alginate Gels."  Dan conducted his work under the mentorship of Dr. Bridget Deasy.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Rebecca Long has been selected to attend and present a poster at the Second Annual NIH National Graduate Student Research Festival on October 11 - 12, 2007 on the main campus of the NIH in Bethesda, MD.  In addition to scientific presentations, the Festival also introduces pre-doctoral fellows to NIH investigators with whom they might want to pursue postdoctoral training.  Rebecca is undertaking her dissertation research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
July 2007

Professor Rory Cooper is the recipient of the 2007 da Vinci Lifetime Achievement Award.  The following information has just been released from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.  da Vinci Lifetime Achievement Award:  Dr. Rory Cooper:  Honoring a lifetime of significant contributions to advancing Accessibility.  Dr. Cooper’s energy and devotion to the field of rehabilitation engineering and assistive  technology are unmatched. Dr. Cooper is Director of the Human Engineering Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh and Co-Director of the Quality of Life Technology Center.

   
  In recognition of outstanding dedication and commitment to mentoring, Professor Sanjeev Shroff has received the SRI Best Mentor Award for the 2007 Excel Summer Research Internship.
   
  Two recent publication by Dr. Lance Davidson which are his first to come from BioE at University of Pittsburgh! (1) L. A. Davidson and R. E. Keller (July 2007). Measuring mechanical properties of embryos and embryonic tissues. Chapter in Methods in Cell Biology: Cell Mechanics vol. 83 (ed. by Y.-L. Wang and D. E. Discher), (2) L. A. Davidson (in press). Integrating morphogenesis with underlying mechanics and cell biology. Current Topics in Developmental Biology.
   
 

Dr. Megan Rothney, who graduated with her B.S. in Bioengineering from our Department in 2002, has completed the Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering @Vanderbilt University this past spring term.  Dr. Rothney is currently a post-doctoral fellow at NIH.

   
 

A special symposium on "Advances in Hydraulics, Biomechanics and Fluid Dynamics" was held on July 18 at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan.  The symposium honored Professor Tin Kan Hung for his many significant accomplishments in nonlinear computational fluid dynamics, biomechanics and hydrodynamics.

   
 

Three prestigious conference invitations have been issued to Dr. Steven Abramowitch:

1) The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative conference from November 13th through the 16th Only 100 researchers from across the U.S. have been selected to participate.

 

2) International Research Workshop in Pelvic Floor Disorders on September 6 – 7 in Lille, France which is an initiative of the collaborative working group on the use of meshes in pelvic floor reconstruction (Lille, Leuven, Nîmes, Cambridge)  and organized in collaboration with the International Urogynecology Association (IUGA) the French International Society of Urodynamic and Pelvic Disorders (Société Internationale Francophone Urodynamique et PelviPérinéologie or SIFUD PP) –-  Dr. Abramowitch has been invited to give a 20 minute talk on, “Biomechanical Testing Soft Tissues of the Pelvic Floor.”

 

3) Pelvic Floor Mechanics session at the Reproductive Bioengineering 2008 meeting in Kuhtai, Austria (near Innsbruck) from April 1-5, 2008.   This is an international multidisciplinary meeting on all scientific topics that require integration of either bioengineering or biophysical aspects with biological and physiological knowledge in the study of all areas of reproduction from the molecular to organ levels.  It is chaired by David Elad (Tel Aviv University, Israel) and Ludwig Wildt (Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria) –- Dr. Abramowitch has been invited to give a 25 minute talk on the topic, “Identifying Factors Which Negatively Impact the Integrity of Pelvic Connective Tissue in the Rat Model.“

_______

   
 

BioE graduate student, Josh Woolley has been selected as the recipient for the Paul Malchesky student abstract fellowship based on his oral slide presentation at the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) 2007 conference in Chicago this past June entitled, “Ovine Platelet Aggregation Sensitivity to Anticoagulant and Anti-Platelet Agents.”   Josh scored first out of six finalists for the award. Josh is conducting this work in Professor William Wagner’s lab.

   
  Dr. William Wagner’s (editor-in-chief) new biomaterials journal, Acta Biomaterialia, in its third year of publishing and now listed on Medline, just received its first impact factor or 2.132.  This places the journal 5th of 14 journals in the biomaterials category of Journal Citation Reports. For reference the official journals of the Society for Biomaterials, The Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A & B have impact factors of 2.497 and 1.778 respectively and The Annals of Biomedical Engineering has an impact factor of 2.276.
   
 

Three papers from Dr. Aaron Batista’s postdoctoral fellowship @Stanford have very recently been accepted for publication1) Batista AP, Santhanam G, Yu BM, Ryu SI, Afshar A, Shenoy KV. "Reference Frames for Reach Planning in Macaque Dorsal Premotor Cortex." Journal of Neurophysiology (available as preprint at http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/00421.2006v1).  2) Batista AP, Yu BM, Santhanam G, Ryu SI, Afshar A, Shenoy KV. "Cortical Neural Prosthesis Performance Improves When Eye Position is Monitored." IEEE Transactions in Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (Due out in December 2007 special issue on Neural Prosthetics.3) Cynthia A. Chestek*, Aaron P. Batista*, Gopal Santhanam, Byron M. Yu, Afsheen Afshar, John P. Cunningham, Vikash Gilja, Stephen I. Ryu, Mark M. Churchland, and Krishna V. Shenoy (* with the notation that Chestek and Batista contributed equally to this work.) "Single-neuron stability during repeated reaching in macaque premotor cortex." Journal of Neuroscience.

   
 

The following paper has been accepted for publication in the journal, Experimental Brain Research. B. Wu, R. Klatzky, D. Shelton, G. Stetten, “Mental concatenation of perceptually and cognitively specified depth to represent locations in near space.”  The 3rd author, Damion Shelton, Ph.D., was a member of our 1st undergraduate baccalaureate class in 2000.

   
 

A lead article in this month’s issue of the JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS: David A. Vorp. “Biomechanics of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms.” JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 40 (2007) 1887-1902. BioE extends our heartiest congratulations to Dr. Vorp for this recognition of the seminal work in this area performed in the Vorp laboratory for more than a decade.

   
 

Dr. David Vorp has been appointed to several prestigious national leadership positions: (1) US National Committee on Biomechanics (nominated by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers or ASME) [Professor Hung is also a member of this Committee]; (2) Program Chair, ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference 2008; (3) Conference Chair, ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference 2011.

   
June 2007

The annual meeting of the Tissue Engineering International and Regenerative Medicine Society-North American Chapter (TERMIS) was held in Toronto, Canada the week of June 11, 2007.  The participation of BioE students and faculty is indicated below with BioE faculty in bold font and BioE graduate students in italicized font.

TERMIS NA Conference Papers with BioE Student/Faculty Authors

(1) A Lineage of Myogenic-endothelial Cells in Adult Human Skeletal Muscle that are Superior to Myoblasts for Myocardial Infarct Repair, Masaho Okada, Thomas R. Payne, Bo Zheng, Hideki Oshima, Nobuo Momoi, Kimimasa Tobita, Bradley B. Keller, Julie A. Phillippi, Bruno Peault, Johnny Huard

(2) Development of a Tissue-engineered Vascular Graft Combining a Biodegradable Elastomeric Scaffold, Muscle-derived Stem Cells and In-vivo Remodeling in a Rat Model, Alejandro Nieponice, Lorenzo Soletti, Timothy M. Maul, Burhan Gharaibeh, Bridget M. Deasy, Jianjun Guan, Johnny Huard, William R. Wagner, David A. Vorp

(3) Intestinal Progenitor Cells Preferentially Migrate and Proliferate in Response to Degradation Products of Small Intestinal Submucosa Extracellular Matrix Bioscaffolds, Vineet Agrawal, Ellen P. Brennan, Janet Reing, Donald O. Freytes, Stephen F. Badylak

(4) Gene Regulation Through Controlled Release from a Biodegradable Poly(ester urethane)urea, Priya Ramaswami, Anand Katakam, Jennifer Friz, Dean Cress, Jianjun Guan, William R. Wagner

(5) Spatial Control of Multi-lineage Differentiation of Muscle-Derived Stem Cells, Julie A. Phillippi, Eric D. Miller, Johnny Huard, Lee E. Weiss, Alan Waggoner, Phil G. Campbell

(6) Development of Hollow Fiber-Based Bioreactor Systems for 3D Neuronal Cell Cultures, Candace A. Brayfield, Kacey G. Marra, John P. Leonard, Glenn T. Gobble, Matt J. Baun, X. Tracy Cui, Jorg C. Gerlach

(7) In Vivo Remodeling of ECM Scaffolds as a Function of Macrophage Phenotype, Stephen F. Badylak, Jolene Valentin, Ann Stewart-Akers

(8) A novel population of CD146+CD133+ muscle progenitors in human skeletal muscle and during ontogeny, M. Crisan, L. Casteilla, A. Logar, L. Zimmerlin, B. Sun, TS Park, S. Yap, J. Huard, B. Peault

(9) Tissue Engineered Adrenal Gland Functions in vitro, Hongbin Jiang, Tiffany S. Sellaro, Stephen F. Badylak, Jennifer B. Ogilvie

(10) Maintenance of Human Hepatocyte-Specific Functions by Acellular, Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds, Tiffany L. Sellaro, Stephen Strom, Anrati Ranade, Stephen F. Badylak

(11) Regenerative medicine based on post-natal muscle stem cells, Johnny Huard

(12) In Vivo Mechanical Environment Affects Muscle Stem Cell Transplantation for Muscle Regeneration, Theresa R. Cassino, Masaho Okada, Lauren Drowley, Joseph Feduska, Philip R. LeDuc, Johnny Huard

 

TERMIS NA Poster Presentations with BioE Student/Faculty Authors

(1) Incorporation of Protein Delivering Microspheres into Conduits for Peripheral Nerve Repair, Lauren Kokai, Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, Steven R. Little, Kacey G. Marra

(2) Sex Difference in Muscle Stem Cell Transplantation for Myocardial Regeneration, Lauren Drowley, Masaho Okada, Thomas Payne, Gregory Botta, Theresa Cassino, Hideki Oshima, Johnny Huard

(3) Optimization of a stem cell-based tissue engineered vascular graft with a novel hybrid scaffold, Lorenzo Soletti, Jianjun Guan, Yi Hong, John J. Stankus, Alejandro Nieponice, William R. Wagner, David A. Vorp

(4) Cardiac and Bladder Extracellular Matrix (ECM) in Lyophilized Sheet and Gel Form for Cardiac Applications, John M. Wainwright, Donald O. Freytes, Joseph P. Tinney, Kimimasa Tobita, Stephen F. Badylak

(5) Decellularization of Pancreatic Extracellular Matrix for the Development of a Tissue-Engineered Artificial Pancreas, Rena Tchen, Jillian E. Tengood, Tiffany S. Sellaro, Hongbin Jiang, Stephen F. Badylak, Jennifer B. Ogilvie

(6) Repair of the Thoracic Wall with an Extracellular Matrix Scaffold in a Canine Model, Thomas W. Gilbert, Alejandro Nieponice, Alan R. Spievack, Stephen F. Badylak

(7) Extracellular Matrix Scaffold Remodeling in a Canine Tracheal Wall Defect , Thomas W. Gilbert, Sebastien Gilbert, Stephen F. Badylak,

(8) In Vitro Growth of Myogenic Cells on Urinary Bladder Matrix Gels ,Donald O. Freytes, Annie S. Lee, John W. Wainwright, Kelly M. Clause, Joseph P. Tinney, Bradley B. Keller, Kimimasa Tobita, Stephen F. Badylak

(9) Chemotactic and mitogenic properties of ECM bioscaffolds, Julie M. Myers-Irvin, Janet Reing, Li Zhang, Susan Braunhut, Ellen Heber-Katz, Stephen F. Badylak

(10) Reversing the Effects of Scarring in Lacerated Muscle Tissue using Matrix Metalloproteinase-1, Joel L. Kaar, Yong Li, Johnny Huard, Richard R. Koepsel, Alan J. Russell

(11) The coalescence of decellularized tissue scaffolds, laser-activated chitosan bioadhesive and olfactory ensheathing cells for tissue repair and regeneration of the spinal cord, Helder Marcal, Stephen Badylak, Tiffany Sellaro, Antonio Lauto, Stephen Mahler, Peter Gray

(12) Attachment of N-isopropylacrylamide to Surfaces by Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Liquid Deposition, Sara Wargo, Richard Koepsel, Alan Russell

(13) Toward an Engineered Vein Graft Using an External Electrospun Biodegradable Polymer Wrap to Gradually Impose Arterial Circumferential Wall Stress, Mohammed S. El-Kurdi, Yi Hong, PhD, John J. Stankus, Lorenzo Soletti, William R. Wagner, David A. Vorp

(14) Obtaining Matured Oocytes from Preantral Follicles Matured in Suspension Culture, Matthew Heise, Richard Koepsel, Elizabeth McGee, Alan Russell

(15) Incorporation of Protein Delivering Microspheres into Conduits for Peripheral Nerve Repair, Lauren Kokai, Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, Steven R. Little and Kacey G. Marra

(16) The Effects of Scaffold Composition Upon Macrophage Polarization and Tissue Remodeling Outcome, Bryan N. Brown, Ann M. Stewart-Akers, Stephen F. Badylak

(17) Follistatin Improves Skeletal Muscle Healing After Injury, J Zhu, Y Li, J Huard

(18) Myogenic Potential of Human Fetal Placental Blood Vessels, Tea Soon Park, Chien-Wen Chen, Alison Logar, Johnny Huard, and Bruno Peault

(19) Morphology, Proliferation, and Gene and Protein Expression Changes in Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Progenitor Cells Following Mechanical Stimulation, Timothy M. Maul, Douglas W. Chew, Alejandro Nieponice, David A. Vorp

(20) The activation profile of human blood monocytes on SIS-ECM materials, Jolene E. Valentin, Stephen F. Badylak

(21) Mechanical Stimulation of Bone Marrow Progenitor Cells within a Three-Dimensional Fibrin Matrix, Jessica L. LoSurdo, Alejandro Nieponice, Douglas W. Chew, and David A. Vorp

(22) Investigating Cue-Signal-Response Relationships in Mesenchymal Stem Cell Migration, Shan Wu, Alan Wells, Linda G. Griffith, Douglas A. Lauffenburger

(23) Detection and Purification of Four Distinct Populations in the Stromal Vascular Fraction of Human Adipose Tissue, Ludovic Zimmerlin, Vera S. Donnenberg, Bruno Peault, J. Peter Rubin, Albert D. Donnenberg

(24) Blood-soluble drag-reducing polymers as a novel hemodynamic approach to tissue regeneration, Philip J. Marascalco, Ravikumar Thangappan, Alejandro Nieponice, Marina V. Kameneva

   
 

A publication co-authored by BioE graduate Student, Joseph Candiello has been published online:  Merryman WD, Liao J, Parekh A, Candiello JE, Lin H and Sacks M. “Differences in Tissue-Remodeling Potential of Aortic and Pulmonary Heart Valve Interstitial Cells.” Tissue Eng 2007 June 27.  Joe is a student in Dr. Hai Lin’s lab.  The 1st author, Dr. David Merryman, who just last month defended his BioE PhD dissertation, undertook this work in Professor Sacks’ lab.

   
 

Dr. David Vorp has been invited to be a keynote speaker at the 2008 (September) International Symposium on Aortic Aneurysms (Thoracic and Abdominal).  The title of Dr. Vorp’s presentation is: “Hemodynamic effects and wall stress in the pathogenesis of aortic aneurysms (thoracic and/or abdominal).”

   
 

Professor Patrick Loughlin's RO1 application entitled, "Modeling Sensory Integration and Attention in Postural Control of Older Adults," has been awarded funding by the National Institute of Aging (NIA). Co-Investigators are Drs. Furman, Jennings, Redfern and Sparto.  Pilot funding for this research came from the NIA-funded Pittsburgh Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, directed by Dr. Studenski.

   
 

See the URL below for a Reuter’s article about Dr. David Vorp’s tissue engineered blood vessel work.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSDIT85615820070618 

   
 

BioE graduate student, John Stella's abstract entitled, "The Digital Leaflet: Quantitative Image Analysis and 3D Digital Reconstruction of the Aortic Valve Leaflet," which he just presented at the 4th Biennial Meeting of the Society for Heart Valve Disease in New York, was selected as one of the 10 top abstracts out of a total of 133 abstracts presented at the meeting.  Also, John’s paper entitled Time-dependent biaxial mechanical behavior of the aortic heart valve leaflet,” has been e-published in JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 2007 (June 12).  John  is performing his research in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

The manuscript entitled, “The role of the primate superior colliculus in the control of head movements,” authored by Walton, Mark; Bechara, Bernard; and Gandhi, Neeraj has recently been accepted for publication in the JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY.  Bernard is performing his dissertation research in Dr. Neeraj Gandhi’s lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Carl Johnson's 1st author manuscript entitled, "Flow Cytometric Assays for Quantifying Activated Ovine Platelets" has been accepted for publication, and will appear in the January 2008 issue of ARTIFICIAL ORGANS. Co-authors are BioE PhD graduate Dr. Trevor Snyder, BioE PhD candidate Mr. Josh Woolley and senior author Dr. William Wagner, in whose lab this work was conducted.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to speak at a Workshop the FDA is holding on December 6-7, 2007, Washington, D.C.  The Workshop is entitled "Workshop on In Vitro Analyses of Cell/Scaffold Products."  The objective of this Workshop is to learn: 1) what questions should be asked (and addressed) when evaluating cell/scaffold products in preparation for the first human studies; and, 2) what test methods are available and what analytical procedures should be further researched, developed and/or standardized to determine the safety, purity, potency and consistency of cell/scaffold products.

   
 

Professor Sanjeev Shroff has been selected to serve as a consultant on the Circulatory Systems Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration.  As you know this FDA Panel gives final approval (disapproval) regarding pre-market approval (PMA) applications and is comprised of outstanding clinicians and biomedical scientists/bioengineers in the cardiovascular area. It is a singular honor to be nominated for and selected to serve on an FDA Panel.

   
 

A 1st author publication by BioE graduate student, Timothy Maul was one of the 10 most downloaded articles from the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering in February 2007! Both Tim and co-author/BioE PhD candidate Lorenzo Soletti are conducting this work in Dr. David Vorp’s lab.  Maul TM, Hamilton DW, Nieponice A, Soletti L, Vorp DA.  A New Experimental System for the Extended Application of Cyclic Hydrostatic Pressure to Cell Culture. J. Biomech. Eng. 129, 110 - 117 (2007)

   
 

BioE graduate student, Jolene Valentin has been awarded a Provost’s Pre-doctoral Fellowship for the 2007 – 2008 academic year.  Jolene is performing her Ph.D. research in Dr. Stephen Badylak’s lab, is our 3rd Provost’s Pre-doctoral Fellow for 2007 – 2008.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo has been elected to the Hall of Fame of the Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department at the University of Washington. The ME Hall of Fame at UW was inaugurated during 2006, the centennial year of the department.  Election to the Hall of Fame is intended as a lifetime achievement award to honor ME alumni, former students, faculty, and staff who have made major contributions to the ME Department and/or the mechanical engineering discipline.  Professor Woo was awarded the M.S. degree from the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Washington. Additional details of the Hall of Fame, including a listing of persons already inducted, are available on the website: http://www.me.washington.edu/people/halloffame/

   
 

Dr. Jonathan Vande Geest was recently awarded an NSF CAREER AWARD for the project entitled, "The development of a patient-specific endovascular graft for vascular applications."  Dr. Vande Geest  who performed his PhD research in Dr. David Vorp's lab and graduated in 2005, is currently Assistant Professor, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering Department, The University of Arizona.

   
 

View the URL for an article in the Washington Post about Professor William Wagner’s cardiac patch research. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060401224_pf.html

   
 

BioE graduate student, Mohammed El-Kurdi's abstract entitled, "TOWARD AN ENGINEERED VEIN GRAFT USING AN EXTERNAL ELECTROSPUN BIODEGRADABLE POLYMER WRAP TO GRADUALLY IMPOSE ARTERIAL CIRCUMFERENTIAL WALL STRESS," has been selected as a Top 20 finalist for the TERMIS-NA 2007 Poster Competition at the upcoming Regenerate meeting.  Mohammed conducted this work in Dr. David Vorp's lab.

   
 

Dr. Rakie Cham's comments on NBC News last P.M. can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/  (when you open that page, click on the link to the features on accidental deaths in the right hand column).  Sonia Bembic is looking into ordering the clip for our website.  FROM PITT NEWS: NEWS FLASH! Rakie Cham, professor of bioengineering in Pitt's School of Engineering, is scheduled to appear in an NBC Nightly News story this evening between 6:30 and 7. Cham's portion of the segment focuses on Pitt's Human Movement and Balance Lab, which works toward the prevention of fall and musculoskeletal injuries.

   
May 2007

A publication by BioE graduate student, Kevin Mihelc is in the current issue of ASAIO Journal.  Kevin performed this work in Professor William Federspiel’s lab.  Eash, Heide J.; Mihelc, Kevin M.; Frankowski, Brian J.; Hattler, Brack G.; Federspiel, William J. “Evaluation of Fiber Bundle Rotation for Enhancing Gas Exchange in a Respiratory Assist Catheter.” ASAIO Journal. 53(3):368-373, May/June 2007

   

BioE graduate students, Alicia DeFail and Tiffany Sellaro have been awarded pre-doctoral fellowships for academic year 2007-2008 from the Provost’s Development Fund.  Alicia is working in Dr. Kacey Marra’s lab, and Tiffany in Dr. Stephen Badylak’s lab.

   
 

Two recent keynote lectures given by Professor Marina Kameneva:  (1) Invited one hour lecture to the Conference of the American Association of Blood Banks (March 23-25, 2007, San Diego, CA).  Title of presentation: "Rheological Phenomena in Normal and Pathological Blood." (2) Invited lecture to the Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems & Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Perfusion Conference (May 17-19, Hershey, PA). Title of presentation: "Hemorheology of Mechanical Blood Damage."

   
 

A visit of an Associated Press reporter last month-hosted by Drs. Mark Redfern and Rakie Cham in the Human Movement and Balance Laboratory, has had many positive results already. HMBL (with mention of the Pitt School of Engineering) was featured today in the USA Today online!  This article has already been picked up by numerous other national outlets. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-05-17-slip-science_N.htm 

   
 

Please see the URLs below about one of our outstanding former baccalaureates, Tom Robey, who graduated with a B. Phil after completing a senior research project in Dr. William Wagner's lab.  ttp://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/uweek/uweekarticle.asp?articleID=32444 and http://www.grad.washington.edu/awards/medal/winners/robey.htm

   
 

Timothy Maul, who is completing his PhD in Dr. David Vorp's lab, has been selected as the University's Hartwell Foundation Fellow.  The Hartwell Foundation provides financial support to stimulate discovery in early-stage biomedical research that it hopes will benefit children.  Tim is one of only nine applicants to be selected among the 2006 Hartwell Foundation Inaugural Class of Fellows.  He will perform the fellowship in Dr. William Wagner's lab working in the area of pediatric circulatory support.

   
 

Dr. Tamer Ibrahim’s publication in the current issue of ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.  TS Ibrahim, D Abraham and RL Rennaker. Electromagnetic power absorption and temperature changes due to brain machine interface operation.  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 35(5):825-34, 2007.

   
 

Professor Mark Redfern’s “line 10” overall teaching effectiveness rating for his undergraduate class, Bioengineering 1720: “Biomechanics 2 – Biodynamics of Movement” is a perfect 5.0!  This is the 1st time that one of our BioE faculty has achieved a “line 10” rating of 5.0, and it is most appropriate that Professor Redfern, who boot-strapped our Undergraduate Program from a concept 10 years ago to today’s truly outstanding University and national program.

   
 

Professor Joel Schuman did an interview that aired on Good Morning America on May 9, 2007!  Spectral OCT featured on Good Morning America  Ophthalmologist Joel Schuman from the University of Pittsburgh demonstrated the new technology on one of the TV program’s hosts. A video clip and article are posted on ABC’s Web site.

   
 

Based on the recommendations of Dean Gerald Holder and Provost James Maher, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg has approved the promotion of Dr. George Stetten to the rank of Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Engineering.  This appointment will be effective September 1, 2007.  Chancellor Nordenberg writes in his letter to Professor Stetten, “Your record of accomplishments to date clearly suggests that the years ahead will bring contributions of significance benefiting your discipline, this University and the broader society.”

   
 

Effective May 1, 2007 Professor Savio Woo is appointed University Professor of Bioengineering by Chancellor Nordenberg. University Professorship “constitutes the highest honor that the University can accord a member of the professorate.”  Appointment as University Professor recognizes “eminence in several fields of study, transcending accomplishments in and contributions to a single discipline.  National and where appropriate, international recognition in at least one field is required.”  It is a singular honor for our faculty to be the home academic department of Professor Savio Woo, who is dedicated to helping Pitt Bioengineering and the School of Engineering achieve new heights of academic excellence.

   
 

Professor Rory Cooper was selected to receive the 2007 da Vinci Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ford Motor company. The Award will be presented at a black tie dinner on Friday, September 28, 2007 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Dearborn, Michigan.

   
April 2007

Dr. Steve Little has recently been selected as a Clinical Research Scholar (CRSP) through the NIH K12 mechanism. Dr. Little's K12 will focus on research at the interface of the fields of Chemical/Bioengineering and Immunology/Transplantation, in particular to engineer biomimetic immunotherapeutic strategies through the use of biodegradable materials and the principles of drug delivery.

   
 

The company founded by Professor Michael Pinsky and colleagues, iNtelomed, was one of four local firms that won awards from the Pittsburgh Technology Council for the annual EnterPrize Business Plan Competition.  iNtelomed is a medical device company focused on commercializing technology to enable recognition of cardiovascular instability, or a nonambulatory patient's ability to adapt to stress.

   
 

Dr. Mariah Hout who completed her PhD in BioE in 2003 in Professor William Federspiel's lab is now working at Abiomed as an Advanced Clinical Applications Engineer.  Dr. Hout's job is to assist in the clinical reintroduction of the AbioCor total artificial heart.  While a graduate student with us, Dr. Hout worked on a part-time basis for the Clinical Artificial Heart Program.

   
 

Dr. George Stetten’s research was featured in the rankings edition of the US News & World report (found online here http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/articles/brief/gbeng_brief.php).  Another excellent example of Pitt BioE research accomplishments being cited in top lay publications in addition to your archival publications.

   
 

Dr. Wei Sun, who completed his PhD in BioE in 2003 under the mentorship of Professor Michael Sacks, and is now employed at Edwards Lifesciences, has accepted a tenure stream faculty position at University of Connecticut in Mechanical Engineering.  Dr. Sun will be starting there this fall and will help setup a Biomechanics track.

   
 

BioE graduate student’s Erdrin Azemi has been awarded a one year CNBC IGERT fellowship starting May 1st and William Stauffer has received a follow-on year of IGERT funding starting September 1st.  Both Erdrin and Bill are performing their research in Dr. Xinyan (Tracy) Cui's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Brad Impink’s recent publication in ARCHIVES OF PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND REHABILITATION.  Sv Drongelen, Boninger ML, Impink BG and Khalaf T. Ultrasound Imaging of Acute Biceps tendon Changes After Wheelchair Sports. ARCHIVES OF PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND REHABILITATION 88:381-385, 2007.  Brad is conducting this work in Professor Michael Boninger’s lab.

   
 

BioE’s graduate student, Josh Woolley’s abstract entitled, “Ovine Platelet Aggregation Sensitivity to Anticoagulant and Anti-platelet Agents,” has been selected as an ASAIO Paul S. Malchesky Student Award finalist for the 2007 ASAIO Annual Conference in Chicago, IL this June.  Josh is conducting this work in Professor William Wagner’s lab.

   
 

Dr. David Vorp is an invited speaker at the 11th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology (ISACB) to be held this coming September in Bordeaux, France.  The title of Dr. Vorp's presentation is: "Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms: Evolving Concepts in Pathobiology and Therapy."

   
 

A 1st author publication by BioE graduate student, John Stella, who is conducting this research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.  John A. Stella, Jun Liao, and Michael S. Sacks.  Time Dependent Biaxial Mechanical Behavior of the Aortic Heart Valve Leaflet. Journal of Biomechanics (in press).

   
 

BioE undergraduate student,  Margaret Bennewitz has been awarded the Elizabeth U. Baranger Predoctoral Fellowship for the fall and spring terms during the 2007-2008 academic year.  Margaret is certainly most deserving of this award, with a 3.96 QPA (including at least 17 A+ grades), outstanding research work in Dr. Timothy Corcoran’s lab, and a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship as several undergraduate highlights.  She will also be honored at our upcoming Senior Recognition Night.

   
 

A recent publications by Dr. George LaVerde, who completed his BioE PhD in Dr. Fernando Boada’s lab.  LaVerde G, Nemoto E, Jungreis CA, Tanase C and Boada FE. Serial Triple Quantum Sodium MRI During Non-human Primate Focal Brain Ischemia.” MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN MEDICINE 57:201-205 (2007) and LaVerde G, Jungreis CA, Nemoto E, and Boada FE. Sodium Time Course Using 23Na MRI in Reversible Focal Brain Ischemia in the Monkey.  STROKE (submitted)

   
 

Three undergraduate students in the bioengineering program have received an undergraduate research fellowship from the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC). 1) Craig LeHockey (mentor - Dr. Aaron Batista), 2) Amy McCarty (mentor - Dr. Donald DeFranco), 3) Shawn Burton (mentor - Dr. Henry Zeringue).  The CNBC funded six undergraduates (3 Pitt, 3 CMU) for the next year and Bioengineering students won all three slots from Pitt!  The fellowships enable the students to participate in the computational neuroscience program and provide financial support for one year. In addition, they are required to take six related courses.

   
March 2007

Professor T. K. Hung has been invited by the editor of World Scientific to write a textbookProfessor Hung’s textbook will be completed in August 2008. 

   
 

BioE graduate student, Nicholas Drury has received Honorable Mentions from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).  Nick is one of only 7 students at Pitt who received the Honorable Mention designation.  He is conducting his graduate research @MSRC under the direction of Dr. Richard Debski.

   
 

BioE first-year graduate student, Serena Augustine, has been selected to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) award.  The title of Serena's proposed research is “Mechanisms of SIS Improvement on Ligament and Tendon Healing.”   Serena is conducting this work in the MSRC under the mentorship of Professor Savio Woo.  The NSF GRF award is among the most competitive and highly sought graduate fellowships a student can receive.  BioE is extremely proud to now list two NSF Fellows among our graduate student population, Serena Augustine and Jennifer Mercer, a BioE PhD candidate in Professor Michael Boninger's lab.

   
 

A recent publication from Professor Sacks' lab:  W. David Merryman, Howard D. Lukoff, Rebecca A. Long, George C. Engelmayr, Jr., Richard A. Hopkins, and Michael S. Sacks. SYNERGISTIC EFFECTS of CYCLIC TENSION and TRANSFORMING GROWTH FACTOR-b1 on the AORTIC VALVE MYOFIBROBLAST. Cardiovascular Pathology (in press). Rebecca and David are both BioE PhD candidates in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Sabrina Noorani won the Best Student Paper Award at the 7th International Symposium on Ligaments & Tendons (ISL&T-VII) held in San Diego, CA on February 10, 2007.  Sabrina’s paper was entitled, “An Alternate Single Femoral Tunnel Method for Double Bundle Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction with the Use of an Over-the-top Graft.”  Sabrina is conducting this research in the MSRC.

   
 

Edward Kastebhuber, a junior undergraduate BioE major, will receive an Italian Room Committee Grant that will allow him to study abroad in Sicily this summer and complete a minor in Italian.  Dr. Jack Patzer assisted Edward in the application by submitting a letter of recommendation for this terrific opportunity.

   
February 2007

On behalf of the US National Committee for Biomechanics, Dr. David Vorp has been invited to participate in a Summit of Experts in Biomechanics, to be held in the Keystone Resort and Conference Center, Keystone, Colorado, June 18-20.  This will be a small meeting with approximately 50 invited participants who will be grouped according to their interests for the purpose of identifying new pathways for biomechanics research and applications for the next 10 years.  Dr. Vorp will participate in the Organ-specific mechanics sub-field.

   
 

Dr. George Stetten's sonic flashlight is the cover story in the Department of Radiology's newsletter at UPMC.  http://www.radiology.upmc.edu/pitt_rad_winter_2007.pdf

   
  Professor Michael Sacks’ RO1 application entitled, “Mechanisms of In-Vivo Remodeling in Tissue Engineered Heart Valves,” received a Priority Score: 138 and Percentile: 7.5 at this week’s IRG.  This newest funded grant will further add to Professor Sacks’ state-of-the research in this area by extending current work to the in vivo setting
   
 

BioE graduate student, Timothy Maul who is conducting his dissertation research in Dr. David Vorp’s lab, has been invited by Provost Beeson to speak on behalf of all graduate and professional students at the Honor’s Convocation to be held Friday, February 23 in the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh Music Hall at 2:00 pm.  The Honor’s Convocation celebrates the accomplishments of the University’s faculty and students.  Part of the ceremony this year is a 2 minute commendation of Pitt graduate/professional students by Dr. Beeson followed by a 2 minute response from Tim.  The criteria for nomination/selection of a student speaker for the Honor’s Convocation are, “The person should be very accomplished; having received distinguished awards and/or fellowships, and should present his/herself well before an audience.”  Mr. Maul certainly fulfills all these criteria.

   
 

Two recent publications from Dr. Tamer Selim Ibrahim's lab, which are co-authored with Dr. Ibrahim's former student Roney Abraham.  (1) R. Abraham, and T. S. Ibrahim, "RF body-coil design for homogenous and localized 7 Tesla imaging", Magnetic Resonance In Medicine, Vol 57 (2), pp 236-243, 2007.  COMMUNICATIONS: Opening Article of the February 2007 Issue.  (2) T. S. Ibrahim, C. Mitchell, R. Abraham, and P. Schmalbrock, "In-depth study of the electromagnetics of ultra high field MRI", NMR in Biomedicine, Vol 20 (1), pp 58-68, Feb., 2007.

   
January 2007

Dr. James Wang served as the Program Chair for the 25th Scientific Conference Program of the Society for Physical Regulation in Biology and Medicine, January 10-13, 2007, Honolulu, Hawaii.  The papers from this meeting have been published in the journal, MCB: Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2006.  Dr. Wang is the Guest Editor for this edition of MCB.

   
 

Publications in 2006 from Dr. James Wang and the MechanoBiology Lab:

1. Thampatty BP, IM HJ, Wang JH-C. Ep4 Receptor regulates collagen type-i, mmp-1, and mmp-3 gene expression in human tendon fibroblasts in response to il-1ß treatment, Gene 386(1-2):154-161, 2007.

2.  Wang JH-C., Thampatty, B.P. An introductory review of cell mechanobiology (review), biomech model mechanobiol., 1-16, 2006.

3.  Wang JH-C., Iosifidis, M., Fu, F. Biomechanical basis of tendinopathy (review), corr, 443:320-332, 2006.

4.  Thampatty, B.P.; IM, H.J., Wang JH-C. Leukotriene b4 at low dosage negates the catabolic effect of pge2 in human patellar tendon fibroblasts. Gene 372:103-109, 2006

5.  Agarwal, C., Britton, Z.T., Alaseirlis, D.A., Li, Y., Wang JH-C. Healing and normal fibroblasts exhibit differential proliferation, collagen production, a-sma expression, and contraction. Ann biomed eng 34:653-659, 2006.

6.  Wang JH-C. Mechanobiology of tendon (invited review), I Biomech. 39:1563–1582, 2006.

7.  Yang, Z.C., Chen, J.X., Lin, J-S., Wang JH-C. Determining substrate displacement and cell traction fields - a new approach, J Ttheor. Biology 242:607–616, 2006.

8.  Li, B., Chen, J., Wang JH-C. Rgd peptide-conjugated poly(dimethylsiloxane) promotes adhesion, proliferation, and collagen secretion of human fibroblasts. J Biomedical Materials Research 79 (4): 989-98, 2006.

9.  Thampatty B.P., Wang JH-C. A new approach to study fibroblast migration. Cell motility & Ccytoskeleton 64 (1):1-5, 2006.

10. Wang JH-C., Lin, J-S., Yang, Z.C.  Cell traction force microscopy. Advanced bioimaging technologies in assessment of quality of bone and scaffold biomaterials (review chapter), in press.

11. Wang JH-C., Thampatty, B.P. Mechanoregulation of fibroblast function, the encyclopedia of biomaterials and biomedical engineering (review), in press.

12. Wang JH-C., Lin, J-S.  Cell traction force and measurement methods, biomech model mechanobiol, in press.

13. Chen, Jj.; li, H.; Sundarraj, N.; Wang JH-C. Alpha-smooth muscle actin expression linearly enhances cell traction force. Cell motility & cytoskeleton, in press.

14. Wang JH-C., Thampatty, B.P., Lin, J-S., Im, Hj. Mechano-regulation of gene expression in fibroblasts (invited review), gene, in press.

   
 

Dr. George Stetten's Visualization and Image Analysis (VIA) laboratory and their colleagues have had 3 papers accepted at this year's International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) meeting in 

Washington.  This symposium is a joint effort of the IEEE and NIH.  The papers are: (1) R. Tamburo, G. Siegle, G. Stetten, C.A. Cois, K. Rockot, J. Galeotti, C. Reynolds, H. Aizenstein, "Localizing amygdala structure differences in late-life depression," ISBI 2007 (2) C.A. Cois, K. Rockot, J. Galeotti, R. Tamburo, D. Gottlieb, J. Mayer, A. Powell, M. Sacks, G. Stetten, "Automated segmentation of the right heart using an optimized shells and spheres algorithm," ISBI 2007 (3) D. Shelton, B. Wu, R. Klatzky, and G. Stetten, "Design and calibration of a virtual tomographic reflection system," ISBI 2007. 

 

The following paper has also been accepted for publication at the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception.  R. Klatzky, B. Wu, D. Shelton, G. Stetten, "Learning to perform actions in near space under perceptual vs. cognitive control."  Among the authors: Robert Tamburo completed his Ph.D. in BioE in Dr. Stetten's lab; Aaron Cois is a current BioE Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Stetten's lab; Ken Rockot is a former graduate student in Dr. Stetten's lab; and Damian Shelton is a baccalaureate graduate of our Department.

_____________

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks’ publication in the current issue of ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.  H Kim, KB Chandran, MS Sacks and J Lu. An experimentally derived stress resultant model for heart valve dynamic simulations. ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 35, January 2007, pp. 30 – 44.

   
 

A recent publication by Professor Savio Woo. TISSUE ENGINEERING just released its issue on "Contributions from the NIH Workshop. Tissue Engineering: The Next Generation."  Professor Woo is among the distinguished authors on the article: "Translation from Research to Applications."  TISSUE ENGINEERING Volume 12, Number 12, December 2006,  pp. 3341 ff.

   
 

Recent publication from Dr. Steven Abramowitch’s lab: Biomechanical Adaptations of the Rat Vagina and Supportive Tissues in Pregnancy to Accommodate Delivery, Jerry L. Lowder, Kristen M. Debes, Daniel K. Moon, Nancy Howden, Steven D. Abramowitch, and Pamela A. Moalli Obstet. Gynecol. 2007; 109:136-143. 

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks’ most recent publication in the JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS:  Ali Mirnajafi, Jeremy Raymer, Leigh McClure and Michael Sacks. “The flexural rigidity of the aortic valve leaflet in the commissural region.” JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 39 (2006) 2966 - 2973

   

Professor Savio Woo’s and Dr. Steven Abramowitch’s most recent publication in the JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS:  Daniel K. Moon, Steven D. Abramowitch and Savio L.-Y. Woo. “The development and validation of a charge-coupled device laser reflectance system to measure the complex cross-sectional shape and area of soft tissues.” JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 39 (2006) 3071 3075.

   
 

Professor Marina Kameneva’s and Dr. James Antaki’s most recent publications:  Lee SS, Antaki JF, Kameneva MV, Ahn KH, Lee SJ. “Strain hardening of red blood cells by accumulated cyclical supraphysiological stress”. Artificial Organs, 31(1):80-86, 2007.

   
 

Several recent publications from Professor Guy Salama’s lab:  Guy Salama and Barry London. “Mouse models of long QT syndrome.”J Physiol (Lond) 2007;578 43-53 http://jp.physoc.org/cgi/content/abstract/578/1/43?etoc and Barry London, Linda C. Baker, Polina Petkova-Kirova, Jeanne M. Nerbonne, Bum-Rak Choi, and Guy Salama. “Dispersion of repolarization and refractoriness are determinants of arrhythmia phenotype in transgenic mice with long QT.  J Physiol (Lond) 2007;578 115-129 http://jp.physoc.org/cgi/content/abstract/578/1/115?etoc.  Co-author Linda C. Baker, Ph.D. completed the Ph.D. in BioE @Pitt in Professor Salama’s lab.

   
December 2006

BioE shines again.....  Drs. Harvey Borovetz and Sanjeev Shroff has been selected to receive prestigious awards at the 11th Annual Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence.  Dr. Borovetz received the 2007 Carnegie Science Center Life Sciences Award and Professor Shroff received the University / Post-Secondary Educator Award.  Congratulations, these are most deserved award in recognition of their lifetime of accomplishments and leadership as truly outstanding educators.

   
 

BioE PhD Candidate, Gulshan Sharma’s abstract acceptance at the 2007 Orthopaedic Research Society Meeting on February 11-14, 2007, in San Diego.  Sharma GB, Robertson DD, Smolinski PJ, Gilbertson LG, Debski RE and McMahon PJ. “Glenoid Bone Remodeling: Numerical Simulation and Validation.”  Gulshan is conducting his work under the direction of Dr. Douglas Robertson.

   
 

Dr. Tamer Ibrahim has been nominated and has accepted a 3-year term position as an associate editor on the new "International Journal on Antennas and Propagation."  Please see http://hindawi.com/journals/ijap  Dr. Ibrahim will be responsible for manuscripts regarding the biomedical applications of antennas.

   
 

Professor Sanjeev Shroff has been appointed as a member of the new standing (charter) study section, "NHLBI Institutional Training Mechanism (NITM)," that will be responsible for evaluating all NHLBI Institutional Training mechanisms, including T32s.  The NITM charter and study section roster were just approved by Drs. Nabel (NHLBI Director) and Zerhouni.  BioE extends our congratulations to Professor Shroff for this significant honor in recognition of his exceptional work and service to NHLBI.

   
 

A recent publication by BioE graduate student, Rui Zhao Zhao R, Antaki JF, Naik T, Bachman TN, Kameneva MV, Wu ZJ.  Microscopic investigation of erythrocyte deformation dynamics. Biorheology. 2006;43(6):747-65.  This work was conducted in the laboratories of Professors James Antaki and Marina Kameneva.  Also a co-author is BioE graduate student,Tim Bachman, who is working in Dr. James Antaki’s lab.

   
 

Drs. Alan Russell and William Wagner have been appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of the new journal, Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

   
 

William David Merryman, who is completing his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks' lab, has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Bioengineering at University of Alabama at Birmingham to start August 1, 2007.

   
 

The ASME publications board has approved Dr. Richard Debski as a new associate editor for the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.  Dr. Debski’s three-year term will begin on Jan. 1, 2007 and coincides with Professor Sacks’ tenure as the new editor of the Journal.

   
 

Dr. David Vorp has been invited to serve on the Editorial Board of the Annals of Vascular SurgeryDr. Vorp is the sole Ph.D. BioE to be so honored.  Dr. Vorp’s invitation to serve is recognition of his many, important contributions and innovations in vascular biomechanics research, both experimental and computational, highlighted by Dr. Vorp’s breakthrough work in AAA biomechanics.

   
November 2006

Dr. Tamer Ibrahim's first peer reviewed publication since joining our BioE faculty.  T. S. Ibrahim, "Ultra High Field MRI Whole-Slice and Localized RF Field Excitations Using the Same RF Transmit Array", IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Vol 25 (10), pp 1341-1347, October, 2006.  IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging is the highest cited Medical Imaging journal and the second highest cited Biomedical Engineering Journal and the second highest cited IEEE Journal.

   
 

The following publication which is the lead article in the current issue of ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.  The first author, Jonathan Grashow, completed his M.S. in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.  Grashow JS, Sacks MS, Liao J, and Yoganathan AP. Planar biaxial creep and stress relaxation of the mitral valve anterior leaflet. ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING. Vol 34, No 10, October 2006, pp. 1509-1518.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Jennifer Mercer’s most recent publication;  Yang Y-S, Koontz AM, Triolo RJ, Mercer JL and Boninger ML. “Surface electromyography activity of trunk muscles during wheelchair propulsion.” CLINICAL BIOMECHANICS 21 (2006) 1032-1041.  Jen is conducting this work in Professor Michael Boninger’s lab.

   
 

Professor Rory Cooper’s new textbook published by CRC Press (Catalog no. IP834). BioE offers our congratulations to Professor Cooper for “providing the first text to offer the blueprints to product development and the science of assistive technology.”  “An Introduction to Rehabilitation Engineering.” Edited by Rory A. Cooper, Hisaichi Ohnabe and Douglas A. Hobson. A volume in the Series in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering. 17 chapters, 352 pages.

   
  Professor Tin-Kan Hung has been invited to serve on the International Advisory Committee for the 2007 Indo-Australian Workshop on CFD, which is being organized by the Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee INDIA to be held in April 2007.
   
 

The Faculty Retreat for the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute on 11/18/06, Dr. George Stetten and Ralph Hollis won a competition for new collaboration between faculty for a project entitled, “Scaled Teleoperation with Haptic Feedback and Registered Virtual Images”  This project aims to produce the most sensitive and effective interface between manually operated tools and the microscopic environment.  The award consists of a $10K seed fund.

   
 

Two recent publications from Professor Marina Kameneva's lab. (1) Dr. Brendon Repko (2nd author, 2nd paper) completed his M.S. research in Professor Kameneva's lab, Pacella JJ. Kameneva MV. Csikari M. Lu E. Villanueva FS A novel hydrodynamic approach to the treatment of coronary artery disease.   European Heart Journal. 27(19):2362-9, 2006 Oct. (2) Sakai T, Repko BM, Griffith BP, Waters JH, Kameneva MV  I.V. infusion of a drag-reducing polymer extracted from aloe vera prolonged survival time in a rat model of acute myocardial ischaemia. Br J Anaesth. 2006 Nov 9.

   
 

Dr. Robert F. Labadie is the 1st Ph.D. graduate of BioE (1995).  Following completion of his M.D. degree also at Pitt, and completion of his internship, residency and fellowship programs, Dr. Labadie joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University as assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology.  Dr. Labadie will receive his 1st RO1 award for the project entitled, “Clinical Validation and Testing of Percutaneous Cochlear Implantation.”  Quoted from the 1st reviewer of Dr. Labadie’s RO1 application:  “Dr. Robert Labadie earned his Ph.D. degree in bioengineering and M.D. in medicine, both from the University of Pittsburgh.  He has extensive research experience in cochlear implant, particularly in the imaging guided cochlear implant surgery.  His background and experience make him a perfect leader for this project.”  Naturally BioE is very proud of Dr. Labadie for this wonderful accomplishment!  As we are quickly approaching 200 M.S & Ph.D. graduates in total, if you have any information to share regarding professional accomplishments of your former graduate students, I welcome receiving this information from you.

   
 

Peter Sandrian will be working for a small company called Daedalus Excel, which is located in North Oakland, near the border of Shadyside. The firm specializes in mechanical and industrial design of numerous devices. Some of their clients are medical device companies, but there are many other non-medical clients.  This is another indication of the varied and interesting professional interests and talents of our graduate students.  Peter completed his M.S. degree in the labs of Drs. Mark Redfern and Rakie Cham.

   
 

Dr. Steven Abramowitch will be delivering a plenary lecture at the lecture at the Opening Ceremony of the International Conference on Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, 15th Annual Meeting, this December in Singapore.  The title of Dr. Abramowitch’s lecture is, "New Bioengineering Approaches for Management of Soft Tissue Injuries."

   
 

The Board of Editors of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN magazine has selected Drs. Michael Sacks and William Wagner for inclusion in their 5th annual SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 50.  The award from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN honors 50 individuals, teams, companies and other organizations whose accomplishments in research, business or policymaking during 2005 - 2006 demonstrate outstanding technological leadership.  Honorees are selected for their contributions to a wide variety of areas, such as biotechnology, microelectronics, energy and genetics.  Winners over the past several years have included Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, research philanthropists, and Nobel prize-winning neurobiologists as just several examples. Drs. Sacks and Wagner are selected for their research contributions to the development of a novel biodegradable scaffold.

   
 

Dr. Lance Davison has been invited to speak at American Physical Society Workshop on Opportunities in Biological Physics; in particular, the 4th APS Workshop on Opportunities in Biological Physics Organized by the Division of Biological Physics.  The session overview follows:  "Modern Biomedicine provides a host of research and employment opportunities for physicists. New techniques for monitoring and manipulating complex biological processes at the molecular level promise to revolutionize our ability to understand and control normal and disease states. This workshop will introduce some of the most exciting recent and prospective areas of this rapidly expanding field. Topics will include tissue mechanics, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, microfluidics and micro-optics.  Speakers from academia and industry will provide extensive tutorial overviews, accessible to non-specialists. Breaks and a lunch with speakers will allow ample time for participants to discuss their current and future scientific and career directions with the speakers. The workshop is aimed at all physicists who are curious about the interface between physics and biology, especially graduate students and post-docs who are eager to apply their expertise in novel ways in the life sciences."  Dr. Davidson is one of 10 confirmed speakers from across the U.S., both faculty and industrial experts.

   
October 2006 Professor Michael Sacks has been selected by the ASME Executive Committee of the Bioengineering Division to be the next Technical Editor of the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, starting from July 1, 2007, for a five-year term.
   
 

Gaurav Shukla's submission was selected for an AMA student section poster competition, Nov. 10th, 2006, at the AMA National Meeting.  Gaurav is conducting this work in Dr. George Stetten's lab.  G Shukla, B Wu, D Schwartzman, G StettenThe Sonic Penlight for Guidance of Superficial Subdermal Access.  American Medical Association-Medical Student Section Poster Competition, November 10th, 2006, Las Vegas, NV.

   
 

BioE has two published articles in the current issue of Artificial Organs:  (1) Snyder TA, Eash HJ, Litwak KN, Frankowski BJ, Hattler BG, Federspiel WJ and Wagner WR. “Blood Biocompatibility Assessment of an Intravenous Gas Exchange Device. ARTIFICIAL ORGANS 2006;9:657-664.  (2) Pless G, Steffen I, Zeilinger K, Sauer IM, Katenz E, Kehr DC, Roth S, Mieder T, Schwartlander R, Müller C, Wegner B, Hout MS and Gerlach JC. Evaluation of Primary Human Liver Cells in Bioreactor Cultures for Extracorporeal Liver Support on the Basis of Urea Production.” ARTIFICIAL ORGANS 2006; 9:686-694.

   
 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

BioE contributions to the 2006 Annual BMES Meeting in Chicago, IL.  As in past years our Department is one of the most active departments at the annual BMES meeting in terms of abstract submissions, scientific podium and poster presentations.

 

For the presentations below, the “code” is as follows: underlined name = graduate student; italicized name = BioE faculty; bold, underlined name = former student;  bold, underlined, italicized name = undergraduate student


Thrombotic Complications Associated With The Berlin Heart Pediatric VAD, T.A. SNYDER, P.D. WEARDEN, V.O. MORELL, S.A. WEBBER, R.L. KORMOS, S. WINOWICH AND W.R. WAGNER.

 

Diameter Vascular Graft In A Rat Model,  A. NIEPONICE, L. SOLETTI, J.J. STANKUS, T.M. MAUL, J. GUAN1, W.R. WAGNER AND D.A. VORP.

 

PKC-Induced Troponin I Phosphorylation And The Dynamic Force-Length Relationship In Mouse Myocardium , S.H. SMITH, J.A. KIRK AND S.G. SHROFF

 

Multiscale Models Of Aortic Valve Mechanics And Mechano-Biology, M.S. SACKS AND D. SCHMIDT.

 

In vivo Biocompatibility Assessment Of A Magnetically Levitated Pediatric Ventricular Assist Device , T.A. SNYDER, C.A. JOHNSON, J.R. WOOLLEY, P.D. WEARDEN, M.V. KAMENEVA, J.S. RICHARDSON, A.J.KOERT AND W.R. WAGNER.

 

Development Of Flow Cytometric Assays For Biocompatibility Assessment In Ovines, C.A. JOHNSON, T.A. SNYDER, J.R. WOOLLEY AND W.R. WAGNER.

 

Aortic Valve Interstitial Cell Mechanobiology: Response To Cyclic Tension And Tgf-1,   W.D. MERRYMAN, H.D. LUKOFF, R.A. LONG, G.C. ENGELMAYR, R.A. HOPKINS AND M.S. SACKS.

 

Pressure-Calcium Relationships In Perfused Mouse Hearts,  J.A. KIRK, G.A. MACGOWAN, C. EVANS AND S.G. SHROFF

 

Mn2+ Enhances Integrin 51 Binding Affinity By Resisting Ca2+ Induced Down Regulation,  N.A. PERRUSQUIA, H. LIN AND S.G. SHROFF

 

Identifying The Lifting Patterns Of Chronic Lower Back Pain Subjects With A Data Reduction Procedure,  J.C. SLABODA, J.R. BOSTON AND T.E. RUDY

 

Conducting Polymer/Hydrogel-Based Skin Electrodes For High Quality Multi-Channel EEG Acquisition,  G. JUSTIN, R. WADHWA, K. LESK, R. SCLABASSI, M. SUN AND X.T. CUI

 

Changes Of Structural And Biomechanical Properties Of Inner Limiting Membrane During Development,  J.E. CANDIELLO, W. HALFTER AND H. LIN.

 

A Novel Clinical Cardiovascular Internship For Undergraduate BME Students, R. SCHAUB

 

Electrically Controlled Drug Release System Based On Electroactive Conducting Polymers,  X.T. CUI

 

Whole Blood Biocompatibility Of A Hollow Fiber-Based Four Compartment Bioreactor,  K.L. GAGE, M.J. BAUN, D.T. MCKEEL, M.S. HOUT AND J.C. GERLACH

 

Role Of Contraction Dyssynchrony On Global Left Ventricular Mechanics And Performance, L. JOHNSON, H.K. KIM, M.P. CANNESSON, S.G. SHROFF AND M.R. PINSKY

 

The Cardiologists Toolbox,  M. SIMON

 

Mechanisms of Heart Failure, S.G. Shroff

 

Supporting The Failing Lung: The Need For New Strategies, W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

Application Of Carbonic Anhydrase For Improved CO2 Gas Exchange In Artificial Lungs, H. OH, J.L. KAAR, A.J. RUSSELL AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

Effects Of Decellularization On Mechanical And Structural Properties Of Porcine Aortic Valve Leaflet, E.M. JOYCE, J. LIAO AND M.S. SACKS

 

Biocompatibility Challenges In The Design Of A Pediatric VAD, W.R. WAGNER

 

Specific Antibody Filter (SAF) For Removal Of Anti-A Antibodies For ABO-Incompatible Transplantation, E.M. CIAK, S. GAUTAM, A. ALIKHANI AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

Design Of A Novel Scaffold For Autologous Stem Cells In Peripheral Nerve Tissue Engineering, L.E. KOKAI, L. SANTIAGO, J. CLAVIJO, L. SOLETTI, D.A. VORP, J. RUBIN AND K. MARRA

 

Diabetes Induced Alternations In The Biomechanic Properties Of The Urinary Bladder Wall, C. WANG, J. NAGATOMI, K. TOOSI, N. YOSHIMURA, M.B. CHANCELLOR AND M.S. SACKS

 

Synergistic Effects Of EGF And Adhesion Ligands On Differentiation Of Mesenchymal Stem Cells,  N.A. MARCANTONIO, A. AU, C.A. BOEHM, A.M. MAYES, G.F. MUSCHLER, A.WELLS AND L. GRIFFITH

 

Regional Dynamic Strains Of The Native Aortic Valve, D.M. GAITAN, P. BIENEK, B. ZUBIATE AND M.S. SACKS

 

Utilizing Surface Plasmon Resonance To Increase Antibody Removal Of Specific Antibody Filters,  A. ALIKHANI, N.V. BOVIN AND W.J. FEDERSPIEL

 

PID Control Of An Ex-Vivo Vascular Perfusion System, M.S. EL-KURDI, J.S. VIPPERMAN AND D.A. VORP

 

Mathematical Model Of Adsorption Column Used In Treatment Of Liver Failure, S.A. SAFTA, R. MILLER AND J. PATZER II

 

Structural Constitutive Model Of The Urinary Bladder Wall With Basal Smooth Muscle Tone,  S. WOGNUM AND M.S. SACKS

 

Ex Vivo Alterations Of The Female Rat Urethra After Spinal Cord Injury,  R. PRANTIL, W. DE GROAT AND D.A. VORP

 

Application Of Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics To Analyze Monocyte Adhesion,  R.W. LYCZKOWSKI, B.R. ALEVRIADOU, M. HORNER, C.B. PANCHAL AND S.G.SHROFF

 

Bone Marrow Derived Cells Express More Collagen When Seeded On Elongated Small Intestine Submucosa,  A.J. ALMARZA, G. YANG, T. NGUYEN, S. ABRAMOWITCH AND S.L. WOO

 

Comparing The Remodeling Capabilities Of Aortic And Pulmonary Valve Interstitial Cells,  W.D. MERRYMAN, J. LIAO, A. PAREKH, J.E. CANDIELLO, H. LIN AND M.S. SACKS

 

Relaxin Mediates Systemic Vasodilation And Increased Arterial Compliance In Early Pregnancy, D.O. DEBRAH, J. NOVAK, J.E. MATTHEWS, R.J. RAMIREZ, S.G. SHROFF

 

Fabrication Of Planar Patch Clamp Chip,  K.V. UPADHYE AND H. LIN

 

Subspace System Identification Of An Ex-Vivo Vascular Perfusion System,  M.S. EL-KURDI, J.S. VIPPERMAN AND D.A. VORP

 

Constitutive Models For Cell-Integrated Elastomeric Scaffolds For Soft Tissue Engineering,  T. COURTNEY, J. LIAO, J. STANKUS, J. GUAN, W.R. WAGNER AND M.S. SACKS

 

Development Of Flexible Thermosensitive Hydrogels For Soft Tissue Engineering,  J. GUAN AND W.R. WAGNER

 

Fabrication Of A Cell Integrated Tissue Engineered Vascular Graft,  J. STANKUS, L. SOLETTI, K.L. FUJIMOTO, J. GUAN, D.A. VORP AND W.R. WAGNER

 

Gene Regulation By Controlled Release From A Biodegradable Poly(Ester Urethane)Urea,  P. RAMASWAMI, J. FRIZ, D. CRESS, J. GUAN AND W.R. WAGNER


   
 

The reference for the 16th publication in 2006 from Professor Sacks’ Engineering Tissue Mechanics Lab.  The 1st author, Jonathan Grashow, received both his B.S. and M.S. from Pitt’s Bioengineering Department.  Grashow J, Sacks MS, Liao J and Yoganathan A. Planar Biaxial Creep and Stress Relaxation of the Mitral Valve Anterior Leaflet.  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING; 2006 Oct 3 (online)

   
 

BioE has two articles in the current edition:

(1) VandeGeest JP, Sacks MS and Vorp DA. “A planar biaxial constitutive relation for the luminal layer of intra-luminal thrombus in abdominal aortic aneurysms.”  J BIOMECHANICS 2006;13:2347-2354.  The 1st author, Jonathan VandeGeest, received his PhD in BioE with us (research conducted in Dr. David Vorp’s lab).  Jonathan is currently assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona.

(2) Darcy SP, Kilger RHP, Woo SL-Y and Debski RF.Estimation of ACL forces by reproducing knee kinematics between sets of knees: a novel non-invasive methodology.” J BIOMECHANICS 2006;13:2371-2377  The 1st author, Shon Darcy, received his M.S. degree with us working at the MSRC.

   
 

BioE Graduate student, Gusphyl Justin’s recent publication; Gus performed this work in Professor Mingui Sun’s and Professor Robert Sclabassi’s labs.  Brian Wessel is a B.S. graduate from BioE.  Mingui Sun, Gusphyl Justin, Paul Roche, Jun Zhao, Brian Wessel, Yingze Zhang and Robert Sclabassi.  “Harnessing the Body’s Own Energy and Communication Resources.” IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, September/October 2006, pp. 39-46.

   
September 2006

Professor Michael Sacks’ recent 1st author publication: Michael S. Sacks, Yoshiharu Enomoto, Jeffrey R. Graybill, W. David Merryman, Ahmad Zeeshan, Ajit P. Yoganathan, Robert J. Levy, Robert C. Gorman and Joseph H. Gorman III. “In-Vivo Dynamic Deformation of the Mitral Valve Anterior Leaflet.”  Annals of Thoracic Surgery 2006;82:1369-1378.  Jeff Graybill is a BioE PhD candidate now working in Dr. Andrew Schwartz’s lab.  David Merryman is completing his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.  An invited commentary follows Professor Sacks’ paper, which states:  “The study at hand provides important in vivo mechanical data with clinical implications, and simultaneously challenges the surgeon to embrace an integrated biomechanical, histological, and ultrastructural approach in the clinical evaluation of mitral pathophysiology. It is through such multidisciplinary efforts that the intricate puzzle of the mitral valve will continue to take its proper form.”

   
 

BioE graduate student, Tom Gilbert served as a presentation chair and invited speaker at the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) 2nd International Symposium entitled, "Fusion of Advanced Technologies for Regenerative Medicine," which was held in Tokyo on September 14, 2006.  The title of Tom's presentation was, "Development of Medical Devices from Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds."  Tom will be defending his PhD dissertation research, which was conducted in Dr. Stephen Badylak's lab, next month.  Dr. Badylak also was an invited presentation chair and keynote speaker at the recent JSPS Symposium.

   
 

This past summer, the Provost’s Office made a series of short videos highlighting undergraduate research at the University.  One of our outstanding BioE undergraduates, Adam Iddriss, who last year was awarded a highly prestigious Truman Fellowship, was featured in one of the videos.  Adam has conducted his undergraduate research in Dr. Kacy Marra’s lab.  The  video has been played during Pitt football games at Heinz Field.  In Dr. Marra’s absence, Dr. William Wagner represented BioE faculty in the video.  There is also a 2nd video featuring Adam to be played at the Petersen Event Center during Pitt basketball games.  

   
 

BioE student, Philip Marascalco’s new 1st author publication: Marascalco PJ, Ritchie SP, Snyder TA, Kameneva MV. Development of standard tests to examine viscoelastic properties of blood of experimental animals for pediatric mechanical device evaluation. ASAIO J 2006; 52:567–574.  Phil is conducting this work in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab.  The 2nd author, Mr. Sean Ritchie, is a senior B.S. candidate with us.  The 3rd author, Dr. Trevor Snyder completed his BioE PhD degree in Professor William Wagner’s lab this past spring.

   
 

Dr. Richard Debski has been appointed to a William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellowship effective September 1, 2006.  This award is for two years.  In his letter to Dr. Debski, Dean Gerald Holder writes that “this appointment is in recognition of your outstanding productivity as a member of the faculty.  Your selection reflects the high value placed upon your contribution to scholarship, graduate and undergraduate education, external research support, research quality and contributions to diversity.  Further, it reflects the strong support of your faculty colleagues and your Chairman.”

   
 

BioE graduate student, Jen Mercer’s recent 1st author publication: Mercer JL, M Boninger, A Koontz, D Ren, T Dyson-Hudson and R Cooper. “Shoulder joint kinetics and pathology in manual wheelchair users.” CLINICAL BIOMECHANICS 21 (2006) 781-789.  Ms. Mercer is conducting this research in Professor Michael Boninger’s lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, John Stella's first manuscript entitled, "ON THE BIAXIAL MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF THE LAYERS OF THE AORTIC VALVE LEAFLET," has just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.  John is the first author on this work which was conducted in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) voting membership has elected Dr. David Vorp to serve on the 2006 – 2009 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Board of Directors.  Dr. Vorp joins BioE’s Dr. Savio Woo who is also a BMES Board Member.

   
August 2006

Professor Rory Cooper is the keynote speaker for the Governor’s conference on Employment of People with Disabilities, “It’s Simply Do-Able”.  The Conference will be held on Wednesday, October 4 @Greentree Radisson Hotel, Pittsburgh, PA.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Silvia Wognum won 2nd place in the Student Competition yesterday at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Engineering Science held at Penn State for her talk on bladder biomechanics.  SIivia is conducting this work in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

A new 1st author publication by Dr. Jonathan Vande Geest, a recent PhD graduate from the Bioengineering Department.  The 2nd author, David Wang, is also a PhD graduate in Bioengineering.  This work was conducted in Dr. David Vorp’s lab.  Jonathan P. Vande Geest, David H.J. Wang, Stephen P. Wisniewski, Michel S. Makaroun and David A. Vorp. “Towards a Noninvasive Method for Determination of Patient-Specific Wall Strength Distribution in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms.”  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 34 (7), July 2006, pp. 1098-1106.

   
 

A new 1st author publication by Bronwyn Uber, who recently completed her M.S. research in Dr. James Antaki’s lab.  Bronwyn is attending medical school this fall @Vanderbilt.  Hemodynamic Guidelines for Design and Control of a Turbodynamic Pediatric Ventricular Assist Device, BRONWYN E. UBER STEVEN A. WEBBER, VICTOR O. MORELL, AND JAMES F. ANTAKI ASAIO Journal 2006; 52:471–478.

   
 

W. David Merryman was selected to attend the first annual NIH National Graduate Student Research Festival and present his research poster.  The event is scheduled for October 12 - 13, 2006 on the main NIH campus. One interesting focus of the Festival is to introduce attendees to NIH investigators with whom they might want to pursue postdoctoral training. David is completing his PhD work in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

Dr. Susan Moore’s 1st author publication in this month’s JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS.  Dr. Moore completed her dissertation research in Dr. Richard Debski’s lab.  Moore SM, Thomas M, Woo SL-Y, Gabriel MT, Kilger R and Debski RE.  A Novel Methodology to Reproduce Previously Recorded Six-Degree of Freedom Kinematics on the Same Diarthrodial Joint.  JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 39 (2006) 1914-23

   
July 2006

Dr. Lance Davidson has been invited to speak at the annual meeting of FASEB, Experimental Biology 2007 in the Symposium, "MORPHOGENESIS MEETS MATHEMATICS: HOW EMBRYOGENESIS CAN BE QUANTIFIED,"  Dr. Davidson has also been invited by Steve Quake, James Glazier, and Gabor Forgacs to speak at a pre-meeting workshop, "Opportunities in Biological Physics," (focus this year on applications of biological physics, including microfluidics, tissue mechanics and tissue engineering) at the American Physical Society Annual March Meeting in Denver Colorado.

   
 

A recent accepted manuscript for publication in the high-impact factor Journal of Cell Science is first authored by Zhijie Ding, a second year BioE grad student in Dr. Partha Roy's lab.  Ding Z., Lambrechts A., Parepally M., Roy P: Silencing profilin-1 inhibits endothelial proliferation, migration and cord morphogenesis.

   
 

The F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA application submitted by BioE M.D., Ph.D. candidate Ken Urish: Title of Grant: Inflammation and Stem Cell Transplantation, Grant#: 1F31EB006292-01A1, Score: 101 (0.2 percentile).  Ken is conducting his research in Dr. Johnny Huard's lab.

   
 

BioE graduate students, William Stauffer was awarded a one year IGERT fellowship from CNBC starting September 1, 2006 and Erdrin Charley received a "mini IGERT" for this July and August to learn neurophysiological recording and stimulation techniques with Dr. Doug Weber.  Both Erdrin and William are working in Dr. Tracy Cui's lab.

   
 

Recent publication by Amy Marcinkowski and Kevin Mihelc in the American Journal of Transplantation:  Corcoran, T.E., Venkataramanan, R., Mihelc, K.M., Marcinkowski, A.L., Ou, J., McCook, B.M., Weber, L., Carey, M.E., Paterson, D.L., Pilewski, J.M., McCurry, K.R., Husain, S., Aerosol Deposition of Lipid Complex Amphotericin-B (Abelcet) in Lung Transplant Recipients, Am J Transplant, Accepted for Publication.  The American Journal of Transplantation has the highest impact factor of any of the transplant journals and the second highest amongst surgical journals. This work was conducted in Dr. Timothy Corcoran's lab.  Amy just completed her M.S. degree in BioE and is attending medical school in the fall.  Kevin is currently conducting research in Dr. William Federspiel's lab.

   
 

Dr. David Vorp's NIH R21 A1 proposal entitled, “Bioengineered Urethral Augmentation,” has received a Priority Score of 159, and a percentile of 2.5.  Co-investigators include Drs. Naoki Yoshimura and Michael Chancellor. This research is also the backbone of the PhD dissertation work of Dr. Vorp's BioE graduate student, Donna Haworth.

   
  Dr. James Wang’s lead, review article is published in the current issue of THE JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS.  Wang, James H.-C. “Review: Mechanobiology of Tendon.”  JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 39 (2006) 1563-1582.
   
 

There are several honors won by our students at the 2006 ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference held recently at Amelia Island, FL from June 21-25.

 

·     Michael Anderson, who received his B.S. with us this past April, presented his poster in the B.S. Student Paper Competition and received 2nd Place in the Solids/Design/Rehab division. The details of Mike’s abstract are listed below:  Anderson M, Stehle J, McMahon PJ, Debski RE: “Rotator Cuff Muscle Forces are Inversely Related to the Value of the Glenohumeral Joint Constraint Angle”. 2006 Summer Bioengineering Conference, Amelia Island, FL, Abstract BIO2006-152620, June 21-25, 2006.  Michael was mentored by Professor Richard Debski @MSRC.

 

·     An undergraduate student @MSRC, Nicole Bailey, also presented @ASME.

 

·     BioE graduate students, Eric Rainis in Professor Richard Debski’s lab and Matt Fisher, in Professor Savio Woo’s lab, were 1st authors of papers presented at the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference.  Susan Moore, a recent BioE PhD from the MSRC also presented at this conference.

 

·     Dan Hubbard (a Pitt BioE baccalaureate who is currently a doctoral student in BioE @Penn): Dan received 1st place for the Ph.D. Student Paper Competition (podium) in the Solids/Design/Rehab division.

   
June 2006

Professor Michael Sacks is an invited speaker at the FASEB meetings in Washington DC in April 2007.  Professor Sacks will lecture in the symposium entitled, "Bioengineering in Development and Disease."

   
 

BioE graduate student, Silvia Wognum has been awarded funding to attend the 43rd Annual Technical Meeting Society of Engineering Science at Penn State.  Silvia is performing her thesis research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

A few months ago, Engineering World Health requested that BioE graduate, Sara Doll write an essay about her experience last summer working in a hospital in Nicaragua and how her life has changed since.  After many hours, this is what she wrote.

  _________________
 

BioE graduate student, Carl Johnson's poster presentations at the 2006 ASAIO meeting entitled, "Development Of Flow Cytometric Assays For Biocompatibility Assessment In Ovines," and "Biocompatibility Evaluation Of The Levitronix Pediatric VAD In Ovines," received outstanding poster presentations designations.  Carl is conducting this work in Dr. William Wagner's lab.

   
 

Please find below the following presentations by Pitt BioE at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) in Chicago:

(1) Adsorption Column Kinetics In Treatment Of Liver Failure, Stefan Safta (Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Jack Patzer’s lab) 

(2) Development Of Flow Cytometric Assays For Biocompatibility Assessment In Ovines, Carl Johnson (M.D., Ph.D. candidate in Dr. William Wagner’s lab)

(3) Biocompatibility Evaluation Of The Levitronix Pediatric VAD In Ovines, Carl Johnson (M.D., Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Jack Patzer’s lab)

(4) Functional Platelet And Heparin Activity Assays Applied To Ovines, Joshua Woolley (M.S. Candidate in Dr. William Wagner’s lab)

(5) Validity Of Normalized Index Of Hemolysis In Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Assist Devices, Dr. Marina Kameneva, PhD

(6) Optimization, Validation, And Re-Optimization Of PediaFlow Maglev Turbo-VAD, James Antaki, PhD

(7) A Biohybrid Lung Prototype With Active Mixing And Oxygenation Of Endothelialized Microporous Hollow Fibers, Alexa Polk, (Ph.D. candidate in Dr. William Wagner’s  lab)

(8) Rheological Properties Of Bovine Blood Assessed By A Viscoelasticity Analyzer.  Potential Applications In Testing Of Heart-Assist Device Biocompatibility, Philip Marascalco (Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Marina Kameneva’s lab)

(9) Effects Of Drag-Reducing Polymers On Blood Flow In Microchannels, Joie Marhefka (Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Kameneva’s lab)

(10) System To Assess Perfusion Adequacy In Pediatric Patients, Mark Gartner, Ph.D.

(11) Progress With The Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Assist System, Mark Gartner, Ph.D.

(12) Porous Media Technique For Computational Modeling Of A Novel Pump-Oxygenator, Mark Gartner, Ph.D.

   
 

Professor Jack Patzer has been invited by the Liver Diseases Research Branch of NIDDK, in collaboration with the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and the Acute Liver Failure (ALF) Study Group, to attend a two-day meeting on Acute Liver Failure, scheduled for December 4-5, 2006 in Bethesda.  Dr. Patzer will speak on the topic of “Issues in hepatitis assist devices for ALF.” 

   
 

Professor David Vorp has been invited to speak at the 33rd Annual VEITHSymposium, "Vascular and Endovascular Issues, Techniques, Horizons," which will be held November 15-18, 2006 at The Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in New York City.  The VEITH Symposium has become THE premier vascular meeting in the country.  Dr. Vorp is one of only 5 non-physicians from among more than 200 invited faculty to the VEITH Symposium.  This invitation recognizes Dr. Vorp's many significant contributions to vascular medicine, and in particular Dr. Vorp's breakthrough work in the area of the biomechanics of abdominal aortic aneurysm.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to serve as an ad hoc member of the Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences (BTSS) Study Section for the October meeting.  Serving as an ad hoc member is a prelude to becoming a regular member of BTSS for a four year period.

   
May 2006

Professor T.K. Hung has been honored in the Sigma Xi Center Honor Roll of Donors.  Dr. George Bugliarello made a donation to the Sigma Xi building fund in honor of Professor Hung.  As an FYI, Dr. Bugliarello is the former president of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute which is now called Polytechnic University.  Dr. Bugliarello is also the founding chair, in the late 1960s, of biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where Professor Hung began his distinguished academic career.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks’ NIH competitive renewal application entitled, “Biomechanical Optimization of TE Heart Valves,” received a Priority Score: 126 and Percentile: 2.0 by the Bioengineering, Technology and Surgical Sciences Study Section. This is a truly fantastic score and reflects Professor Sacks’ stature as an internationally recognized expert and leader in this discipline.

   
 

BioE student, Phil Marascalco was selected as one of two Bioengineering award winners at this week's 2nd International Conference on Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems and Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Perfusion in Toronto.  The title Phil's presentation was, "Development of Standard Tests to Examine Viscoelastic Properties of Blood of Experimental Animals for Pediatric Mechanical Support Device Evaluation."  Phil is conducting this work in Professor Marina Kameneva's lab. 

   
 

BioE graduate student, Eric Tom's American Heart Association Pre-doctoral Fellowship application entitled, "Non-Invasive Detection of Endothelial Dysfunction Using an Optimized Multitargeted Ultrasound Contrast Agent," has been awarded funding.  In addition and on the basis of his outstanding Fellowship application, Eric has been selected to receive the first Claude R. Joiner award, in honor of the inventor of echocardiography, who is also chair-emeritus of medicine at Allegheny General Hospital.  Eric is undertaking his research in the laboratories of Dr. William Wagner and Dr. Liza Villanueva (Presby Cardiology).

   
 

Dr. David Vorp has been invited to give a lecture entitled, “Biomechanical Determinants of Aortic Rupture,” in the session entitled, “Mechanisms of Aortic Disease,” at this year’s American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2006 in Chicago.

   
  A recent publication co-authored by BioE graduate student, Brad Impink, who is working in Professor Michael Boninger’s lab.  Fitzgerald SG, Collins DM, Cooper RA, Tolerico M, Kelleher AR, Hunt PC, Martin SG, Impink BG, Cooper R, Issues in the Maintenance and Repairs of Wheelchairs: A Pilot Study, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, pp. 853-862, Vol. 42, No. 6, November/December 2005.  The above reference contains a link to the full-text (open to the public) on JRRD’s website.
   
  A recent publication by BioE graduate students, Jonathan Kirk and Research Associate, Caroline Evans, who are conducting this research in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab.  Pressure-calcium relationships in perfused mouse hearts. Guy A. MacGowan, Jonathan A. Kirk, Caroline Evans, and Sanjeev G. Shroff. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 290: H2614-H2624, 2006.
   
 

BioE graduate student, David Merryman’s 1st author publication:  Merryman WD, Engelmayr GC, Jr., Liao J, Sacks MS. Defining biomechanical endpoints for tissue engineered heart valve leaflets from native leaflet properties. Progress in Pediatric Cardiology. 2006;21:153-160.  The 2nd author, George Engelmayr, PhD is a recent BioE PhD graduate who is doing a post-doc in the Langer Lab @MIT.  Both David and Georger performed this research in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, David Merryman’s paper entitled, “Aortic Valve Interstitial Cell Phenotype and Bio Sythesis: Synergistic Effects of Cyclic Tension and TGF-B1,” has been selected as one of six papers highlighted in the PhD Student Paper Competition: Tissue Eng and Cell Biomechanics at 2006 Summer Bioengineering Conference.  David is performing this research in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

Professors T.K. Hung and Savio Woo have been invited to give keynote addresses at the 15th International Conference on Mechanics in Medicine and Biology to be held Dec 6 – 8, 2006 in Singapore.  Professor Woo’s lecture is titled, "New Bioengineering Approaches for Management of Soft Tissue Injuries.Professor Hung’s lecture is titled, "Fluid Mechanics Analyses of Cardiac Pumping and Balloon Assist."

   
 

On May 3, 2006, Professor Savio Woo received the Life Sciences Award from the Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence.  Dr. Woo’s research has revolutionized the field of orthopedic biomechanics and has served as the foundation upon which many patients’ surgical management and rehabilitation protocols following various ligament and tendon injuries are currently based.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to give a keynote presentation at the upcoming SES meeting at Penn State.  Professor Sacks' keynote address will be part of the symposium on mechanics of soft materials and soft tissues.

   
 

BioE student presentation at the Regenerate meeting.  Philip Marascalco and Joie Marhefka are both BioE PhD candidates in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab.  Marascalco PJ, Marhefka JN, and Kameneva MV. Drag-reducing polymer effect on RBC mechanical properties and microcirculation. Potential applications in regenerative medicine. Regenerate World Congress, Pittsburgh, PA on April 25, 2006 (poster).  

   
 

The following presentations by our BioE students were presented at the Regenerate and the Society for Biomaterials April 2006 conference.  Alicia DeFail, Christina Lee and Candace Brayfield are BioE PhD candidates in Dr. Kacey Marra’s lab; William Stauffer is a BioE graduate student in Dr. Xinyan Cui’s lab; and Tim Maul is working in Dr. David Vorp’s lab.  Adam Iddriss is a BioE undergraduate student. 

(1) DeFail, A.J.;* Edington, H.D.; Matthews, S.L.; Lee, W.C.; Marra, K.G. “Controlled Release of Bioactive Doxorubicin from Microspheres Embedded within Gelatin Scaffolds,” Society for Biomaterials National Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA on April 28, 2006. 

(2) DeFail, A.J.;* Iddriss, A.; Marra, K.G. “Injectable PEG-Genipin Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering,”  Society for Biomaterials National Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA on April 28, 2006 (poster). 

(3) Brayfield, C.A.;* Marra, K.G.; Leonard, J.P.; Stauffer, W.R.; Cui, X.T.; Gerlach, J.  “Compartmentalized In Vitro Neuronal Cell Culture Models with Excimer Laser Modified Polyethersulfone Hollow Fibers,” Society for Biomaterials National Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA on April 28, 2006 (poster).

(4) Lee, W.C.;* Maul, T.M.; Vorp, D.A.; Rubin, J.P.; Marra, K.G. “Effects of Uniaxial Cyclic Strain on Adipose-derived Stem Cell Morphology, Proliferation, and Differentiation,” Regenerate World Congress, Pittsburgh, PA on April 27, 2006.

(5) DeFail, A.J.;* Marra, K.G.; Cartieri, F.;* Rajendran, N.; Edington, H.E.; “In Vivo Anti-Tumor Effect of a Novel Drug Delivery System for Breast Conservation,” Regenerate World Congress, Pittsburgh, PA on April 25, 2006.

(6) Brayfield, C.A.;* Rubin, J.P.; Marra, K.G.; Baun, M.; Gerlach, J.  “3D Adipogenic Differentiation of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells in a Four-Compartment Hollow Fiber-Based Bioreactor,” Regenerate World Congress, Pittsburgh, PA on April 25, 2006 (poster).

____________________________________________________________________________________

   
 

A recent 1st author publication by BioE PhD candidate Tim Maul, and co-author BioE PhD candidate Lorenzo Soletti.  Both Tim and Lorenzo are performing this work in Dr. David Vorp’s lab.

   
 

Recent 1st author publication by BioE PhD candidate Weiqun Yu.  Weiqun  is performing his research in Dr. Gerard Apodaca’s lab.  Yu, W., Zacharia, L., Jackson, E., and Apodaca G. Adenosine receptor expression and function in bladder uroepithelium. American Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology, 2006, In press.

   
 

Recent publications by BioE PhD candidates Alicia DeFail, Christina Lee, and Tim Maul.  Alicia and Christina are BioE PhD candidates in Dr. Kacey Marra’s lab; and Tim is working in Dr. David Vorp’s lab.  (1) Lee, W.-C.C.; Maul, T.; Vorp, D.A.; Rubin, J.P.; Marra, K.G. “Effects of Uniaxial Cyclic Strain on Adipose-derived Stem Cell Morphology, Proliferation, and Differentiation," Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 2006, In Press.

(2) DeFail, A.J.; Edington, H.; Matthews, S.; Lee, W.-C.C; Marra, K.G. “Controlled Release of Bioactive Doxorubicin from Microspheres Embedded within Gelatin Scaffolds,” J. Biomedical Materials Research, 2006, In Press. 

(3) Ferreti, M.; Marra, K.G.; Kobayashi, K.; DeFail, A.J.; Chu, C.R. “Controlled In Vivo Degradation of Genipin Crosslinked Poly(Ethylene Glycol) Hydrogels within Osteochondral Defects,” Tissue Engineering, 2006, In Press.

___________________________________________________________________________________

   
April 2006

BioE’s graduating student Amy McNeal will deliver the keynote address at the School of Engineering Senior Recognition Night on April 29, 2006.  Amy is the 3rd consecutive BioE student to deliver the keynote address.  Last April (2005), BioE graduating senior Jason Woods delivered the address; and this past December (fall graduation), BioE graduating senior Perry Tiberio delivered the keynote address.

   
 

Dr. Richard Debski has been awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Bioengineering, effective September 1, 2006.  In his letter to Dr. Debski the Chancellor writes, “The conferral of tenure provides clear evidence of the institutional respect earned by your academic work to date.  It is also an expression of our confidence that the years ahead will bring many additional accomplishments and contributions – to your discipline, to the University and to the broader community.

   
 

A recent publication 1st authored by BioE PhD candidate, Joie Marhefka. Joie is conducting this work in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab.  The 2nd author, Phil Marascalco, is also a BioE PhD candidate in Professor Kameneva’s lab.  Joie N. Marhefka, Philip J. Marascalco, Toby M. Chapman, Alan J. Russell, and Marina V. Kameneva. Poly(N-vinylformamide)-A Drag-Reducing Polymer for Biomedical Applications. Biomacromolecules  Web Release Date: 04-Apr-2006; (Article) DOI: 10.1021/bm060014i

   
 

A recent paper acceptance that is 1st authored by Jennifer Mercer.  Jeniffer is conducting this work in Professor Michael Boninger’s lab.  Mercer JL, Boninger ML, Koontz AM, Ren D, Dyson-Hudson T, Cooper RA.  “Shoulder Joint Kinetics and Pathology in Manual Wheelchair Users,” Clinical Biomechanics, in press.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Dan Freytes' F31 NRSA Ruth L. Kirschstein Pre-doctoral Fellowship application entitled, "Hybrid ECM Gels for Regenerative Medicine," received a 137 score - 4th percentile!  Dan is working in Dr. Stephan Badylak's lab.  Dan will be our 6th F31 Fellow, with two other applications hopefully to be funded by the end of the year. 

   
March 2006

BioE graduate student, Erica Authier's project entitled, "Wheelchair Mounted Pelvic Restraint," has received NCIIA E-Team funding.  Erica is a student in Professor Rory Cooper's lab.  The faculty sponsor for the NCIIA Project is Dr. Linda Van Roosmalen, Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology.

   
  Lauren  Kokai and Christina Lee were selected for poster awards at the 2006 Engineering Graduate Student Organization Awards Luncheon.  (1) 2nd Place,  Lee, W.C.;* Maul, T.M.; Vorp, D.A.; Rubin, J.P.; Marra, K.G. “Effects of Uniaxial Cyclic Strain on Adipose-derived Stem Cell Morphology, Proliferation, and Differentiation,” University of Pittsburgh Engineering Graduate Student Organization Research Day, Pittsburgh, PA on March 16th (2)  3rd Place, Kokai, L.E.;* Soletti, L.; Vorp, D.; Rubin, J.P.; Marra, K.G. “A Novel Fabrication Method and Seeding System for Poly(caprolactone) Nerve Guides with Adipose-derived Stem Cells,” University of Pittsburgh Engineering Graduate Student Organization Research Day, Pittsburgh, PA on March 16th.  Both perform their research in Dr. Kacey Marra's lab.  BioE PhD candidates Tim Maul (adviser: Dr. David Vorp) and Lorenzo Soletti (adviser: Dr. David Vorp) also participated in this research.
   
 

BioE graduate student, David Montag's manuscript entitled, "Successful Simultaneous Measurement of Cell Membrane and Cytokine Induced Phosphorylation pathways (CIPP) in Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear cells," has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Immunological Methods.  David is performing this work in Professor Michael Lotze's lab.

   
 

A very recent publication by BioE students, Erica Authier and Garrett Grindle, who are conducting this work in Professor Rory Cooper’s lab.  Guo S, Grindle GG, Authier EL, Cooper RA, Fitzgerald SG, Kelleher A and Cooper R. “Development and Qualitative Assessment of the Game Cycle Exercise System.”  IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, Vol 14, pp 83 – 90, 2006.

   
Dr. George Stetten has been chosen as the BioE member of this year's School of Engineering Faculty Honor Roll by the Engineering Student Council.
   
 

The following BioE PhD candidates have been awarded funding through 2006-2007 Provost’s Development Fund:  Joie Marhefka (adviser: Dr. Marina Kameneva), Alicia DeFail (adviser: Dr. Kacey Marra), Laurel Kuxhaus (adviser: Dr. Jeffrey Vipperman), Jill Slaboda (adviser: Dr. J. Robert Boston), Kristie (Henchir) Burgess (adviser: Dr. William Federspiel)

   
 

During the March 2006 International Symposium for Ligament and Tendons (ISLT) organized by Professor Savio Woo, 165 invited attendees presented their state-of-the art research in the field.  Particularly impressive were the many outstanding presentations by MSRC faculty and staff.  The MSRC clearly leads the way in this field.  Next year’s 2007 ISLT meeting will be held San Diego, CA which is appropriate as San Diego is the place where Professor Woo’s career in Orthopedic research began almost 36 years ago.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Tom Gilbert’s poster entitled, Fate of Bone Marrow Derived Cells Recruited to the Site of ECM Remodeling,” was selected as “best poster” at the March 2006 International Symposium on Ligaments and Tendons.  Tom is performing this work in Dr. Stephen Badylak’s lab.

   
 

Poster winners at the recent 2006 MIRM RETREAT:

MARIAH HOUT – 1st place, category A – 3D Expansion of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells in Four-Compartment Bioreactors (Mariah is completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Jorg Gerlach’s lab).

 

ALEXA POLK – Honorable Mention, category A - A Biohybrid Lung Prototype with Active Mixing and Oxygenation of Endothelialized Microporous Hollow Fibers (Alexa is a PhD candidate in Dr. William Wagner’s lab)

 

LORENZO SOLETTI – 1st place, category B – In-vitro Assessment of a Biodegradable Electrospun Vascular Graft Surface-seeded with Muscle-derived Stem Cells and Subjected to Shear Stress (Lorenzo  is a PhD candidate in Dr. David Vorp’s lab)

 

JOLENE (HODGE) VALENTIN – Honorable Mention, category B - Host Response to Orthopaedic ECM Bioscaffolds (Jolene is a PhD candidate in Dr. Stephen Badylak’s lab)

 

MITRA LAVASANI – 1st place, category C – Muscle-Derived Stem Cells Spontaneously Express Neuronal Markers In Vitro And Promote Peripheral Nerve Repair (Mitra is a PhD candidate in Dr. Johnny Huard’s lab)

 

TOM PAYNE – Honorable Mention, category C - Functional Repair of Infarcted Hearts Mediated by Skeletal Muscle Stem Cells and Their Secretion of VEGF (Tom is a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Johnny Huard’s lab)


   
 

BioE undergraduate student, Adam Iddriss has just been awarded a Truman Scholarship, one of the very most prestigious and competitive scholarships that an undergraduate can receive.  BioE extends our heartiest congratulations to Mr. Iddriss for this spectacular achievement!

   
 

The article below which is just published in the BIORHEOLOGY Journal includes a dedication to Professor Tin Kan Hung as follows:  “Dedicated to Dr. T. K. Hung, Professor of Civil and Bio-Engin

eering, University of Pittsburgh, USA,  for his sustained encouragement with computational biofluid dynamics research, since 2003, and his inspiring contributions to computational methods in biomechanics over four decades.” These very important words from international colleagues indicate the magnitude of Professor Tin Kan Hung’s life-long professional contributions to research and education.

BIORHEOLOGY Journal

Biorheology: Journal of the International Society of Biorheology

Editor-in-Chief:

Dr. Harry Goldsmith, Room C10-148, The Montréal General Hospital,
1650 Cedar Avenue, Montréal, Québec H3G 1A4, Canada.
E-mail: harry.goldsmith@mcgill.ca

March 2006

 QUASI-STEADY PULSATILE MAGNETO-HEMODYNAMIC FLOW AND MASS TRANSFER IN A NON-DARCIAN CHANNEL USING THE NAKAYAMA-SAWADA BIVISCOSITY MODEL:  FINITE ELEMENT SOLUTIONS

   
 

Tim Maul, a PhD candidate in Dr. David Vorp’s lab, is one of three University recipients of the 2006 Outstanding Graduate Student Award.  Tim will be traveling to Neumann College in March to give a 20 minute research presentation and receive the award. Tim as many outstanding contributions and many accomplishments including receiving an F-31 Ruth L Kirschstein NRSA Pre-doctoral Fellowship Award.

   
 

BioE undergraduate student, Margaret Bennewitz is one of two University of Pittsburgh students awarded a Goldwater Scholarship.  As you know the Goldwater Scholarship is one of the most competitive awards that an undergraduate student can receive.  Margaret’s exceptional QPA (3.95) and outstanding work in Dr. Timothy Corcoran’s lab clearly were major factors in receipt of this award.

   
 

Dr. Wilson Chang, who completed his PhD in BioE in Dr. George Stetten’s lab and who will receive his M.D. degree this spring, has matched at Stanford for a residency in Radiology.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been selected to serve on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Bioengineering Division Technical Committee which is the governing board for the Bioengineering Division.

   
 

The mag lev VAD technology that Dr. James Antaki developed was about to undergo clinical testing.  View the details below of this historic achievement. 

 

First Human Implant of WorldHeart’s Next-Generation Rotary VAD

Clinical Trial Initiated in Europe

Oakland, CA, USA – March 14, 2006: (NASDAQ: WHRT, TSX: WHT) - World Heart Corporation (WorldHeart), a global technology leader in mechanical circulatory support systems, announced today that the first human implant of its advanced rotary ventricular assist device (VAD) took place on March 8, 2006. The successful implant, performed at St. Luke's Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece, marks the start of the feasibility clinical trial of WorldHeart’s next-generation rotary VAD.

A surgical team, whose members had completed training at WorldHeart’s Salt Lake City facility last month, successfully implanted the device into a 67-year-old man with advanced congestive heart failure, as part of an operation that included heart valve repair as well as a coronary artery bypass graft.

Initial Rotary VAD Implant

“Our surgical and clinical team is extremely pleased to perform the first implant of this unique new device,” said Dr. Antonis Pitsis, cardiac surgeon and Director of the Thessaloniki Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Hospital, and principal clinical investigator of the feasibility trial. “The WorldHeart rotary VAD has, thus far met our high expectations and it has been particularly rewarding to see the patient doing well. The patient is enjoying interacting with his family.”

Dr. James Long, cardiac surgeon and Director of the Utah Artificial Heart Program at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, assisted on the operation. Dr. Long said, “It is encouraging to see the field of long-term mechanical circulatory support expand with exciting new technologies being utilized in new high quality centers worldwide. I believe growth of the field will be enhanced by the introduction and validation of such next-generation devices designed for ease of use, enhanced quality of life and improvements with performance, blood compatibility and durability.”

Dr. Petros Sfirakis, Deputy Director of Cardiac Surgery at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, also assisted with the operation. The Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center has experience with WorldHeart’s CE-marked Novacor pulsatile VAD and is collaborating with St. Luke’s in the initial clinical trial of the WorldHeart rotary VAD.

Jal S. Jassawalla, WorldHeart’s President and Chief Executive Officer said, “We are pleased with the successful first clinical use of our advanced rotary system, starting our European feasibility trial on schedule. This is a significant milestone in the development and commercialization of our next-generation products, and it supports our goal of meeting the long-term needs of patients across a wide spectrum of heart failure conditions, with both rotary and pulsatile VADs.”

WorldHeart Rotary VAD

The WorldHeart rotary VAD is the only bearingless, fully magnetically levitated implantable centrifugal rotary pump in clinical trials. It is an advanced, next-generation, continuous flow pump that uses magnetic levitation to fully suspend the spinning rotor, its only moving part, inside a compact housing. The pump's proprietary levitation technology employs a combination of passive magnetic suspension and single-axis active control, which is expected to provide optimal system simplicity and reliability.

Unlike most rotary pumps currently in clinical trials, it does not rely on either a mechanical bearing or a film of blood (blood bearing) to support the rotor. Relative to pumps with blood or mechanical bearings, full magnetic levitation eliminates wear mechanisms within the pump and is expected to provide improved blood compatibility by allowing greater clearances and more favorable, obstruction-free, blood flow around the rotor.

About World Heart Corporation

World Heart Corporation is a technology leader in mechanical circulatory support systems, headquartered in Oakland, California, USA with additional facilities in Salt Lake City, Utah and in Heesch, Netherlands. WorldHeart’s registered office is Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. WorldHeart is dedicated to working with physicians to provide the most reliable long-term mechanical circulatory support products and services to the broadest patient population through technology, leadership and innovation.

Any forward-looking statements in this release including those about planned clinical studies and breadth of the company’s product platform are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties, including without limitation: risks in product development and market acceptance of and demand for the Company’s products; possible delays in successfully completing preclinical testing and planned clinical trials; possibility of unsuccessful results in initial feasibility studies with the rotary VAD and other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Amended Annual Report on Form 10-KSB/A for the year ended December 31, 2004.

WORLD HEART CORPORATION · 7799 PARDEE LANE, OAKLAND, CA 94621

PHONE: (510) 563-5000 · FAX: (510) 563-5005 www.worldheart.com 

   
  Dr. William Wagner’s new journal, Acta Biomaterialia, has been selected for listing on Medline by the National Library of Medicine's Literature Selection Technical Review Committee.  Last month the journal received notice of listing with Science Citation Index.  Selection of a journal for inclusion on Medline requires demonstration of peer review and a highly respected leader (editor) to develop the peer review process.
   
 

Dr. David Vorp has been elected to the Executive Council of the International Society of Applied Cardiovascular Biology (ISACB).  The ISACB represents an integration of the spectrum of clinicians to clinician-scientists to applied scientists to basic scientists.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Joie Marhefka’s abstract entitled, "Effects of Drag-Reducing Polymers on Blood Flow in Microchannels," has been selected for presentation in a Slide Session at the 52nd Annual Conference of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) to be held this June in Chicago.  Joie is performing this work in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Stefan Safta’s publication in this month’s ASAIO Journal.  Stefan is doing this research in Dr. Jack Patzer’s lab.  John F. Patzer, Stefan A. Safta and Richard H. Miller, “Slow Continuous Ultrafiltration with Bound Solute Dialysis,”  ASAIO Journal 2006; 52:47-58.

   
 

The SoE Engineering Graduate Student Organization asked us to nominate BioE’s outstanding RA and TA for 2005-2006.  The outstanding BioE TA is Stephanie Glazar and the outstanding BioE RA is Ken Urish.  Stephanie has very ably assisted Dr. George Stetten and Dr. Mingui Sun this academic year (both fall and spring terms) in the implementation of our modified course sequence in the Biosignals and Imaging Concentration.  Ken is our 6th and most recent recipient of a prestigious F31 NRSA Ruth L. Kirschstein Pre-doctoral Fellowship.  Ken is performing his PhD research in Dr. Johnny Huard’s lab.

   
 

Drs. George Stetten and Mingui Sun were inducted as part of the AIMBE Fellows Class of 2006.  Dr. Stetten’s AIMBE citation reads, “For outstanding contributions to the development of innovative ultrasound image guidance techniques and National Library of Medicine image analysis software.”  Dr. Sun’s citation reads, “For contributions to the field of biomedical signal processing, source localization, and biomemetic implantable communication channels.”

   
 

BioE graduate student, Phil Marascalco’s abstract entitled, “Development of standard tests to examine viscoelastic properties of blood of experimental animals for pediatric mechanical support device evaluation,” has been selected by the Scientific Program Committee of The Second International Conference on Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems and Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Perfusion as a Slide Presentation.  The meeting will be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 18-20, 2006.  Phil is performing this research in Professor Marina Kameneva’s lab.

   
 

BioE Graduate student, Gulshan Sharma's abstract, (Sharma GB, Robertson DD, Rodosky MW, McMahon PJ, Glenoid Structural Analysis: Relevance To Arthroplasty) has been selected for Poster Session Presentation in the upcoming Orthopaedic Research Society’s (ORS) Annual Conference in Chicago from 18th-21st March 2006.  Gulshan is conducting this work in Dr. Douglas Robertson's lab.

   
February 2006

Professor Marina Kameneva has been promoted to Research Professor of Surgery in the School of Medicine, Department of Surgery has been approved effective March 1, 2006.  Professor  Kameneva is among the world's leading authorities in the biorheology of drag reduction; and the biomechanical/biofluid dynamic mechanisms associated with cellular trauma in blood wetted organs.  Since the McGowan Center was 1st established, Professor Kameneva has been integral to all the innovative work that has been accomplished in the area of cardiopulmonary organ replacements.

   
 

Dr. Richard Debski has been selected to receive a 2006 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award.  In his letter to Dr. Debski, Chancellor Nordenberg writes, “You have distinguished yourself as a “young star” in the fields of musculoskeletal biomechanics and sports medicine through your fundamental work on the structure and function of the soft connective tissues at the shoulder joints.  It is a measure of your intellectual depth that you are widely recognized in the fields of experimental biomechanics, computational biomechanics, and robotic technology.  This status has been highlighted by the numerous awards that you have received.  However, it was formalized when the American Society for Mechanical Engineering awarded you its Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award, the most prestigious national award that a young scholar in your field can receive.”  This Award reflects Dr. Debski’s terrific accomplishments at the University.  This Award also reflects the truly outstanding mentoring Dr. Debski has received in his years at the University from Professor Woo, and the wonderful research and education opportunities available to Dr. Debski at the MSRC. 

   

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to be a Keynote Speaker in the American Society of Bioemechanics Meeting, to be held at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA, September 6-9, 2006.

   
 

Professor George  Stetten's IEEE publication: The 3rd author, Vikram Chib, is a BS graduate of our Undergraduate Program who is pursuing the BioE PhD @Northwestern.  Samuel Clanton, David Wang, Vikram Chib, Yoky Matsuoka, George Stetten, "Optical Merger of Direct Vision with Virtual Images for Scaled Teleoperation," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), Vol. 12, No. 2, March/April 2006.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo has been selected to receive the Carnegie Science Center’s Life Science Award for 2006.  His work has revolutionized the field of orthopedic biomechanics and served as the foundation upon which many patient rehabilitation protocols are currently based for various types of ligament and tendon injury.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo has been invited to be a Plenary Speaker at the 5th World Congress of Biomechanics to be held from July 29 through August 4, 2006, in Munich, Germany.  The title of Professor Woo’s presentation is:  Biomechanics Research and Sports Medicine’s Future:  Meeting the Challenges of Keeping Your Knee and Shoulder Healthy.

   
 

Dr. James Antaki has been promoted from associate professor with tenure @CMU to full professor with tenure @CMU effective July 1, 2006.  Also, Dr. Antaki’s blood pump development (HeartQuest) will soon undergo its 1st clinical trials in Europe.

   
January 2006

George Engelmayr's abstract entitled, "Cyclic Flexure and Laminar Flow Synergistically Accelerate Mesenchymal Stem Cell Mediated Engineered Heart Valve Tissue Formation," was chosen for a Young Investigator Award at the 2006 International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology meeting which will take place March 8-11, 2006 in La Jolla, California.  George performed his Ph.D. research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab, is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Langer Lab @MIT.

   
 

Professor Andrew Schaefer was recently awarded with an NSF Career Award.  Dr. Schafer’s research addresses next-generation therapeutic optimization, which involves constructing quantitative models of disease progression, and optimizing a particular set of therapies. Dr. Schaefer's work focuses on three broad areas in end-stage liver disease, but the research applies to other diseases as well.

   
 

Dr. George Stetten’s proposal entitled, “Applying the Sonic Flashlight to the Guidance of Breast Tumor Biopsy,” has been selected for funding from the patent research development fund in the Office of Technology Management (OTM).  This award represents OTM’s commitment to support as appropriate BioE-based technology development efforts such as Dr. Stetten’s sonic flashlight.

   
 

The following paper was accepted for publication which includes BioE Graduate students Virginia Penascino and Greg Cooper as co-authors:  Dudas, J.R.; Marra, K.G.; Cooper, G.M.; Penascino, V.M.; Mooney, M.P.; Jiang, S.; Rubin, J.P.; Losee, J.E. "The Osteogenic Potential of Adipose-derived Stem Cells for Repair of Rabbit Calvarial Defects," Annals of Plastic Surgery, 2006, In Press.  This work was conducted in Dr. Kacey Marra’s lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Ellen Brennan was selected as one of only two oral presentation award winners at the Society for Physical Regulation in Biology and Medicine conference.  The title of the award Ellen received is the Yasuda Award, and the title of Ellen’s presentation was,Antibacterial Activity within Degradation Products of Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds.”  Ellen is conducting this research in Dr. Stephen Badylak’s lab.

   
 

Dr. Johnny Huard is the newly appointed Editor for North America for the journal Current GenomicsCurrent Genomics is becoming very successful. Now in volume 6 publishing 8 issues, the overall scientific quality of the journal is very impressive.

   
 

The publication entitled, "Effects of Boundary Conditions on the Estimation of the Planar Biaxial Mechanical Properties of Soft Tissues” was voted by the reviewers as one of the top nine papers published in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering in 2005.  Authors are: Wei Sun, Michael Sacks, and Michael Scott.  Dr. Wei Sun completed his Ph.D. in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Erik Wolf conducting this work in Professor Rory Cooper’s lab has recently submitted a 1st author paper;  Wolf E, Pearlman J, Cooper RA, Fitzgerald SG, Kelleher AM, Collins DM, Boninger ML and Cooper R.  “Vibration Exposure of Individuals Using Wheelchairs over Sidewalk Surfaces.”  Disability and Rehabilitation 2005; 27(23):1443-1449.

   
 

Two recent publications by George LaVerde, who is completing his PhD research in Dr. Fernando Boada’s lab.  (1) Boada FE, LaVerde G, Jungreis C, Nemoto E, Tanse C and Hancu I.  Loss of Cell Ion Homeostasis and Cell Viability in the Brain: What Sodium MRI Can Tell Us.  Current Topics in Developmental Biology, Vol 70, pp. 77-101, 2005. and (2) LaVerde G, Nemoto E, Jungreis CA, Tanase C and Boada FESerial Triple Quantum Sodium MRI During Non-Human Primate Focal Brain Ischemia.  Magnetic Resonante in Medicine (Submitted).

   
 

Dr. David Vorp is an invited keynote speaker at the New York Academy of Sciences Symposium this April entitled, “The Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: Genetics, Pathophysiology, and Molecular Biology Tenth Anniversary Symposium.”  The title of Dr. Vorp’s presentation is, “Finite-element analysis and bioengineering approaches to fine-tune prediction of rupture risk, independent of size alone.”  Dr. Vorp is recognized as the leading authority regarding the biomechanics of AAA rupture.

   
 

Two recent 1st author publications by BioE graduate students, William Stauffer and Reecha Wadhwa, who are both working in Dr. Xinyan (Tracy)  Cui’s lab, Polypyrrole doped with 2 peptide sequences from laminin, Biomaterials, Volume 27, Issue 11, April 2006, Pages 2405-2413  by William R. Stauffer and Xinyan T. Cui and Electrochemically controlled release of dexamethasone from conducting polymer polypyrrole coated electrode, Journal of Controlled Release, In Press (Available online 19 December 2005), Reecha Wadhwa, Carl F. Lagenaur and Xinyan Tracy Cui.

   
December 2005

A recent 1st author publication by Eric Wolf, who is completing his PhD research in Professor Rory Cooper’s lab.  Wolf EJ, Pearlman J, Cooper RA, Fitzgerald SG, Kelleher AR , Collins DM, Boninger ML, Cooper R, Vibration Exposure of Individuals Using Wheelchairs Over Sidewalk Surfaces, Disability and Rehabilitation, pp. 1443-1449, Vol. 27, No. 23, December 2005.

   
  During calendar year 2005, Dr. James Wang’s MechanoBiology Lab produced 14 papers either published, in press, or accepted for publication.  Dr. Wang has also been honored as the Program Chair for the 2007 Meeting of SPRBM (The Society for Physical Regulation in Biology and Medicine)
   
 

BioE student  Perry Tiberio has been selected to be the Keynote Speaker for the School of Engineering Senior Recognition Brunch to be held December 11th.  Perry was nominated by Dr. Richard Debski.  This past April, BioE student Jason Woods was also selected to the School of Engineering Keynote Speaker for April commencement.

   
 

BioE graduate student, David Merryman’s 1st author paper in the just published volume of the Journal of Biomechanics.  Merryman WD, Huang H-Y S, Schoen FJ and Sacks MS.  The effects of cellular contraction on aortic valve leaflet flexural stiffness.  Journal of Biomechanics 39 (2006) 88-96.  David is conducting this work in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

 
 

Drs. Steven Abramowitch’s and Savio Woo’s lead article in the current issue of the Journal of Biomechanics:  Woo S. L.-Y., Abramowitch S.D., Kilger R. and Liang R.  Biomechanics of knee ligaments: injury, healing and repair.  Journal of Biomechanics 39 (2006) 1-20.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks' presentation at the recent Materials Research Society entitled, "A new method of producing artificial heart valves that more closely mimic the properties of natural heart valves was demonstrated using novel electrospinning of polyester (urethane) ureas materials," was selected as one of the "Top 5 Hot Talks" presented at the meeting, judged on relevance to "changing our world."  Over 5000 scientists from around the world presented papers in Materials Research at this meeting.  The co-authors on this paper include BioE graduate student Todd Courtney, John Stankus, Jinjuan Guan, and Dr. William Wagner.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Alicia DeFail's recent first author publication in Biomaterials:  Alicia J. DeFail, Constance R. Chu, Nicholas Izzo and Kacey G. Marra, "Controlled release of bioactive TGF-β1 from microspheres embedded within biodegradable hydrogels," Biomaterials, 2006, 27(8), 1579-1585.  Alicia is working in Dr. Kacey Marra’s lab.

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been elected to the Canada Research Chair College of Reviewers.  This appointment is analogous to NIH Study Section work, except that the review is for Chair positions at Canadian universities.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Ericia Authier, in Professor Rory Cooper's lab, along with student team partners from Mechanical Engineering, have been selected as one of only seven design team winners of the BIG IDEA Competition for their design entitled, "Wheelchair Mounted Pelvic Restraint."

   
 

BioE’s graduate student Ken Urish's NIH F31 NRSA Ruth L Kirschstein Pre-doctoral Fellowship Application entitled, "Inflammation and Stem Cell Transplantation," received a priority score of 138 or 9th percentile. Ken’s is doing his research in Dr. Johnny Huard's laboratory.  Ken will be our 6th BioE F31 recipient, and when you also consider that our faculty (Professors Alan Russell, Michael Sacks and Sanjeev Shroff) have each been awarded an NIH T-32 Pre-doctoral Training Grant, our Graduate Program is certainly among the very elite Programs in the U.S.

   
November 2005

Dr. Michael Sacks has been invited to present, "Heart Valve Tissue Engineering," in December 2005 at the National University of Singapore & International Congress on Biomedical Engineering Pre-Conference Workshop on Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering, in Singapore.

   
 

A recent publication by BioE PhD candidate, Brad Impink.  Brad is conducting his research in Dr. Michael Boninger’s lab.  Koontz AM, Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Yang Y, Impink BG, van der Woude LHV, A Kinetic Analysis of Manual Wheelchair Propulsion During Start-Up on Select Indoor and Outdoor Surfaces, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, pp. 447-458, Vol. 42, No. 4, July/August 2005.

   
 

BioE Graduate students, Dorian Arnold (who is working in Dr. James Antaki’s lab) and Carl Johnson (who is working in Dr. William Wagner’s lab) presented their pediatric VAD research at this week’s national American Heart Association meeting in Dallas.  Dorian’s presentation is entitled, “"Pediatric Cardiovascular Simulation for Assessment of the PediaFlow Ventricular Assist Device," authored by: DK Arnold, S Vandenberghe, Y-C Yu, HS Borovetz and JF Antaki.  Carl’s presentation is entitled, “Biocompatibility Assessment of the PediaFlow Ventricular Assist Device,” authored by C Johnson, T Snyder and W Wagner.

   
 

Dr. George Stetten's abstract entitled, "Fingertip Vibratory Transducer for Detecting Optical Edges using Regenerative Feedback," has been accepted for presentation @Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, IEEE Virtual Reality 2006, Arlington VA, 25-26 March 2006.  The authors of the abstract are: Kimberly Zawrotny, Apryle Craig, Roberta Klatzky, George Stetten.  Kim Zawrotny is a current BioE undergraduate student and Apryle Craig is one of our recent baccalaureates.

   
 

Professor Marina Kameneva recently delivered the following lecture to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering: "Drag-reducing polymers: Effects on macro- and micro-hemodynamics."  The abstract for Professor Kameneva’s talk can be found at this URL:  http://www.engr.pitt.edu/chemical/news/seminars/abstracts/2005_fall/kameneva.html

   
 

The following paper from Dr. Stetten's lab has been accepted in the journal, Radiology.  The 1st author, Wilson Chang, who completed his PhD in BioE in Dr. Stetten's lab, is currently completing the M.D. portion of the M.D., Ph.D. Program.  W. Chang, N. Amesur, R. Klatzky, G. Stetten, "The Sonic Flashlight Is Faster than Conventional Ultrasound Guidance to Learn and Use For Vascular Access on Phantoms."

   
 

Professor Savio Woo received the 2005-2006 School of Engineering Board of Visitors Faculty Award.  In presenting the award to Professor Woo, Pitt Chairman of the Board of Trustees and CEO of US Steel, Mr. Tom Usher, lauded Professor Woo for his most productive academic year, including Professor Woo’s contributions to the development of BioE and our graduate research programs; the many meritorious awards that Professor Woo receives annually at the national and international level; Professor Woo’s exceptional funding and publication records; and overall leadership to BioE and the School of Engineering.  BioE takes considerable pride in the fact that Professor Woo is the 3rd consecutive BioE faculty member to receive the School of Engineering Board of Visitors Faculty Award.  In 2003-2004 Professor Sanjeev Shroff was selected; and last year, 2004-2005, Professor Michael Sacks received the School of Engineering Board of Visitors Faculty Award.

   
October 2005

2005 Tissue Engineering Society International (TESI) Annual Meeting, which was held from October 22-25 at the Shanghai International Convention Center, Shanghai, P.R. China.  Listed below are the papers from BioE.   

Highlighted in Bold Font are BioE faculty; in Bold Italics Font, BioE graduate students.

 Tissue Engineering Based On Muscle-Derived Stem Cells: Potential Applications for Tissue Regeneration; Johnny Huard

 Surface Characteristics of Biologic Scaffolds Derived From Extracellular Matrix; Thomas W. Gilbert, Buddy D. Ratner, Daniel Graham, Bryan N. Brown, Stephen F. Badylak

 High Efficient Muscle Regeneration Capacity Displayed by Cells Isolated from Blood Vessels; Baohong Cao, Jessica Tebbets, Johnny Huard

 Characterization of Muscle Derived Stem Cells within a Novel Tissue Engineered Vascular Graft; Alejandro Nieponice, Bridget M Deasy, Lorenzo Soletti, Jianjun Guan, Johnny Huard, William R Wagner, David A Vorp

 Calcium Alginate Microencapsulation of Ovarian Follicles Reduces FSH Delivery to the Growing Follicle; Matthew Heise, Richard Koepsel, Alan J. Russell, Elizabeth A. McGee

 Assessment of a novel rotational vacuum seeding technique for tissue engineered Tubular structures; Lorenzo Soletti, Alejandro Nieponice, Jianjun Guan, John J. Stankus, William R. Wagner, David A. Vorp

 Enhancement of vasculature development in engineered scaffolds by drag reducing Polymers; Ravikumar Thangappan, Philip J. Marascalco, Joie N. Marhefka, Alan J. Russell, Marina V. Kameneva

Analysis and design of novel electrospun PEUU scaffolds for soft tissue engineering; Todd D Courtney, Michael S Sacks, John J Stankus, Jianjun Guan, William R Wagner

 The effects of substrate choice and mechanical stimulation on differentiation of muscle-derived stem cells; Rebecca A. Long, Johnny Huard, Michael B Chancellor, Michael S. Sacks

 Gradient scaffold in tissue engineering; Sara, L. Wargo, Thangappan Ravi Kumar, Alan J. Russell

Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds for Tracheal Reconstruction; Thomas W. Gilbert, Sebastien Gilbert, Stephen F. Badylak 

Tissue Engineered Esophageal Tissue in a Canine Model; Alejandro Nieponice, Thomas W. Gilbert, Stephen F. Badylak

___________________________

   
 

On October 25th, Professor Michael Sacks delivered the Distinguished Speakers in Bioengineering Lecture @University of Toronto, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering.  The title of Professor Sacks' talk was on "Biomechanics of Native and Engineered Heart Valve Tissues"

   
 

2005 Honors Convocation Students

 GRADUATE STUDENTS

 Cois, Aaron: Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program (CBTP) Fellow

 Coley, Brooke: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31) for research on adaptive postural strategies and the impact of aging

 Collins, Charita: Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (CATER) Fellow

 Debrah, Dan: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31) for research on relaxin in systemic vascular mechanisms and function; First author, Relaxin increases cardiac output and reduces systemic arterial load in hypertensive rats in Hypertension

 DeFail, Alicia: Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (CATER) Fellow

 Ding, Zhijie: Travel award to the 2005 American Society of Cell Biology to present Effects of silencing profilin on endothelial cytoskeleton and migration

 Dvorznak, Michael: First author, Kinematic analysis for determination of bioequivalence of a modified hybrid III test dummy and a wheelchair user in Journal of Rehabilitation and Development

 Eckert, Chad: Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine (BiRM) Fellow; George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 El-Kurdi, Mohammed: Finalist in the ASME MS/PhD student thesis contest; 3rd place in the ASME Bioengineering Division Master’s Student Paper Competition in Anaheim, CA for his paper entitled Regulation of cell adhesion and de-adhesion proteins in veins perfused under arterial conditions ex-vivo

 Engelmayr, George: Finalist in the PhD Student Paper Competition (Cells and Tissue Engineering Category) at the 2005 Summer Bioengineering Conference, Vail, Colorado; Student Travel an Professional Development Award from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB) to attend the SFB Annual Meeting in Memphis, TN.  Selection for this award was based on outstanding scores of Mr. Engelmayr’s abstract.

 Fisher, Matthew: Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine (BiRM) Fellow for research on improving the healing of the patellar tendon after injury using functional tissue engineering techniques; George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 Gaitan, Diana: Fulbright Scholar from Colombia

 Gilbert, Thomas: Finalist for the 2005 Young Researchers of Orthopaedics, Biomechanics/Biology, Operative Techniques and Sports (Y-ROBOTS) Award

 Heise, Matthew: Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (CATER) Fellow

 Impink, Bradley: IGERT Rehabilitative/Assistive Technology Award

 Johnson, Carl: 4-year Minority Graduate Research Supplement (MGRS) for research on pediatric circulatory support

 Kirk, Jonathan: Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program (CBTP) Fellow for research on compensatory effects on calcium handling in transgenic mice with altered myofilament function

 Kokai, Lauren: First author, The potential of adipose-derived adult stem cells as a source of neuronal progenitor cells in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

 Kuxhaus, Laurel: IGERT Rehabilitative/Assistive Technology Award

Lavasani, Mitra: Chosen by Chancellor Nordenberg as one of the outstanding students to whom the University will pay special tribute at the Honors Convocation on February 28, 2005; Abstract entitled Nerve growth factor increases transplantation efficiency of muscle-derived stem cells and significantly improves muscle regeneration in dystrophic muscle was chosen as a finalist for the Orthopaedic Research Society’s New Investigator Recognition Awards (NIRA) competition

 LaVerde, George: Second Place Poster, Neuroimaging Division, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 12th Scientific Meeting

 Lee, Wen-Chi: First author, Registration of MR and CT images of the liver: comparison of voxel similarity and surface based registration algorithms in Comput Methods Programs Biomed

 Long, Rebecca: Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Delegate to attend the 55th Annual Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Students, Lindau, Germany

 Marascalco, Philip: 2004 ASAIO Biomedical Engineering Student Fellowship

 Marhefka, Joie: Fellowship recipient at the 51st Annual ASAIIO Conference, Washington, DC

 Maul, Tim: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31); 2005 Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant

 Mercer, Jennifer: Paper entitled Effect of weight on wheelchair propulsion over various surfaces was selected for a Scientific Paper Award at the 2005 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference; National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship

 Merryman, David: American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship for research on the effects of local tissue stress on aortic valve interstitial cell phenotype and resulting synthetic functions

 Meszaros, Laura: George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 Mihelc, Kevin: George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 Moore, Susan: Finalist in the ASME MS/PhD student thesis contest; Orthopaedic Research Laboratory Alumni Council (ORLAC) Award; International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE), M.S. Level Finalist for Student Paper Competition, 2nd Place Prize; 2004 Engineering Graduate Student Organization’s Outstanding Research Assistant, University of Pittsburgh; 2005 Provost Development Fund Recipient 

Oberdier, Matt: Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program (CBTP) Fellow; George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 Park, Sung Hong: Poster Award (Honorable Mention) at ISMRM’s 13th meeting

 Payne, Thomas: Young Investigator’s Award at the 2005 FASEB Summer Research Conference Skeletal Muscle Satellite and Stem Cells, Tucson, AZ.  Poster Presentation entitled Functional Repair of Infarcted Hearts Mediated by Skeletal Muscle Stem Cells and Their Secretion of VEGF

 Prantil, Rachelle: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31); McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine 3rd Place Poster Winner; 3rd Place Poster Winner, Annual Department of Pathology Retreat

 Ramaswami, Priya: Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (CATER) Fellow; 2nd Place Poster Winner, Annual Department of Pathology Retreat

 Rath, William: George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 Ruffner, Melanie: George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

Santelices, Linda: 1st Place, ASAIOI Paul S. Malchesky Fellowship Award; 3rd Place, SHPE National Poster Competition at the Graduate Level; 3rd Place, University of Pittsburgh Engineering Graduate Student Poster Competition

 Sellaro, Tiffany: Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (CATER) Fellow

 Stauffer, William: Recipient of the 2004 Neural Prosthesis Travel Assistance Program for poster at the 2004 Neural Interface Workshop in Bethesda, MD entitled Effect of bioactive molecules immobilized in polypyrrole surfaces on neuronal cell attachment, differentiation, and growth

 Toosi, Kevin: Paper entitled Changes in the mechanical properties of the rat urinary bladder following long-term spinal cord injury was selected as one of the MS-level finalists for the Student Paper Competition at the Summer Bioengineering Conference sponsored by the ASME Bioengineering Division

 Uber, Bronwyn: Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program(CBTP) Fellow

 VanEpps, Scott: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31) for research on coronary arterial dynamics and atherogenesis; NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship to honor outstanding athletes who intend to continue their academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree

 Wolf, Erik: First author, Vibration exposure of individuals using wheelchairs over concrete paver surfaces in Disability and Rehabilitation; Predoctoral Associated Health Rehabilitation Research Fellowship Program for academic year 2004 - 2005

 Wu, Sai Kit: George M. Bevier Fellowship in recognition of excellent academic record

 Yarnall, Megan: Paper entitled Wrist range of motion during lateral transfers among persons with paraplegia was selected for Honorable Mention at the 2005 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference

 UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

 Anderson, Michael: Beckman Scholarship; Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Bechtold, Stephanie: 3rd Place in the BS Student Paper competition at the 2004 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition

 Calano, Sarah: Awarded for her academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society; Awarded a Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) grant by AEMB; Finalist in the BS-level Student Paper Competition for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Summer Bioengineering Conference 2005

 Callaghan, Michael: Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Iddriss, Adam: Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Malkiewicz, Andrew: Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 McNeal, Amy: Awarded for her academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Moran, Sean: Druids’ Cathedral Fountain Scholarship Award

 Premraj, Senthil: Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Rowland, Richard: Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Shelly, Bryan: Awarded for his academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

 Wickwire, Alexis: Rita Schaffer Undergraduate Award from the University of Pittsburgh chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).  This award is given in honor of outstanding leadership and service in the BMES

Wyszomierski, Sarah: Awarded for her academic excellence in bioengineering by being inducted into Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB), the Bioengineering Honors society

______________________

   
 

Eunji Cheong, who completed her BioE PhD in Professor Guy Salama’s lab, has published the following first author paper:  Eunji Cheong, Vassil Tumbev, Detcho Stoyanovsky, and Guy Salama: Effects of pO2 on the activation of skeletal muscle ryanodine receptors by NO: A cautionary note. Cell Calcium 38 (2005) 481–488

   
 

Professor Samjeev Shroff's competitive RO1 renewal with Dr. Kirk Conrad entitled, "Endogenous Relaxin Regulates Vascular Function in Males and Nonpregnant Females," received a fabulous Priority Score of 145, and Percentile of 9.5.

   
 

George Engelmayr's F32 (post-doctoral fellowship application) titled "Cell Adhesion and Guidance Motifs for Cardiac Grafts" received a priority score of 153, percentile 11.1%.  George is completing his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks' lab; the F32 is for George's post-doc position in the Langer lab @MIT.  George has truly been an exceptional graduate student in every academic measure imaginable. 

   
 

Professor David Vorp's July 1 NIH RO1 competing renewal application entitled "Biomechanical Evaluation of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm" received a priority score of 140 and percentile of 2.3!   Dr. Vorp's truly outstanding RO1 review reflects his recognized leadership in the field of AAA Biomechanics. 

   
 

BioE graduate student Ms. Lauren Kokai has recently published the following first author publication:  Kokai, Lauren E.; Rubin, J. Peter; Marra, Kacey G., "The Potential of Adipose-Derived Adult Stem Cells as a Source of Neuronal Progenitor Cells," Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 2005, 116(5), 1453-1460.  Lauren is performing this work in the lab of Dr. Kacey Marra.  Dr. Marra served as Lauren’s undergraduate adviser and is continuing to provide outstanding mentorship for Lauren’s graduate research.

   
 

Dr. George Stetten’s new IEEE publication:  Bing Wu, Roberta Klatzky, Damion Shelton, George Stetten, “Psychophysical Evaluation of In-Situ Ultrasound Visualization,” Special Issue on Haptics, Virtual and Augmented Reality, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), vol. 11, no. 6, November/December 2005.   The 3rd author, Mr. Damion Shelton, is a member of our first B.S. Bioengineering graduating class.

   
September 2005

New publication co-authored by Brad Impink which is accepted for publication.  Brad is a student in Dr. Michael Boninger’s lab.  Fitzgerald SG, Collins DM, Cooper RA, Tolerico M, Kelleher AR, Hunt PC, Martin SG, Impink BG, Cooper R, Issues in the Maintenance and Repairs of Wheelchairs: A Pilot Study, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, in press, 2005.

   
 

Several BioE graduate students who work in Dr. Kacey Marra’s lab, Christina Lee, Alicia DeFail and Lauren Kokai, delivered podium presentations last week at the International Fat Applied Technology Society Meeting in Charlottesville, VA, Sept 10-13.  This is the premiere international meeting on fat-derived stem cells.  Also, one BioE undergraduate student working in Dr. Marra’s lab, Virginia Penascino, also was a co-author on a poster presentation.   Finally, BioE PhD candidate Tim Maul, a student in Dr. David Vorp’s lab, was a co-author on Christina’s presentation.

   
 

Dan Debrah's manuscript entitled, "Relaxin Increases Cardiac Output and Reduces Systemic Arterial Load in Hypertensive Rats," authored by Dan O. Debrah, Kirk P. Conrad, Arundhathi Jeyabalan, Lee A. Danielson and Sanjeev G. Shroff, has appeared in the journal HYPERTENSION (Hypertension. 2005;46:745-750).  This paper is Dan's second first-author publication and fourth overall, which reflects not only Dan's outstanding work, but more importantly, Professor Shroff's excellence in graduate research advising and mentorship.

   
 

Dr. Rakie Cham has been selected as the recipient of the 2004-2005 Robert O. Agbede Award for Diversity in the School of Engineering.  In his letter to Dr. Cham, Dean Gerald Holder writes “Your commitment to recruiting under-represented students into the School of Engineering has been outstanding.  Of particular note is your involvement in faculty mentoring of female Bioengineering students.  The committee was especially impressed with the level of involvement that you displayed with your students.  You are a key female role model in your department, and because of this you are encouraged to continue and grow in this outstanding capacity.” 

   
 

Dr. George Stetten has been reappointed to a Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellowship effective 9/1/2005.  The appointment is for two years.  In his letter to Dr. Stetten, Dean Holder writes “This appointment is in recognition of your outstanding productivity as a member of the faculty.  Further, it reflects the strong support of your faculty colleagues and Chairman.”

   
  Dr. Mark Redfern has been reappointed to a William Kepler Whiteford Professorship effective 9/1/2005.  The appointment is for four years.  In his letter to Professor Redfern, Dean Holder writes “This appointment is in recognition of your outstanding productivity as a senior member of the faculty.  Further, it reflects the strong support of your faculty colleagues and Chairman."
   
 

Dr. David Vorp has been invited to serve on the Ph.D. thesis committee of a student from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology.  Dr. Vorp's expertise in AAA biomechanics and modeling is being sought by Frans N. van de Vosse, Professor of Cardiovascular Biomechanics @Eindhoven. This is an honor both to Dr. Vorp and our Department, that our faculty are sought by programs worldwide for their expertise in order to guide graduate student research and Ph.D. projects.

   
  Two recent awards to BioE MSRC Students:  (1) Alexis Wickwire, received the Rita Schaffer Undergraduate Award from the University of Pittsburgh chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).  This award to given in honor of her outstanding leadership and service in the BMES.  (2)  Matt Fisher was appointed as a BiRM (Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine T-32 Training Program; Professor Michael Sacks, P.I.) Fellow. This is an NIH funded fellowship which will support Matt for the first two years of graduate school.  Matt’s research will focus on improving the healing of the patellar tendon after injury using functional tissue engineering techniques.  He received his B.S. in biomedical engineering from Columbia University and plans to obtain his Ph.D. in our BioE Department.
   
 

A paper from Professor Michael Sacks’ lab appears in the current issue of THE ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.   The complete reference is:  J Nagatomi, KK Toosi, JS Grashow, MB Chancellor and MS Sacks. Quantification of Bladder Smooth Muscle Orientation in Normal and Spinal Cord Injured Rats.  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 33:1078-1089, 2005.  Kevin Toosi is a current graduate student and Jonathan Grashow is a recent M.S. graduate from Professor Sacks’ lab.

   
August 2005

Professor Savio Woo has been honored with the “Grand Slam” of Bioengineering and orthopaedic awards and lectures: (1) Plenary Lecture: IEEE/EMBS, September 2004, followed by a repeat invitation to be a Theme Keynote Speaker in Shanghai, China, September, 2005. (2) Distinguished Guest Lecturer: The Herodicus Society (the elite society for orthopaedic sports medicine, only 98 members), July 2005  (3) BMES Distinguished Lecturer Award: Biomedical Society Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, September 2005  (4) Robert Henry Thurston Award: The American Society for Mechanical Engineers, November 2005.  Professor Woo has also received the following honorary memberships during the last fiscal year: (1) Arthroscopic Association of North America, (2) Society for Tennis Medicine (Professor Woo is the 1st and only honorary member), (3) The Herodicus Society – “Godfather” (Professor Woo is the 1st Ph.D. to receive this honor).

   
 

BioE graduate student, Rebecca Long's paper entitled, "MMP-I UP-REGULATION IS A POTENTIAL MECHANISM FOR INCREASED COMPLIANCE IN MUSCLE DERIVED STEM CELL-SEEDED SIS," has been accepted for publication in BIOMATERIALS.  The authors are: Rebecca Long, Jiro Nagatomi, Michael Chancellor, Michael Sacks.  Rebecca is conducting this work in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
  Jonathan Grashow's M.S. thesis paper entitled;  "BIAXIAL MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF THE MITRAL VALVE ANTERIOR LEAFLET AT PHYSIOLOGIC STRAIN RATES,"  authored by Professor Michael Sacks (Corresponding Author) Jonathan S Grashow, M.S.; Ajit P Yoganathan, Ph.D. has been accepted for publication in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering.  Jonathan performed his research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.
   
 

BioE student, David Merryman’s paper has just been accepted for publication by the American Journal of Physiology: "Correlation between heart valve interstitial cell stiffness and transvalvular pressure: Implications for collagen biosynthesis", the authors are: David Merryman, Inchan Youn, Howard D. Lukoff, Paula M. Krueger, Farshid Guilak, Richard A. Hopkins, and Michael S. Sacks.  David is conducting his research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

BioE student, Rebecca Long's abstract entitled, "The Effects of Substrate Choice and Mechanical Stimulation on Differentiation of Muscle-Derived Stem Cells," and Todd Courtney's abstract entitled, "Ana;ysis and Design of Novel Electrospun Peuu Scaffolds," both have been accepted to the 8th Annual TESI Conference & Exhibition in Shanghai, P.R. China, October 22-25, 2005.  Rebecca and Todd are performing their research in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

   
 

The publication 1st authored by BioE graduate student, Christina Lee.  Christina Lee WC, Tublin ME, Chapman BE.   Registration of MR and CT images of the liver: comparison of voxel similarity and surface based registration algorithms. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2005 May;78(2):101-14.  Christina conducted this work for her M.S. degree in Dr. Brian Chapman’s lab.

   
 

Eric Wolf’s recent publication, who is completing his PhD in Professor Rory Cooper's lab.  Wolf EJ, Pearlman J, Cooper RA, Fitzgerald SG, Kelleher AR , Collins DM, Boninger ML, Cooper R, Vibration Exposure of Individuals Using Wheelchairs Over Concrete Paver Surfaces, Disability and Rehabilitation, in press, 2005.

   
 

BioE Ph.D candidate, Michael Dvorznak’s recent publication.  Michael is doing his thesis work in Dr. Rory Cooper’s lab.  Dvorznak MJ, Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Kinematic Analysis for Determination of Bioequivalence of a Modified Hybrid III Test Dummy and a Wheelchair User, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 343-352, May/June 2005.  JRRD’s full-text articles are free to the public on their website, http://www.vard.org/pubs/pubs.htm

   
July 2005

Scott VanEpps, who is working in Dr. David Vorp’s lab, was awarded a $5,000 post-graduate scholarship from the NCAA.   Scott was an intercollegiate swimmer during his undergraduate years at the University of Pittsburgh.

   
 

Two recent abstract acceptances from Dr. George Stetten's lab.  David Weiser is an undergraduate BioE student working in Dr. Stetten's lab.  Dr. Wilson Chang completed the Ph.D. portion of his M.D., Ph.D. Program in Dr. Stetten's lab.   (1) D. Weiser, G. Stetten, "BLIP: A New Tool for Instrumentation Education," 2005 BMES Annual Fall Meeting Baltimore, MD.   (2) W. Chang, N. Amesur, D. Wang, A. Zajko, G. Stetten, "First Clinical Trial of the Sonic Flashlight - Guiding Placement of Peripherally Inserted Central Catheters," 2005 meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

   
 

Dr. Richard Debski’s contract application entitled, "Computer Model of the Knee," has been approved for funding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Acquisition and Assistance Field Branch.  Professors Savio Woo and Mark Redfern are co-investigators in this research.

   
June 2005

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to speak @the 4th Leibniz Symposium on "Transplantation and Regeneration of Thoracic Organs", Hannover, Germany on May 19th and 20th, 2006.  Professor Sacks will lecture for 30 minutes on his experimental work in cardiovascular tissue engineering including mechanical aspects and the influence of matrix composition and structure.

   
 

George Engelmayr was a Finalist in the PhD Student Paper Competition - Poster Presentation, Cells and Tissue Engineering Category, @2005 Summer Bioengineering Conference; Vail, Colorado.  George is completing his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks' lab, has been exceptionally productive during his years with us as far as these very competitive awards, peer-reviewed publications, and national fellowships. 

   
 

Zhijie Ding's application for a travel award to the summer meeting of 2005 American Society of Cell Biology has been selected for funding. Mr. Ding will present a paper entitled, "Effects of silencing profilin on endothelial cytoskeleton and migration."  Zhijie is conducting this work in Dr. Partha Roy's lab.

   
 

During the joint meeting of the International Society of Biorheology (ISB) and International Society for Clinical Hemorheology (ISCH) in Chongqing, China, May 31 - June 3, 2005, Professor Marina Kameneva was elected as a Member of Council and Treasurer of the International Society for Clinical Hemorheology.

   
 

Professor Rory Cooper was chosen to receive the EP Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award from Exceptional Parent Magazine. Exceptional Parent magazine and the Pittsburgh Pirates will honor Dr. Cooper for his efforts on behalf of the special needs community at PNC Park on Disability Awareness Night, Tuesday, July 19, 2005.

   
 

Jonathan Vande Geest, who is completing his Ph.D. in Dr. David Vorp’s lab, received and accepted an offer to join the faculty at the University of Arizona as an Assistant Professor in the tenure stream

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The University of Pittsburgh’s Bioengoneering Department was very active at the 51st ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR ARTIFICAL INTERNAL ORGANS (ASAIO) in Washington, D.C.  Listed are 20 presentations made by BioE faculty, BioE graduate students, and BioE undergraduate students. 

(1) "Development Of A 2D Microfluidic Oxygenation Device" -- A Vollmer, T Snyder, M Kamaneva, B Monzyk, E Burckle, K Dasse, P Martin, H Borovetz, W Wagner, R Gilbert, T Thorsen (Trevor Snyder is completing his PhD in Dr. William Wagner's lab); 

(2) "CFD Analysis Of Blade Tip Clearances On Hemodynamic Performance And Blood Damage In A Miniature Pediatric Blood Pump" -- J Antaki,  J Wu, T Snyder, W Wagner, H Borovetz, B Paden, C Diao;  (

(3) "Microscopic Flow Visualization Of Red Blood Cell Trajectory In The Blade Tip And Back Clearance Of A Mini Blood Pump" --  J Antaki, C Diao, J Wu, H Borovetz, W Wagner, T Snyder;

(4) "Evaluation Of The Levitronix® Centrimag® VAS For Pediatric Use" -- P Wearden, R Kormos, S Badylak, M Kameneva, T Snyder, W Wagner, H S Borovetz, J Marks, J Richardson, K Dasse;

(5) "Elimination Of Reversal Flow In Back Clearance Gaps Of A Miniature Pediatric Centrifugal blood Pump By CFD" -- J Wu, J Antaki, T Snyder, W Wagner, H Borovetz, B Paden, C Diao;

(6) "Blood-Soluble Drag-Reducing Polymers As A Potential Treatment Of Hemodynamic Impairment In Diabetic Rats" --P Marascalco, J N Marhefka, S Shaulis, C Johnson, M Kameneva (Phil Marascalco and Joie Marhefka are BioE PhD candidates in Dr. Marina Kameneva's lab);

(7) "Poly(N-Vinylformamide) As A Drag-Reducing Polymer For Biomedical Applications" -- J. Marhefka, P Marascalco, T Chapman, M Kameneva;

(8) "In Vitro Evaluation Of Pulsatile Use Of The New Medos Deltastream Pump" -- S Vandenberghe, P Segers, J Antaki, R Shihab, P Verdonck;

(9) "Clinical Decision Support System For Optimal VAD Weaning" -- L Santelices, M Druzdzel, R Schaub, B Uber, R Kormos, J Antaki (Linda Santelices is completing her BioE MS in Dr. Antaki's lab);

(10) "Advances In Quantitative Biomedical Models" -- James Antaki;

(11) "Initial In Vitro Performance Results For The 4" And 3" PCAS Pediatric Assist Device" -- G Pantalos, C Ionan, S Koenig, J Speakman, C Lucci, M Gartner;

(12) "A Biohybrid Lung Prototype With Endothelialized Microporous Hollow Fibers In A Rotating Module" -- A Polk, D McKeel, W Federspiel, W Wagner (Alexa Polk is a BioE PhD candidate in Dr. William Wagner's lab);

(13) "Development Of Microfabricated Biohybrid Artificial Lungs" -- K Burgess (Henchir), Q Yang, W Wagner, W Federspiel (Kristie Henchir is a BioE PhD candidate in Dr. Federspiel's lab);

(14) "Molecular Biocompatibility Issues" -- William Wagner;

(15) "The Potential Use Of Rotational Fiber Bundles In Respiratory Assist Catheters" -- N Hagglund, B Frankowski, B Hattler, W Federspiel;

(16) "The Effect Of Bundle Porosity On The Performance Of A Pumping Paracorporeal Assist Lung Using A Rotating Fiber Bundle" -- R Svitek, B Frankowski, W Federspiel;

(17) "Can Random Ballon Pulsation Enhance Gas Exchange In A Pulsating Respiratory Support Catheter?" -- H Eash, S Budilarto, B Hattler, W Federspiel;

(18) "Static Mixing Device For Bound Solute Dialysis With Standard Dialysis Equipment" -- R Miller, S Safta, A Hallab, J Patzer II (Stefan Safta is a BioE PhD candidate in Dr. Jack Patzer's lab);

(19) "Albumin-Bound Toxin Removal By Bound Solute Dialysis With Slow Continuous Ultrafiltration" -- S Safta, R Miller, J Patzer II;

(20) "Flow Visualization Study Of A Pulsating Respiratory Assist Catheter" -- S Budilarto, H Eash, B Hattler, W Federspiel.

_______________________
 

Dr. David Vorp has received the Notice of Grant Award from NIH for his new application entitled, "Bioengineering & Biologic Studies of Aneurysm Weakening".  Dr. Vorp received a truly stellar 5.9 percentile for this grant.

   
 

Professor Savio Woo has been selected to receive the 2005 Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).  This prestigious ASME award was established in 1925 to honor Robert Henry Thurston, the 1st ASME President and is given annually to the person who best encourages stimulating thinking on a subject of broad technical interest to engineers.  Professor Woo will be honored at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Conference in Orlando, this November, where he will deliver a lecture entitled, “Going from In Vitro to In Vivo: The New Big Challenges for Ligament and Tendon Biomechanics Research.”

   
 

Dr. Jun Liao, who is undertaking his research in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab, has received a prestigious Beginning Grant-in-Aid award from the American Heart Association (AHA) for the project entitled, “Effects of Decellularization and Recellularization on Porcine Aortic Valve Biomechanics.”  The AHA award is for the period 7/1/2005 – 6/30/2007.

   
May 2005

BioE PhD candidate, David Merryman’s American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship application entitled, “Effects of local stress on aortic valve interstitial cell phenotype and resulting synthetic function,” scored a remarkable percentile rank of 0.63%!  The percentile rank is based on a 0.01% to 99.99% ranking, with the most meritorious ranked application corresponding to the lowest percentile rank.  David will conduct this project in Dr. Michael Sacks’ lab.

   
 

BioE graduate student, Brooke Cooley's NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship application entitled, "Adaptive Postural Strategies- Impact of Aging," has been approved for funding effective immediately.  Ms. Coley is the 5th BioE graduate student to receive a prestigious F31 award.   Dr. Rakie Cham is Brooke’s academic adviser and research mentor.

   
 

Joie Marhefka a BioE PhD candidate in Dr. Marina Kameneva’s lab, is a fellowship recipient at the 51st Annual ASAIO Conference being held June 9th-11th in Washington, D.C.

   
 

Please see the URL below about the 1st clinical trial of Dr. George Stetten's sonic flashlight.  The person quoted in the article, Wilson Chang, Ph.D., is an MD, PhD candidate who did his doctoral thesis in Dr. Stetten's lab.  http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/511643/?sc=mwtp

   
 

Please see the following link regarding Professor Savio Woo’s work on behalf of Tsunami Survivors.  http://www.umc.pitt.edu/media/pcc/tsunami_side_2005MAY1.html

   
 

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited by NIBIB to serve on a Special Emphasis Panel to review the Career Development Awards (K-series), Institutional Training Grants (T32), and supplemental applications for a clinical resident experience.

   
 

One of BioE’s outstanding PhD candidates, Tom Gilbert, who is working in Dr. Stephen Badylak’s lab, lists the following publications in 2004.  BioE PhD candidate, Danny Freytes, who is also working in Dr. Badylak’s lab, is also a co-author on the 1st paper.  (1) Badylak SF, Vorp DA, Spievack AR, Simmons-Byrd A, Hanke J, Freytes DO, Thapa A, Gilbert TW, Nieponice, A: Esophageal reconstruction with ECM and muscle tissue in a dog model. Journal of Surgical Research, In Press, 2005.  (2) Gilbert TW, Stolz DB, Biancaniello F, Simmons-Byrd A, Badylak SF: Production and characterization of ECM powder: implications for tissue engineering applications. Biomaterials 26:1431-1435, 2005.  (3) Woo SL-Y, Lee TQ, Abramowitch SD, Gilbert TW: Structure and function of ligaments and tendons. In: Basic Orthopaedic Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, 3rd ed. Ed by VC Mow and WC Hayes. Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2004.  (4) Peperzak KA, Gilbert TW, Wang JH-C: A multi-station dynamic-culture force monitor system to study  cell mechanobiology. Medical Engineering & Physics 26:355-8, 2004.  (5) Musahl V, Abramowitch SD, Gilbert TW, Tsuda E, Wang JH-C, Badylak SF, Woo SL-Y: The use of porcine small intestinal submucosa to enhance the healing of the medial collateral ligament--a functional tissue engineering study in rabbits. Journal of Orthopaedic Research 22:214-20, 2004.

   
 

Dr. Wilson Chang’s recent article in the April issue of NeurosurgeryChang WM, Horowitz MB, Stetten GD. "Intuitive intraoperative ultrasound guidance using the Sonic Flashlight: a novel ultrasound display system." Neurosurgery. 2005 Apr;56(2 Suppl):434-7.  Dr. Chang completed his PhD in Dr. George Stetten’s lab.

   
 

BioE student, Michael Anderson has been selected to receive a Beckman Scholar award for 2005-2006.  The selection committee was most impressed by his qualifications and accomplishments.  Under Professor Mark Redfern's leadership of our undergraduate program and with valuable assistance from Professor Sanjeev Shroff and Professor Richard Debski, our students have won MORE than their fair share of Beckman Scholar Awards over the years.  This of course reflects the high quality of our undergraduate students and also your commitment to their education both in the classroom and in your labs.

   
April 2005

Professor Mark Redfern was presented a Certificate of Achievement by the BioE undergraduate students in recognition of his outstanding achievements in teaching during Engineering Week.  Professor Redfern was also selected to the University of Pittsburgh 2005 Faculty Honor Roll.

Professor Michael Sacks received the annual Board of Visitors 2005 Faculty Award at the Board of Visitor’s Reception and Dinner on April 22, 2005.  The purpose of this award is to recognize faculty who have had a most productive previous academic year.  This is the 2nd consecutive year that BioE faculty were selected for this award.  Last year’s 2004 Board of Visitors Faculty Award winner was Professor Sanjeev Shroff.

George Engelmayr who is completing his PhD in Professor Michael Sacks' lab, has received an offer from the Langer Lab @MIT.  George will work under the direction of Dr. Lisa Freed as an MIT Postdoctoral Associate beginning ~December 1, 2005. His work will be in the area of cardiovascular tissue engineering, using cells, biomaterial scaffolds, and bioreactors to try to generate functional cardiac-like tissues for in vitro and in vivo studies, with possible extension towards other tissue engineering applications.

Dr. Alicia Koontz’s paper entitled "Scapular range of motion in a quasi-wheel chair push" published in International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, Volume 33, Number 3, has won the Liberty Mutual Best Paper Award for 2004.

Jen Mercer in Dr. Michael Boninger’s lab and Megan Yarnall in Dr. Rory Cooper’s lab received prestigious awards at the 2005 Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) Conference.  Jen’s paper entitled,Effect of Weight on Wheelchair Propulsion Over Various Surfaces,” was selected for a scientific paper award.  Megan received honorable mention for her paper entitled,Wrist Range of Motion During Lateral Transfers Among Persons with Paraplegia.”

BioE Graduate student, George Engelmayr has been selected to receive a Student Travel and Professional Development Award from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB) to attend the SFB annual meeting in Memphis, TN in April 2005.  George’s selection for this award was based on the outstanding scores his submitted abstract received.  George is completing his Ph.D. in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab.

Professor Robert Sclabassi’s and Professor Mingui Sun’s group have done extremely well at the 31st Northeast Biomedical Engineering Conference at Stevens Institute of Technology. Pitt BioE graduate and undergraduate students presented numerous papers and received Best Paper Awards (with cash prizes), the most among all universities participated.
March 2005

BioE Ph.D. candidates Nick Perrusquia and Alexa Polk will receive Predoctoral Fellowships for the period September, 2005 through April, 2006 under the Provost’s Development Fund Award.  Nick is completing his Ph.D. in Professor Sanjeev Shroff’s lab and Alexa in Professor William Wagner’s lab.

The membership of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association (NSCIA) has voted Professor Rory Cooper to become the first inductee into the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Hall of Fame in the category of "Assistive Technology." The SCI Hall of Fame has been created to celebrate and honor those individuals that have made significant contributions, to quality of life and advancements toward a better future for all individuals with spinal cord injury.  The SCI Hall of Fame celebration will be held on the Millennium Stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on May 9, 2005.

Recent publications by Drs. Michael Boninger and Rory Cooper: (1) Algood SD, Cooper RA, Fitzgerald SG, Cooper RM, Boninger ML, Effect of a Pushrim Activated Power Assist Wheelchair on the Functional Capabilities of Persons with Tetraplegia, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Vol. 86, No. 3, pp. 380-386, March 2005.  (2) Ding D, Cooper RA, Electric Powered Wheelchairs: A Review of Current Technology and Insight Into Future Directions, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 22-34, April 2005.

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to speak at the “Fall 2005” Materials Research Society (MRS) at the following symposium: "Symposium on the Mechanical Behavior of Biological and Biomimetic Materials". This symposium will join together scientists and engineers in biomaterials and biomechanics, as well as clinicians in medicine and dentistry, to discuss the materials progress and challenges related to the mechanical behavior of biological and biomimetic materials.

BioE graduate  student, Scott VanEpps was informed that his priority score for his recent F31 NIH NRSA predoctoral fellowship application is 134.  What is even more impressive is that Scott will be the 3rd BioE graduate student in Dr. David Vorp’s lab to receive NRSA funding (BioE graduate students, Timothy Maul and Rachelle Prantil also have received NRSA F31 awards).

Professor Sanjeev Shroff has received the Notice of Grant Award for his T-32 Training Grant entitled, "Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program."  The funding period is May 1, 2005 to April 30, 2010.

Dr. Harvey Borovetz, Chair of Bioengineering has been invited to serve in the Advisory Committee of the Medical Engineering Division of National Health Research Institutes of the Republic of China (MED/NHRI, Taiwan) for a five-year term.

Dr. David Vorp has been asked to participate in the development of the online updates to the Encyclopedia of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (EBBE), published by Marcel Dekker, by serving as a member of the distinguished Editorial Advisory Board.

BioE graduate student, Rebecca Long, who is conducting her research in Professor Michael Sacks’ lab, has been selected to participate in a meeting with Nobel Laureates this June.  Rebecca was selected for support by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) to attend the meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany on the recommendation of Provost Klinzing.  The meeting is June 27 through July 2, 2005. This is a truly unique opportunity for Ms. Long to meet with fellow students and Nobel Laureates from around the world.  Rebecca is the second BioE graduate student to be selected for this program.

BioE Graduate student, Bronwyn Uber’s abstract entitled, “Systematic Decision Support for Optimal Management of PVAD Patients,” has been selected for consideration of an award by the Program Committee of the First International Conference on Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems and Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Perfusion.  A final decision will be made in April or May 2005.  Bronwyn is a student in Dr. James Antaki’s lab.

February 2005

BioE student, George Engelmayr's 1st author paper entitled, "Guidance of Engineered Tissue Collagen Orientation by Large-Scale Scaffold Microstructures has just been accepted for publication in the Journal of Biomechanics.  George is completing his Ph.D. in Professor Michael Sacks' lab.

Achilles Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Research Award by the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine (ISAKOS). As a winner of the award, Dr. Rui Liang will attend the 2005 ISAKOS Biennial Congress in Hollywood, Florida to present her paper and receive a $3,000 honorarium and an award certificate. The full manuscript details are:  Rui Liang, Steven D. Abramowitch, Daniel K. Moon, Fengyan Jia, Savio L-Y. Woo: "A Bioscaffold Can nhance the Healing of the Medial Collateral Ligament: A Multidisciplinary Functional Tissue Engineering Study". Winner of ISAKOS Achilles Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Award.  Dr. Liang was supervised on this project by Drs. Savio Woo and Steven AbramowitchDan Moon is a recent M.S. graduate of our Department of Bioengineering.

Recent noteworthy events for Professor Rory Cooper(1) Keynote Speaker, Posture and Mobility Group Conference, Exeter, England, April 2005.  (2)  Keynote Speaker, Rehabilitation Engineering Society of Japan, Saga, Japan, Sept., 2005.  (3) James J. Peters Lecture and Award.  This award is presented to an individual who has made significant contributions to improving the lives of people with spinal cord injuries or disease. American Paraplegia Society, to be presented at their annual conference in Las Vegas, NV, Sept. 2005. The American Paraplegia Society is the oldest professional society of clinicians and researchers dedicated to the treatment, care, and cure of SCI/D.

Professor Savio Woo has been selected by Dr. Bruce Reider, President of the Herodicus Society, to be the "Distinguished Guest Speaker" for the 2005 annual meeting in Vail, Colorado in July. Dr. Woo will give two lectures, one on "Functional Tissue Engineering of Ligament Healing" and the other on "Robotic Technology on Knee Biomechanics and Ligament Forces."  The Herodicus Society is a private society that invites those physicians in sports medicine who are heavily involved in research, clinical teaching, and leadership for membership. It is considered a distinguished society for orthopaedic surgeons.

Dr. Jack Patzer has been invited to submit his manuscript entitled, “Bound Solute Dialysis,” to be included in a special issue of THERAPEUTIC APERESIS and DIALYSIS with the subject “Artificial Liver Support Systems” with focus on cell-free systems.  The journal is sponsored by the International Society for Apheresis.”

Dr. David Vorp was installed on February 17, 2005 as a member of the AIMBE College of Fellows, Class of 2005.  Dr. Vorp's citation reads, "For outstanding contributions to the understanding of biomechanics of native vascular tissue and the rupture potential of abdominal aortic aneurysms."

BioE Graduate student, Dan Debrah’s recent publication conducted this work in Professor Shroff’s lab.  Effects of relaxin on systemic arterial hemodynamics and mechanical properties in conscious rats: sex dependency and dose response, Dan O. Debrah, Kirk P. Conrad, Lee A. Danielson, and Sanjeev G. Shroff, J Appl Physiol 98: 1013–1020, 2005

Mitra Lavasani has been chosen by Chancellor Nordenberg as one of the OUTSTANDING STUDENTS to whom the University will pay special tribute at the Honors Convocation on Monday, February 28 at 3:00 at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum.  Mitra is performing her research in Dr. Johnny Huard's lab.

BioE student, George Engelmayr has been informed that his paper entitled "A Structural Constitutive Model for the Flexural Mechanics of Nonwoven Tissue Engineering Scaffolds" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.  George is completing his Ph.D. research in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to serve as a Keynote Speaker at the Computational Bioengineering minisymposium of the 8th US National Congress on Computational Mechanics, held July 24-28, 2005 in Austin, Texas.

Professors Michael Sacks and David Vorp have been invited to serve on the Journal of Biomechanics Board of Editorial Consultants for the next cycle (typically 3 years).

View the message below from NIBIB which highlights Dr. Stephen Badylak's wonderful research accomplishments.  Versatile Tissue Scaffold Treats Many Maladies, A bioengineered material is now playing a crucial role in treating conditions ranging from incontinence to burns. An accidental discovery some 20 years ago has evolved into a significant advance in tissue engineering, laying the groundwork for a host of new medical treatments.  For the full story, go to http://www.nibib1.nih.gov/eAdvances/012805.htm
Recent publications by Drs. Michael Boninger, Rory Cooper and AM Koontz.  One of the authors, Brad Impink, is a BioE graduate student working in Dr. Boninger's lab.  (1) Ding D, Cooper RA, Electric Powered Wheelchairs: A Review of the Current State and Insight Into Future Directions, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, in press, 2005.  (2) Koontz AM, Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Yang Y, Impink BG, van der Woude LHV, A Kinetic Analysis of Manual Wheelchair Propulsion During Start-Up on Select Indoor and Outdoor Surfaces, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, in press, 2005.
January 2005

BioE Graduate student, Trevor Snyder's abstract entitled, "Preliminary Hemocompatibility Assessment Of A Photolytic Artificial Lung," has been accepted for podium presentation at the 2005 annual meeting of the Society for Biomaterials.  Trevor is completing his Ph.D. in Dr. William Wagner's lab.

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to serve as an ad-hoc member of the Bioengineering Technology & Surgical Sciences (BTSS) June 1 Study Section.

Two recent publications from BioE graduate students working in Professor Rory Cooper's lab.  Andrew Kwarciak just completed his MS in BioE and Erik Wolf his finishing his PhD in BioE.  (1) Kwarciak AM, Cooper RA, Ammer WA, Fitzgerald SG, Boninger ML and Cooper R.  Fatigue Testing of Selected Suspension Manual Wheelchairs using ANSI/RESNA Standards.  ARCH PHYS MED REHABIL Vol 86, pp. 123-129, 2005.  (2) Cooper RA, Wolf E, Fitzgerald SG, Kellerher A, Ammer W, Boninger and Cooper R. THE JOURNAL OF SPINAL CORD MEDICINE Vol 27, pp. 468-57, 2004

The following publication from the Human Energy Research Lab (Dr. Rory Cooper's and Michael Boninger's labs) has been accepted for publication.  Boninger ML, Koontz AM, Sisto SA, Dyson-Hudson TA, Chang M, Price R, Cooper RA, Pushrim Biomechanics and Injury Prevention in Spinal Cord Injury: Recommendations Based on CULP-SCI Investigations, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, in press, 2005.

Professor Mark Redfern made the NY Times!  Q & A: Really Hard Floors, January 25, 2005, By C. CLAIBORNE RAY, Could the surface I stand on make that much difference? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/science/25qna.html?ex=1107657994&ei=1&en=823874f52b5c2933

BioE graduate student, Alicia DeFail's abstract that was submitted to the Society for Biomaterials National Meeting in Memphis, April 27-30, 2005, has been accepted for a poster presentation.  The title and authors are below.  "Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 Encapsulated Microspheres For Soft Tissue Regeneration" A. J. DeFail, J. Clavijo-Alvarez, J. Rubin, S. Badylak, J. M. Bennett, A. Taieb, and K. G. Marra.  Alicia is a student in Dr. Kacey Marra's lab.

Dr. Wilson Chang’s abstract has been accepted for oral presentation at the American Roentgen Ray Society. (W. Chang, N. Amesur, A. Zajko, G. Stetten, “The Sonic Flashlight is faster to learn and use compared to conventional ultrasound guidance for vascular access,” Abstract no. 226, 105th annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society, May 15-20, 2005, New Orleans, LA.)  Wilson recently completed his BioE Ph.D. in Dr. George Stetten's lab and has now returned to medical school as an MD, PhD candidate.

Mitra Lavasani's, (BioE graduate student) abstract “Nerve Growth Factor Increases Transplantation Efficiency of Muscle-Derived Stem Cells and Significantly Improves Muscle Regeneration in Dystrophic Muscle" has been chosen as one of the 40 finalists for the Orthopaedic Research Society's New Investigator Recognition Awards (NIRA) competition.  There were 500 NIRA applicants and it is a worthy accomplishment indeed for Mitra to be a finalist.  Mitra Lavasani is conducting this research in Dr. Johnny Huard's lab.

Professor Michael Sacks has been invited to write a chapter for an issue entitled "Engineering of the Heart" to be published in the very prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 

Dr. Richard Schaub has been selected to receive the School of Engineering (SOE) Young Alumni Award at the SOE Distinguished Alumni Ceremony on March 16.  Dr. Schaub is only the 2nd alumnus to receive this prestigious award which was begun just last year.  He will be honored for his very significant contributions and innovations @ UPMCs clinical mechanical circulatory support (MCS) program, where Dr. Schaub has worked full-time since completing his Ph.D. in our Department of Bioengineering.  Dr. Schaub continues his close affiliation with BioE by directing the undergraduate and graduate clinical MCS internship programs which remain very popular with our students.

December 2004

Two recent publications below; for Eric Wolf, a BioE PhD candidate in Dr. Rory Cooper's lab, is the 2nd author.  (1) Fitzgerald SG, Cooper RA, Thorman T, Cooper R, Guo SF, and Boninger ML, The GAMECycle Exercise System: Comparison with Standard Ergometry, The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 453-459, 2004 and (2) Cooper RA, Wolf EJ, Fitzgerald SG, Kellerher A, Ammer W, Boninger ML, Cooper R, Evaluation of Selected Sidewalk Surfaces for Vibration Experienced by Users of Manual and Powered Wheelchairs, The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 468-475, 2004

Please see the URL for a terrific story about Dr. Russell in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.  http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04363/433202.stm 

The first issue of Dr. William Wagner's journal, ACTA BIOMATERIALIA, is now in print.

November 2004

The Society for Biomaterials has announced that Dr. Stephen Badylak is the 2005 recipient of the prestigious Clemson Award for Applied Research. The selection is based on the work of the candidate that has resulted in significant utilization or application of basic knowledge in science to accomplish a significant goal in the biomaterials area. The achievement will be evidenced by the development of a useful device or material which has achieved widespread usage or acceptance, or expanded knowledge of biomaterials/host tissue relationships which have received widespread acceptance and resulted in improvements in the clinical management of disease.  Dr. Badylak is being honored for his discovery of small intestinal submucosa as a biomaterial scaffold that has been used to assist over 250,000 patients.

Two recent publications by Professor TK Hung:  Hung, TK & T. T-M. Tsai, "Nonlinear Pulsatile Flows in Rigid and Distensible Arteries," J. of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, Vol. 4, Nov. (2004), 1-16 and Hung, TK,"Unsteady Flows with Moving Boundaries: Pulsating Blood Flows and Earthquake Hydrodynamics", to be published in Reflection and Outlook of Engineering Mechanics: In Honor of Theodore Y.-T. Wu, World Scientific, 2005.

Stephanie Bechtold, one of our undergraduate Bioengineering students who is working at the MSRC, won 3rd place in the B.S. Student Paper competition at the 2004 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition.  Stephanie’s advisors are Drs. Savio Woo and Richard Debski. The details of Stephanie’s abstract are as follows:  "Repeatability of Establishing Anatomical Coordinate Systems and the Initial Configuration of the Knee." Stephanie J. Bechtold, Shon P. Darcy, Savio L-Y. Woo, Richard E. Debski.  The 2nd author, Shon Darcy, completed his M.S. with us @MSRC (advisor: Dr. Savio Woo).  These very prestigious national student competition awards speak volumes regarding the quality of our students, both undergraduate and graduate, and our outstanding faculty.

BioE PhD candidate, Jonathan Vande Geest is the 1st author on the following publication:  Vande Geest JP, Di Martino ES and Vorp DA.  "An analysis of the complete strain field within Flexercell membranes."  JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 37 (2004) 1923-1928.  Jonathan is working in Dr. David Vorp's lab.

BioE Graduate student, Mohammed El-Kurdi finished 3rd place in the ASME Bioengineering Division Master’s Student Paper Competition last week in Anaheim for his paper entitled “Regulation of Cell Adhesion and De-Adhesion Proteins in Veins Perfused Under Arterial Conditions Ex-Vivo”.  This is a very prestigious competition in BioE, and just being selected as one of the 6 finalists from a large field of applicants is an honor, let alone finishing in the top three!  Mohammed, who performed this research in Dr. David Vorp's lab, is the 6th student from Dr. Vorp's lab to be selected to compete in either the MS or PhD student competitions, and the 4th winner in the last 4 years.  When we add to this record of accomplishment the recent MS and PhD competition awardees from MSRC and Dr. Michael Sacks lab, our graduate students have received more of these awards than students from any other university!

The following paper from Drs. Rory Cooper and Michael Boninger has been accepted for publication:  Dvorznak MJ, Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Kinematic Analysis for Determination of Bioequivalence of a Modified Hybrid III Test Dummy and a Wheelchair User, Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development.  The 1st author, Michael Dvorznak is a BioE PhD candidate in Dr. Cooper's lab.

The following URL below is an article about Dr. Mark Redfern’s and Dr. Patrick Sparto’s Medical Virtual Reality Center @Eye and Ear Institute.   http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/health/s_270415.html

Professor Rory Cooper has been appointed as adjuct professor of Xi'an Jiaotong University, China, for 4 years. This important and prestigious appointment will promote collaboration between Xi'an Jiaotong University and University of Pittsburgh. 

Recent IEEE paper published by Professor Rory Cooper,  Ding D, Cooper RA, Guo S, Corfman TA, "Analysis of Backwards Driving in an Electric-Powered Wheelchair," IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 12, No. 6, pp. 934-944, 2004.

Dr. Richard Debski has been invited to serve as the Co-Chair of the Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Engineering track at the 2005 Annual BMES Meeting in Baltimore next fall.  Dr. Debski has kindly accepted this wonderful opportunity to contribute his expertise to help with the organization of a significant portion of the BMES program for the 2005 meeting.  This will bring national and international recognition to Dr. Debski and our Department of Bioengineering.

BioE Graduate student, David Merryman's paper has been accepted in the Journal of Biomechanics.  David is doing this work in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab.  Co-author Hsiao-Ying Shadow Huang received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering last year from Dr. Sacks' lab.  The Effects of Cellular Contraction on Aortic Valve Leaflet Flexural Stiffness, W. David Merryman, Hsiao-Ying Shadow Huang, Frederick J. Schoen, and Michael S. Sacks

A research honor was recently awarded to Professor Rory Cooper, which was written up in the Office of Research and Development, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS.  Rory A. Cooper, PhD, director of the VA National Center of Excellence on Wheelchairs and Associated Rehabilitation Engineering and a senior research biomedical engineer with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, was presented the 2004 Excellence Award from the American Paraplegia Society. The award recognizes Dr. Cooper’s authority in the field of spinal cord health care, research, and education. Dr. Cooper, chair and professor of the department of rehabilitation science and technology, University of Pittsburgh, has been appointed as a Distinguished Professor of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, the highest honor the university confers on faculty. He specializes in wheelchair, rehabilitation engineering, and assistive technology research.
BioE Graduate student, Pui-Yan Lee, who is a student in Professor Leaf Huang's lab, has recently published a peer-reviewed paper:  Lee, P-Y; Chesnoy, S.; and Huang, L. Electroporatic delivery of TFG-B1 gene works synergistically with electric therapy to enhance diabetic wound healing in db/db mice. J. of Investigative Dermatology. 123: 791-798. 2004.  This is Pui-Yan’s second first-authored paper.
October 2004

A recent presentation by Drs. Rory Cooper & Michael Boninger:  “Preliminary Assessment of a Prototype Advanced Mobility Device in the Work Environment of Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury.” Rory A. Cooper, PhD; Michael L. Boninger, MD; Rosemarie Cooper, MPT; Shirley G. Fitzgerald, PhD; Annmarie Kellerher, TR/L. NeuroRehabilitation, 2004.

Latest article published by Drs. Jiro Nagatomi and Michael SacksDr. D. Claire Gloeckner is a former BioE graduate student, who completed her Ph.D. dissertation in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab.  Nagatomi J, Gloeckner D. Claire, Chancellor MB, DeGroat WC and Sacks MS.  "Changes in the Biaxial Viscoelastic Response of the Urinary Bladder following Spinal Cord Injury."  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING Vol 32; pp 1409-1419, 2004.

Please refer to the URL for a very nice article about Dr. Andrew Schwartz's research in Pittsburgh Post Gazette on October 27, 2004.  http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04301/402431.stm

Professor Michael Sacks' recently invited lectures and workshops:  (1)Biomechanics of engineered heart valve tissues,” Invited presentation at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, 10/27/2004.  (2)Biomechanics of engineered heart valve tissues,” Invited presentation at LOEX, University of Laval, Quebec, Canada, 10/22/2004.  (3)Heart valve biomechanics and mechanobiology,” Invited presentation at the BMES annual fall meeting, part of the session entitled “Heart valve disease and treatment: Clinical and Engineering perspectives,” Organized by Peter F. Davies, Philadelphia, PA, 10/16/2004.  (4)Biomechanics of the native and engineered pulmonary valve,” Invited presentation at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, 10/4/2004.  (5)A structural model for the native pulmonary valve”, Presented at “Advances in Tissue Engineering and Biology of Heart Valves,” Florence, Italy, September 15-18, 2004.

Professor Kacey Marra newly published articles:  (1) Moffat, K.L.; Marra, K.G. "Biodegradable Poly(ethylene glycol) Hydrogels Cross-linked with Genipin for Tissue Engineering Applications," J. Biomedical Materials Research, 2004, 71B(1), 181-187.  (2) Royce, S.M.; Askari, M.; Marra, K.G. "Incorporation of Polymer Microspheres within Fibrin Scaffolds for the Controlled Delivery of FGF-1," J. Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition, 2004, 15(10), 1327-1336.  (3) Marra, K.G., "Biodegradable Polymers and Microspheres in Tissue Engineering," In Bone Tissue Engineering, Ed. J. Hollinger, T. Einhorn, B. Doll, C. Sfeir; CRC Press, 2004, Chapter 6, pp. 149-165.

The following web site is a  very nice article that appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It explains the ongoing research in Dr. Rakie Cham and Dr. Mark Redfern's Balance Lab.  http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04293/397825.stm

Professor Rory Cooper has been appointed as the first holder of the Federation of Independent School Alumnae Foundation (FISA) Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), Chair for Rehabilitation Engineering, effective October 1, 2004.  In his letter to Professor Cooper. Chancellor Mark Nordenberg writes, "You have earned and richly deserve this special form of recognition and support.  It is a real pleasure and privilege for me to make this appointment."

Bioe Graduate student, Jonathan Grashow has taken a position as a Biomedical Test Engineer @Evaheart Medical USA, located here in Pittsburgh.  According to Jonathan’s superviser, he has "already solved problems and demonstrated great problem-solving skills."  Jonathan is completing his M.S. research in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab.

BioE was very well represented at the Heart Failure and Rotary Blood Pump Summit in Cleveland, OH. October 9-10.  Dr. James Antaki gave two presentations: "Pump Development in Pittsburgh" and  "Optimal Feedback Control of Turbodynamic VAD: Efficacy of Multi-Objective Tracking Algorithms".  Mark Gartner presented: "Modeling Flow in an Integrated Pump Oxygenator" and MS graduate Eric Chen (a former student in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab who is now employed by the FDA (CDRH)) was a panelist at the Symposium: Industry and Rotary Pump Trials.

Dr. Kacey Marra's research was highlighted by various news organizations.  Dr. Marra's work in nerve regeneration was highlighted in these reports: An international group of scientists met in Pittsburgh this week to discuss the potential of harvesting stem cells from liposuctioned fat.  According to the AP story, fat-derived stem cells have medical promise. Some researchers say the cells might someday provide replacement tissue for treating such conditions as Parkinson’s disease, heart attacks, heart failure, and bone defects. Researchers face no shortage of fat-derived stem cells because nearly 400,000 Americans have cosmetic liposuction done each year, the Post-Gazette reported. According to Kacey G. Marra, an assistant professor of plastic surgery and bioengineering and the director of Pitt’s Plastic Surgery Research Laboratory who also was quoted in the Post-Gazette story, “We get hundreds of millions of cells each week....We have people volunteering to donate every day.” 

Professor Savio Woo has been elected to the Board of Directors of BMES for a three year term.  This is the second time that Professor Woo has served on the Board of BMES.

Dr. Xinyan Tracy Cui and Dr. Andrew Schwartz spoke October 6th at the SCIENCE2004 -- at the session moderated by Dr. Schwartz and entitled, "The Brain-Machine Interface."  The title of Dr. Schwartz's talk was, "Control Signals from Motor Cortex." and Dr. Cui presented, "Interfacing the Nervous System via Bioactive Conducting Polymers."

Dr. Marina Kameneva was the invited seminar speaker on October 1st at Penn State University's BioE seminar series.  The title of Dr. Kameneva's seminar was: "Effects of Blood-Soluble Drag-Reducing Polymers on Macro- and Microcirculation"

BioE graduate student, Joie Marhefka was awarded a BMES Student Travel Award for BMES 2004 in Philadelphia, PA.  Joie is working in Professor Marina Kameneva's lab.

Dr. Elena DiMartino delivered an invited presentation on Tuesday, October 5th at the Abaqus User Meeting in Cleveland, OH entitled: "Wall Stresses Before and After Endovascular Repair of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms."  Abaqus is a finite element code for structural and thermal analysis.

Dr. David Brienza's Rehabilitation ERC entitled, "Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telerehabilitation" has been awarded funding, effective December 1, 2004, by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR).  Co-director on the RERC is Dr. Michael McCue.

September 2004

Dr. Alan Russell has been selected by the National Academy of Engineering to present the highly prestigious Gilbreth Lecture on Sunday, October 2nd.  This honor is reserved for an engineer under the age of 45.  Dr. Russell will speak on his chemical defense research initiatives.

Professor Marina Kameneva's update on her new publication regarding drag-reducing polymers: McCloskey CA, Kameneva MV, Uryash A, Gallo DJ, Billiar TR. Tissue hypoxia activates JNK in the liver during hemorrhagic shock. SHOCK, 22(4):380-386, 2004 Oct.

Andrew Hunsberger, who just completed his M.S. in BioE in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab, is now employed as a Research Engineer by MiTi Heart Corporation, a Subsidiary of Mohawk Innovative Technology, in Albany, NY.  Andy is working on the development of a 3rd generation ventricular assist device.

Professor Mark Redfern's newly published article:  Muller M LTM and Redfern MS, "Correlation between EMG and COP onset latency in response to a horizontal platform translation."  JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 37(2004) 1573-1581.

Professor James Wang's newly published article:  Yang G, Crawford RC and Wang JH-C, "Proliferation and collagen production of human patellar tendon fibroblasts in response to cyclic uniaxial stretching in serum-free conditions."  JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS 37(2004) 1543-1550.  The 2nd author, Mr. Richard Crawford, is a BioE Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Wang's lab.

Professor Rory Cooper's newly published invited review article:  Cooper RA, "Bioengineering and Spinal Cord Injury: A Perspective on the State of the Science." JOURNAL OF SPINAL CORD MEDICINE 2004; 27:351-364.

Updates for Dr. James Wang: Arthritis Foundation:  NEW GRANTS: "Inflammatory reaction and apoptosis of tendon fibroblasts are responsible for tendinitis." -- PI, James H-C. Wang.  National Science Foundation: "An acoustic wave cytosensor system for living cell study"- Co-PI, James H-C. Wang.  INVITED TALK:  "Mechanobiology of tendon and ligament fibroblasts."  International Guest Lecture Series, National Center for Biomedical Engineering Science, National University of Ireland, 9/23/04.

Professor Savio Woo was one of two keynote speakers at the 250th Anniversary of Columbia University Symposium, "Biomedical Engineering: Past, Present Future," held on Sept 18 & 19.  The title of Dr. Woo's presentation was, "Biomechanics & Sports Injuries."  

The following presentations made by Dr. Michael Sacks and his BioE Ph.D. candidates George Engelmayr and David Merryman at the International Heart Valve Meeting, (1)Advances in Tissue Engineering and Biology of Heart Valves,” Florence, Italy, September 15-18, 2004; (2) M.S. Sacks, “A structural model for the native pulmonary valve” (invited lecture); (3) G.C. Engelmayr, John E. Mayer, and M.S. Sacks, “Scaffolds to guide cell and collagen fiver orientation in engineered heart valve tissues”; (4) W. David Merryman, H.Y. Huang, F.J. Schoen, and M.S. Sacks, “The effects of cellular contraction on aortic vlave leaflet stiffness”; (5) W. David Merryman, B. Mettler, J.S. Grashow, J.E. Mayer, and M.S. Sacks, “A novel tissue engineered heart valve bioreactor – from cell culture to implantation”. Also listed on the final citation is Mr. Jonathan Grashow, who is also a BioE graduate student in Dr. Sacks' lab.

Dr. Wilson Chang, an MD, PhD candidate who successfully defended his PhD dissertation in our Department of Bioengineering in August 2004, has had the following paper accepted to the journal Neurosurgery: “Intuitive intra-operative ultrasound guidance using the Sonic Flashlight, a novel ultrasound display system.”  Wilson conducted his PhD work in Dr. George Stetten's lab.

Two BioE graduate students, Tim Maul, ("Influence of Mechanical Forces on Adult Progenitor Cells") and Rachelle Prantil, ("Biomechanics and Function of the Pathologic Urethra") have been awarded Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) pre-doctoral (F31) NIH fellowships.  Both Tim and Rachelle are Ph.D. candidates in Dr. David Vorp's lab.

Professor Michael Sacks has been appointed to a William Kepler Whiteford Professorship effective for four years beginning September 1, 2004.  In his letter to Professor Sacks Dean Holder (Dean of the Engineering School at Pitt) writes, "This appointment is in recognition of your outstanding productivity as a senior member of the faculty.  Further, it reflects the strong support of your faculty colleagues and chairman."  Dr. Sacks joins Professors Mark Redfern and Savio Woo as William Kepler Whiteford Professors in our Department.

Recent publication from Dr. Michael Sacks' Engineering Tissue Mechanics Lab:  A. Mirnajafi, J. Raymer, M.J. Scott, and M.S. Sacks, “The effects of collagen fiber orientation on the flexural properties of pericardial heterograft biomaterials, Biomaterials, Vol. 26(7), 2005.  Dr. Ali Mirnajafi is a recently former post-doctoral fellow (now employed at Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, CA), and Jeremy Raymer is a current BioE undergrad.

Dr. Robert Sclabassi and Dr. Mingui Sun presented 6 papers at IEEE EMBS'04 in San Francisco, Sept 1-5, 2004.  Authors include BioE graduate student Gusphyl Justin, former BioE undergraduate student Brian Wessel, in addition to Dr. Sclabassi and Dr. Sun.  (1) G. A. Justin, Y. Zhang, M. Sun, and R. J. Sclabassi, “Biofuel Cells: A possible power source for implantable electronic devices”.  (2) B. Wessel, P. Roche, M. Sun, and R. J. Sclabassi, “Optimization of an implantable volume conduction antenna”.  (3) Q. Liu, M. Sun, and R. J. Sclabassi, “Illumination-Invariant Change Detection Model for Patient Monitoring Video”.  (4) J. Xu, H. Ilgin, Q. Liu, A. Kassam, R. J. Sclabassi, and M. Sun, “Content-based video coding for remote monitoring of neurosurgery”.  (5) P. Bansal, M. Sun, and R. J. Sclabassi, “Simulation and Extraction of Single-trial Evoked Potentials”.  (6) M. Ge, H. Guo, G. Dong, M. Sun, W. Jia, X. Shen, and W. Yan, "A Theoretical Study for the Chaos and Complexity of the Synchronous Oscillations in Electrically Coupled Abnormal Neurons".

Upcoming BMES presentations by MSRC BioE graduate students Susan Moore, Dan Moon, Li Zou, Jesse Fisk and BioE undergraduate student Alexis Wickwire.  BioE faculty Drs. Steven Abramowitch, Richard Debski and Savio Woo supervised the student research.  Former BioE students Maribeth Thomas and Mary Gabriel are also listed.  1) "Refreezing Has Little Effect on the Biomechanical Properties of the Medial Collateral Ligament" -- Poster Presentation by Daniel K. Moon, Steven D. Abramowitch, Yoshiyuki Takakura, Mary T. Gabriel, Savio L-Y. Woo.  2) "Correcting Knee Kinematics for Errors Resulting from Two Types of Skin Movement" -- Poster Presentation by Jesse A. Fisk, Savio L-Y. Woo.  3) "The Expression Level of TGF-beta in Healing MCL Fibroblasts Depends on the Healing Stage After Injury" --Poster Presentation by Li Zou, Wei-Hsiu Hsu, Steven D. Abramowitch, Savio L-Y. Woo.  4) "Location of the Center of Rotation of the Glenohumeral Joint"-- Poster Presentation by Alexis C. Wickwire, Jens H. Stehle, Richard E. Debski.  5) "Joint Kinematics are Significantly Affected by the Location of Tracking Device Sensors" -- Poster Presentation by Susan M. Moore, Mary T. Gabriel, Maribeth Thomas, Jennifer Zeminski, Richard E. Debski, Savio L-Y. Woo.

Recent publication co-authored by Drs. Michael Boninger, Rory Cooper and former BioE graduate student Dr. SD Shimada.  Souza AL, Boninger ML, Fitzgerald SG, Shimada SD, Cooper RA, Ambrosio F, "Upper Limb Strength in Wheelchair Users with Paraplegia," Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, in press, 2004.

Carl Johnson was awarded a 4-year NIH minority graduate research supplement (MGRS) to work on the pediatric VAD project.  Carl is an MD, PhD candidate who will perform his research in the lab of  Dr. William Wagner (who wrote and submitted the MGRS to NIH).

Dr. Richard Debski has been invited by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) to help develop the examination materials for sports medicine fellows at the completion of their fellowship.  Dr. Debski will be writing the basic science questions for the examination.

Dr. George Stetten has been invited to speak at the National Library of Medicine Board of Regents Meeting, which is being held in September 2004 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the release of the Visible Human data set.  In celebration of this event, Dr. Stetten will deliver a lecture on his experiences working with the Visible Human data set and with the ITK software.

August 2004

William Stauffer has been selected as a recipient of the 2004 Neural Prosthesis Travel Assistance Program.  He will be presenting a poster at the 2004 Neural Interface Workshop in Bethesda, MD in November entitled, "Effect of Bioactive Molecules Immobilized in Polypyrrole Surfaces on Neuronal Cell Attachment, Differentiation, and Growth."  Bill is performing this work in Dr. Xinyan (Tracy) Cui's lab.

News updates from Dr. Michael Sacks' Engineering Tissue Mechanics Lab.  PUBLICATIONS: Hildebrand DK, Wu ZJ, Mayer JE and Sacks MS: "DESIGN AND HYDRODYNAMIC EVALUATION OF A NOVEL PULSATILE BIOREACTOR FOR BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE HEART VALVES." Annals of Biomedical Engineering 2004 (in press).  Mr. Hildebrand completed his MS in BioE in Dr. Sacks' lab.  BMES MEETING: Dr. Michael Sacks will be chairing three heart valve podium sessions at this years Annual Fall BMES meeting, including one on heart valve tissue engineering.  Dr. Sacks' Engineering Tissue Mechanics lab will be presenting 13 abstracts at this meeting.

Dr. Rosa Pinkus gave the presentation entitled, "Ethics in Research and Education," at the CET Sponsored Workshop at Juniata College, "Implications of the NIH Roadmap for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education: A Research Scientist Springboard Program."   Dr. Pinkus reported on the innovative BioE classes that she has developed and taught over the years.

The following upcoming podium presentations will be presented at the Midwest Connective Tissue Workshop in Cleveland this September 2004 from BioE graduate students Charu Agarwal and Richard Crawford.  They are conducting their research in Dr. James Wang's lab.  The title of Charu’s presentation is: "Differential Effect of TGF-beta 1 and TGF-beta 3 on the Contraction and Alpha-Smooth Muscle Actin Protein Expression in Healing Ligament Fibroblasts." and the title of Richard’s presentation is: "Increased Protein Expression of Alpha-Smooth Muscle Actin is Co-Dependent on Cyclic Mechanical Loading and TGF-beta 1."

Recent paper from Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab entitled, "Troponin I protein kinase C phosphorylation sites and ventricular function," with the authors, MacGowan Guy A, Evans Caroline, Hu Tom C-C, Debrah Dan, Mullet Steven, Chen Hsiao-Huei, McTiernan Charles F, Stewart Alexandre FR, Koretsky Alan P and Shroff Sanjeev G.  Caroline and Dan are BioE graduate students in Dr. Shroff's lab.

Presentations to be made by MSRC faculty and students at the upcoming BMES annual meeting in Philadelphia.  

"The Medial Collateral Ligament of the Rabbit and Goat Display Difference Viscoelastic Behaviors" -- Poster Presentation by Steven D. Abramowitch,  Daniel K. Moon, Yoshiyuki Takakura, Savio L-Y. Woo 

"Refreezing Has Little Effect on the Biomechanical Properties of the Medial Collateral Ligament" -- Poster Presentation by Daniel K. Moon, Steven D. Abramowitch, Yoshiyuki Takakura, Mary T. Gabriel, Savio L-Y. Woo 

"Subject-specific Kinematics Modeling of Recruitment Patterns of Human ACL Bundle Fibers" -- Platform Presentation by Xinguo Ning, Robert Kilger, Maribeth Thomas, Daniel K. MoonRichard E. Debski, Savio L-Y. Woo 

"Correcting Knee Kinematics for Errors Resulting from Two Types of Skin Movement" -- Poster Presentation by Jesse A. Fisk, Savio L-Y. Woo 

"Decreasing Type V Collagen Production in Rabbit MCL Fibroblasts by Antisense Oligonucleotides" -- Poster Presentation by Fengyan Jia, Yoshiyuki Takakura, Rui Liang, Savio L-Y. Woo

"The Expression Level of TGF-beta in Healing MCL Fibroblasts Depends on the Healing Stage After Injury" Li Zou, Wei-Hsiu Hsu, Steven D. Abramowitch, Savio L-Y. Woo 

"Location of the Center of Rotation of the Glenohumeral Joint" -- Poster Presentation by Alexis C. Wickwire, Jens H. Stehle, Richard E. Debski

"Joint Kinematics are Significantly Affected by the Location of Tracking Device Sensors" -- Poster Presentation by Susan M. Moore, Mary T. Gabriel, Maribeth Thomas, Jennifer Zeminski, Richard E. Debski, Savio L-Y. Woo

The following POSTER presentation have been accepted at this fall's annual Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Meeting in Philadelphia.  BioE graduate students:

Sam  Hund's abstract entitled, "Hemodynamic Optimization of a Ventricular Cannula: Evaluation of Objective,"   Sam is conducting this work in Dr. James Antaki's lab.

Mitra Lavasani's presentation entitled, "Nerve growth factor enhances the engraftment efficiency of muscle-derived stem cells" has been accepted for PLATFORM presentation in the Cellular Engineering track.  Mitra is working in Dr. Johnny Huard's lab. 

Joie Marhefka's presentation entitled, "Studies on the Mechanism of the Intravascular Effect of Drag-Reducing Polymers," has been accepted for POSTER presentation.  Joie is working in Professor Marina Kameneva's lab.

Phil Marascalco's presentation entitled, "Study of the effects of blood soluble drag-reducing polymers (DRPs) on blood coagulation parameters," has been accepted for POSTER presentation.  Phil is also conducting his research in Professor Marina Kameneva's lab.

Rui Zhao's presentation entitled, "Red Blood Cell Response to Supra-physiologic Shear Stress in Micro-Channels,"  Rui is performing this work in Dr. James Antaki's lab.

Bioengineering PhD candidate Phil Marascalco was on the Larry Richert show on KDKA August 4th at 7 a.m.  Phil was interviewed for his work with Dr. Marina Kamenava at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article featuring the research is at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04215/355296.stm. Two other bioengineering graduate students, Joie Marhefka and Dorian Arnold, are also researching aloe plants and polymers. All three bioengineering students were interviewed on KDKA the evening of August 3rd.

July 2004

View the URL below for the newspaper article about Dr. Marina Kameneva's research lab that was featured in the August 2, 2004 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04215/355296.stm

Featured in the text, "International Leaders in Biomedical Engineering Science." are the computational biomechanics work of Professor T-K Hung and tissue biomechanics work of Professor Savio Woo Both are cited as being "pioneering researchers in modern biomedical fluid and solid mechanics." 

BioE baccalaureate, Anton Barnett, has accepted a job @UCLA Medical center in Perfusion Services.  Anton had previously attended the Shadyside Hospital Perfusion Program and worked for UPMC hospitals.  Anton also convinced quite a few of our undergraduate students over the years to pursue a similar career.

Professor Marina Kameneva's most recent publication:  “Survival in a Rat Model of Lethal Hemorrhagic Shock is Prolonged Following Resuscitation with a Small Volume of a Solution Containing a Drag-reducing Polymer Derived from Aloe Vera,”  SHOCK, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 151-156, 2004

Professor Savio Woo has been invited to be a plenary lecturer at the 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) to be held in San Francisco, CA in September 2004.  Other speakers include Paul C. Lauterbur, PhD (a Nobel Laureate), Doug A. Lauffenburger, PhD of MIT, and Shankar Subramanium, PhD of UCSD.  Dr. Woo will present a lecture entitled The Contribution of Biomechanics to Clinical Practice in Orthopaedics.

A number of our BioE students recently submitted for the F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual NRSA Fellowships.  I have been told that quite a few of our students received excellent priority scores <200, which is very exciting.  Hopefully all will be awarded funding.  Ex: Dan Debrah's NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Fellowship application entitled "Role of Relaxin in Systemic Vascular Mechanics and Function" received a priority score of 124 and a percentile of 0.9!  This is truly an outstanding accomplishment for both Dan and his adviser, Professor Sanjeev Shroff.

Dr. Michael Sacks delivered a series of lectures at the recent meetings of the International Union for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and the European Society for Biomechanics.  A list of talks presented: 

Invited Lecture: "A structural constitutive model for the native pulmonary valve," International Union for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Symposium on Soft Tissue Mechanics, Graz, Austria, June 27, 2004.

 M.S. Sacks and J.E. Mayer, Jr., "Current progress in heart valve tissue engineering and biomechanics," Presented at 2004 European Society for Biomechanics, s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, July 6, 2004.  Proceedeings published on CDROM.

 Z. He, J. Ritchie, M.S. Sacks, and A.P. Yoganathan, "Dynamic in-vitro strain history of the native posterior mitral valve leaflet," Presented at 2004 European Society for Biomechanics, s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, July 7, 2004.  Proceedeings published on CDROM.

 M.S. Sacks, J. Grashow, and A.P. Yoganathan, "Viscoelastic behavior of valvular tissues under biaxial stretch," Presented at 2004 European Society for Biomechanics, s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, July 7, 2004.  Proceedeings published on CDROM.

The application below, in which Dr. Rakie Cham is providing biomechanics expertise, has been funded by the Veterans Administration.  The P.I. is Dr. N. Bohnen who is also a collaborator on Dr. Cham's recent P.I. NIH RO1 application.  "Neurobiological and Postural Control Mechanisms underlying Risk of Falling"  Period 4/04-3/0.  This project is designed to evaluate neurobiological and postural control mechanisms underlying imbalance and risk of falling in elderly veterans.  The overarching goal of this project is to examine the degree to which age-associated striatal dopaminergic denervation (AASDD), as measured by in vivo striatal dopamine transporter PET neuroimaging, is associated with impaired postural reserve capacity and increased risk of falling in otherwise normal elderly.  A second goal is to study the interaction between the presence of AASDD and specific risk factors for falling in the elderly, such as neuropathy or leukoaraiosis. Gait and slip analysis will be performed as well as a prospective assessment on the risk of falling during a 6-month follow-up diary study.

BioE baccalaureate graduate Anika Joseph has been awarded a graduate fellowship from the NSF-funded Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems Engineering Research Center (BMES ERC) at the University of Southern California to pursue the Master of Science in Medical Device and  Diagnostic Engineering.  According to Dr. Michael Khoo, Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California, Ms. Joseph's selection as a BMES ERC fellowship awardee was based on "her credentials and the program belief that she will make substantial contributions towards enhancing the quality of academic and student life at USC, and specifically, the BMES ERC community."

BioE Ph.D. candidate Priya Ramaswami received 2nd place for her presentation at the Pathology Departmental Retreat that took place at Seven Springs, Champion, PA from June 11-13.  Priya’s award was in the student presentation category for her talk entitled: “Differentiation Factor Delivery from a Biodegradable Elastomer.”  Priya is conducting this work in Dr. William Wagner's lab.

June 2004

Dan Debrah, a BioE graduate student in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab, has published the following article:  Relaxin Modifies Systemic Arterial Resistance and Compliance in Conscious, Nonpregnant Rats  KIRK P. CONRAD, DAN O. DEBRAH, JACKIE NOVAK, LEE A. DANIELSON, AND SANJEEV G. SHROFF, Endocrinology 145: 3289-3296, 2004.  The next paper in the series will be published next month, and a 3rd manuscript is currently being reviewed.

Dr. Xinyan Tracy Cui's application entitled, "Effect of Surface Characteristics and Electrical Stimulation to Neural Stem Cell Attachment, Growth and Differentiation," has been funded through the School of Medicine CMRF Program.  The CMRF Program is highly competitive which speaks very well to the high quality of Dr. Cui's proposed research.

Dr. Jack Patzer's article entitled, "Oxygen consumption in a hollow fiber bioartificial liver -- revisited," which is published in volume 28 of Artificial Organs, is in the top 25 articles viewed online in 2004 to date at Blackwell Synergy.

Poster presentations made by Dr. Kacey Marra at the Plastic Surgery Research Council meeting in Ann Arbor,  MI, June 9-12, 2004.  This is Plastic Surgery's national research meeting.   Co-authors in #3 are Dr. James Wang and Ms. Lauren Kokai, a Pitt BioE undergraduate student who is joining our Graduate Program in the fall and continuing her work in Dr. Marra's lab.

Song, A.; Bennett, J.M.; Marra, K.G.; Rubin, J.P. "Lipoma-Derived Preadipocytes Exhibit an Enhanced Capacity for Adipocytic Differentiation."

Santiago, L.Y.; Marra, K.G. "Novel Biomimetic Material for Neuronal Tissue Engineering Applications."

Bennett, J.M.; Wang, J.H.-C.; Martin, M.; Kokai, L.E.; Rubinstein, R.E.; Marra, K.G. "Vanadate-Loaded Polymer Microspheres for Wound Healing Applications."

Bennett, J.M.; Clavijo, J.A.; Doctor, J.S.; Marra, K.G.; Rubin, J.P. "Differentiation of Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells on Collagenous Microbeads: A Model for Injectable Tissue-Engineered Scaffolds."

Clavijo, J.A.; Bennett, J.M.; Santiago, L.Y.; Breitinger, J.; Nguyen, V.T.; Rubinstein, R.E.; Lee, W.P.A.; Marra, K.G. "Tissue-Engineered Nerve Conduit: Comparison with Autogenous Nerve Graft and Neurotubes."

Clavijo, J.A.; Bennett, J.M.; Nguyen, V.T.; Dudas, J.R.; Rubin, J.P.; Marra, K.G. "Modified Fluoropolymer Pore Size Increases Adherence and the Proliferation of Preadipocytes."

The BioE Department was very prominent at the recent REGENERATE meeting in Seattle.
REGENERATE
June 9-12, 2004: Seattle, WA

PAPERS/SESSION CHAIRS
"ECM Scaffold Degradation Products as Chemoattractants for Primary Endothelial Cells"; Stephen F. Badylak, and Mervin C. Yoder.

"A Novel Guide for Neuronal Tissue Engineering Applications"; Santiago, Lizzie, Y., Marra, Kacey, G.
"A New Method of Measuring the Flexural Rigidity of Normal and Tissue Engineered Rabbit Vocal Folds"; Ali Mirnajafi, Michael S. Sacks, Jeremy Raymer, Joseph E. Dohar, Patricia A Hebda.
"Thermoplastic Elastomer Design and Processing for Scaffold Applications"; Wagner, William.
"Gene therapy and tissue engineering based on muscle-derived stem cells: Promising applications for tissue regeneration";
Huard, Johnny.

"Growth and Development Laboratory Matrix Metalloproteinase Therapy Improves Healing of Injured Skeletal Muscle"; Bedair, Hany, Li, Yong, Huard, Johnny.

"Effects of blood-soluble drag-reducing polymers on macro- and micro-hemodynamics; potential applications in regenerative medicine"; Kameneva, M.V.

"Extracorporeal Liver Support -Technologies for the Biological Component"; Gerlach, J.C.
Session Chair: Liver Support; Gerlach, J.
Invited lecture "Strategies for the biologic component of liver support"; Gerlach, J.

POSTER PRESENTATIONS
"Targeted Delivery of Microspheres to Vascular Tissue" Deglau, Timothy E., Villanueva, Flordeliza S., Wagner, William R.
"Self-Assembly of Bioactive Nanotubes" Lee, Sang Beom, Koepsel, Richard R., and Russell, Alan J.
"Tissue Engineering Show and Educational Partnership: The Scholarship of Integration for Public Outreach" Pollock, John A., Farkas, Daniel L., Russell, Alan J.
"A Method for the Isolation of Canine Endothelial Progenitor Cells from Peripheral Blood" Reing, Janet, Irvine, Renae, Badylak, Stephen
"Gradient Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Applications" Thangappan, Ravikumar, Wargo, Sara, L., Russell, Alan, J.
"DOPA-containing curable prepolymer as a potential wound healing matrix" Jianying Zhang, Alan H. Wells, David L. Steed, Eric J. Beckman

Susan Moore, a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Richard Debski's lab @MSRC, is the 1st author on the following recent publication:  Moore SM, Musahl V, McMahon PJ, Debski RE. Multidirectional kinematics of the glenohumeral joint during simulated simple translation tests: impact on clinical diagnoses. J Orthop Res. 2004 Jul;22(4):889-94.

A new publication from Dr. Michael Sacks' lab:  Hildebrand DK, Wu ZJ, Mayer JE and Sacks MS: "Design and Hydrodynamic Evaluation of a Novel Pulsatile Bioreactor for Biologically Active Heart Valves."  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, Vol 32, pp. 1039-1049, 2004.  The 1st author, Dan Hildebrand, did both his B.S. and M.S. (working in Dr. Sacks' lab) in the BioE Department.

See the attached URL which announces Dr. Alan Russell's award for his nerve agent detection sensor technology.  http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04175/336373.stm

BioE graduate student, Aaron Cois, has been formally accepted into the 2004 Summer School on Medical Image Computing @Imperial College London.  Aaron is working in Dr. George Stetten's lab.

BioE had a very prominent position at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO).  Listed are the presentations by our faculty and students.  Dr. James Antaki organized and chaired the session, "Principles: Engineering Of Artificial Organs."  At this session Dr. Antaki presented the talk, "Future Opportunities For Innovation Of Artificial Organs," and Dr. Marina Kameneva presented a talk, "On Survival Of Blood Cells In Artificial Organs."  Dr. William Wagner co-chaired the session, "Bridging Of Materials With Cells, Tissues And Organelles."   Dr. Jack Patzer presented, "Static Mixer To Improve Bound Solute Dialysis (BSD) Performance With Standard Dialysis Equipment.Dr. William Federspiel presented, "Evaluation of Local Gas Exchange in an Artificial Lung Catheter."

BioE graduate students Linda Santelices and Martin Tabaksblat were selected as Paul Malchesky Student Abstract Awardee Finalists at this week's 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs.  The title of Linda’s abstract is: "Mobile Decision Support System For Management Of LVAD Patients" .  The title of Martin's abstract is: "Towards The Development Of A Computer Simulator For Left Ventricular Recovery".  Linda and Martin both working in Dr. James Antaki's lab.

Dr. Linda Baker, who completed her Ph.D. thesis in Dr. Guy Salama's lab, has published the following paper:  Linda C. Baker, Robert Wolk, Bum-Rak Choi, Simon Watkins, Patricia Plan, Anisha Shah, and Guy Salama, Effects of Mechanical uncouplers, Diacetyl Monoxime and Cytochalasin-D on the Electrophysiology of Perfused Mouse Hearts, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol (June 10, 2004). 10.1152/ajpheart.00234.2004.  The paper may be accessed on line at:  http://ajpheart.physiology.org/papbyrecent.shtml

BioE PhD graduate, Dr. Claire Gloeckner, along with BioE faculty Dr. Michael Sacks and Dr. Johnny Huard have the following paper accepted and in press in BIOMATERIALS:  "Biaxial mechanical properties of muscle-derived stem cell seeded small intestinal submucosa for bladder wall reconstruction" by Lu, Sacks, Chung, Gloeckner, Pruchnic, Huard, de Groat, and Chancellor.

George Englemayr, a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab, was awarded an American Heart Association Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for his project entitled, "Optimizing engineered heart valve extracellular matrix."  The award begins July 1, 2004.  George is the 3rd of our students this cycle to receive this prestigious Fellowship.

The paper submitted by Dr. Michael Sacks, Dr. Jiro Nagatomi and BioE Ph.D. graduate Dr. Claire Gloeckner been accepted for publication in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering:  J. Nagatomi, D. Claire Gloeckner, M.B. Chancellor, W.C. deGroat, and M.S. Sacks, "Changes in the Biaxial Viscoelastic Response of the Urinary Bladder following Spinal Cord Injury".  Dr. Gloeckner, who received her doctorate from Pitt BioE in Spring 2003 under the direction of Dr. Michael Sacks, has accepted a new job at Exponent Failure Analysis Associates, Inc., Menlo Park, CA performing work on the biomechanics of soft tissues.

Trevor Snyder, who is a PhD candidate in Dr. William Wagner's lab, presented his work last month at the 7th World Biomaterials Congress in Sydney, Australia.  The title of Trevor's presentation was, "In vivo Biocompatibility Evaulation of Surface Modifications to Rotary Ventricular Assist Devices."

May 2004

BioE recent graduates Wei Sun (PhD 2003) and Greg Fulchiero (MS 2002), whose research was performed in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab, are co-authors on the following paper:  W. Sun, M.S. Sacks, G. Fulchiero, J. Lovekamp, N. Vyavahare, and M.J. Scott, "Response of heterograft heart valve biomaterials to moderate cyclic loading" Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, vol. 69, pp. 658-669, 2004.

Professor Leaf Huang received this year's Alec D Bangham MD FRS Achievement Award during the Liposome Research Days Conference held in May 2004. This is the highest honor in the liposome field.  The award citation is as follows:  "The Alec D. Bangham, MD, FRS Achievement Award recognizes an outstanding scientist who has profoundly contributed to the progress of the liposome field. This is a lifetime achievement award that will be bestowed onto liposome scientists who are renowned leaders and have a highly productive and illustrious history of research, publication and teaching in the liposome field.

Stephanie Bechtold, an undergraduate BioE student researcher at the MSRC, has been selected as one of six finalists for the Bachelor's Level Student Paper Competition at the upcoming IMECE/ASME meeting. Stephanie’s paper is entitled "Repeatability of Establishing Anatomical Coordinate Systems and the Initial Configuration of the Knee".   Stephanie is our 1st undergraduate student to be so honored.

BioE graduate student  Mohammed El-Kurdi has been selected as one of the six M.S.-level finalists for the Student Paper Competition at this year's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE), at the Winter Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).  The title of Mohammed's submission is, "Regulation of Cell Adhesion and De-Adhesion Proteins in Veins Perfused Under Arterial Conditions Ex-Vivo."  Mohammed is performing his research in Dr. David Vorp's lab.  This important student distinction is almost becoming an annual event for our Department.  For the past severals years, several of our M.S. and PhD. candidates in Drs. Richard Debski , Michael Sacks and David Vorp's labs have been M.S. - level and PhD. level finalists in this competition and recipients of top ASME student awards as well.
BioE Ph.D. candidate Tim Maul and BioE M.D., Ph.D. candidate Scott Van Epps have been awarded two-year Pre-Doctoral Fellowships by the American Heart Association.  The title of Tim’s Fellowship award is, "Influence of Mechanical Forces on Adult Progenitor Cells: Implications for Vascular Tissue Engineering."  The title of Scott’s Fellowship is, "Improving the Understanding of the Role of Biomechanical Forces in Atherogenesis: A Combined Computational and Experimental Study."  Both Tim and Scott are performing their work in Dr. David Vorp's lab.  

Dr. Richard Debski has been selected to receive the 2004 Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award for "Outstanding achievements in bioengineering research, in particular for his work on the biomechanics of shoulder joints."  The Y. C. Fung Young Investigator Award was established in 1985 by the Bioengineering Division of the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as a divisional award.  In 1998 it was elevated to a Society award to recognize an individual for outstanding contributions to the field of bioengineering through research.

Dr. Michael Boninger has been recognized for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Research by VAs Stars and Stripes Healthcare Network.

The following paper has just been published with BioE PhD candidate, Susan Moore, as the 1st author.  Susan is from Dr. Richard Debski’s lab.   Moore SM, McMahon PJ, Debski RE. Bi-directional Mechanical Properties of the Axillary Pouch of the Glenohumeral Capsule: Implications for Modeling and Surgical Repair. Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 2004. April;126(2):284-288.
Professor Savio Woo has been elected an Honorary Member of the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA).  It is almost unprecedented for AANA to bestow honorary membership on a Ph.D. scientist.  This is a special category that is defined in AANA bylaws as follows:  "An individual who, through a past demonstration of dedication and interest is, in the opinion of the Board of Directors, worthy of special recognition, shall be granted an honorary membership in the Association".

Three BioE graduate students have been awarded Biomedical Engineering Fellowships to attend the annual meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) in June in Washington, D.C.  Joie Marhefka and Phil Marascalco from Dr. Marina Kameneva's lab and Vikram Sundararaman from Dr. Harvey Borovetz’s lab.

A manuscript submitted by Dr. George Stetten and several of his BioE graduate students, Wilson Chang, Aaron Cois and Robert Tamburo, to MICCAI 2003:  G. Stetten, A. Cois, W. Chang, D. Shelton, R. Tamburo, J. Castellucci, O. von Ramm, “C-mode Virtual Image Display for a Matrix Array Ultrasound Sonic Flashlight.” This is 1 of 12 papers from that conference invited to be included in a special issue of the journal, Academic Radiology.

April 2004

Dr. George Stetten has been awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Bioengineering in our School of Engineering, effective September 1, 2004.

Two recent publications co-authored by MSRC BioE graduate students: (1) Steven D. Abramowitch, Savio L-Y. Woo. An Improved Method to Analyze the Stress Relazation of Ligaments Following a Finite Ramp Time Based on the Quasi-Linear Viscoelastic Theory, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, Volume 126, Issue 1, February 2004, Pages 92 - 97.  Mr. Abramowitch is completing his Ph.D. thesis under the direction of Dr. Savio Woo.   (2) Rajesh Jari, Ryan S. Costic, Mark W. Rodosky, Richard E. Debski. Biomechanical Function of Surgical Procedures for Acromioclavicular Joint Dislocations. Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, Volume 20, No. 3 (March), 2004, pages 237-245. Mr. Costic recently completed his M.S. degree in BioE under the direction of Dr. Richard Debski.

Dr. Rory Cooper was appointed by Chancellor Mark Nordenberg as a Distinguished Professor of the University of Pittsburgh in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, effective April 1, 2004.   This is the first such appointment of a faculty member in the history of our School.   As noted by Chancellor Nordenberg in his letter announcing Rory's appointment  "... The appointment of a faculty member to a Distinguished Professorship is the highest honor that the University of Pittsburgh can accord a member of its professoriate."

March 2004

BioE MD/PhD student, Wilson Chang has been awarded a $500 grant to attend ISBI'04 (the International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging, a joint NIH/IEEE conference).  According to the conference organizers, "These awards are competitive and your receipt of this award means that you work was very highly rated by the conference program committee and reviewers."  Mr. Chang is conducting his PhD research in Dr. George Stetten's lab.

BioE graduate student, Jennifer Mercer, has been selected to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) award. The NSF GRF is among the most competitive and prestigious awards that a graduate student can receive.  Ms. Mercer is conducting her graduate research in Dr. Michael Boninger's lab.

BioE MS graduate Eric Chen (a former student in Professor Sanjeev Shroff's lab who is now employed by the FDA (CDRH)) presented March 17, 2004 at the panel meeting on behalf of the 1st artificial heart to be approved by the FDA.  Mr. Chen also answered questions from the FDA advisory panel.

Effective July 1, 2004, Dr. Michael Sacks will become Chair of the Cell and Tissue Committee of the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Two awards from MIRM for BioE PhD candidates, Rachelle Prantil and Tim Maul (both working in Dr. David Vorp's lab):  Rachelle Prantil, Poster: Fabrication of Fibrous Scaffolds of Sub-Micron Scale from Biodegradable Poly (Ester Urethane) Urea and Type I Collagen, Award: MIRM RETREAT POSTER WINNER   and Tim Maul
Award: MIGSnet Travel Award to attend this month's International Society for Applied Cardiovascular Biology Conference @Hilton Head.

The following paper has just been published with BioE PhD candidate, Steve Abramowitch, as the 1st author.  Steven D. Abramowitch, Savio L-Y. Woo, Theodore D. Clineff, Richard E. Debski, An Evaluation of the Quasi-Linear Viscoelastic Properties of the Healing Medial Collateral Ligament in a Goat Model, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Volume 32, Issue 3, March 2004, Pages 329 - 335.

BioE Ph.D. candidate, Ms. Robyn Bates, has been invited to submit the following conference paper, "Seizure Detection by Recurrent Backpropagation Neural Network Analysis," as a chapter in the forthcoming textbook: APPLIED RESEARCH IN UNCERTAINTY MODELING AND ANALYSIS, edited by Nii O.Attoh-Okine (University of Delaware) and Bilal Ayyub (University of Maryland, College Park) and published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.  Ms. Bates is conducting this research in Dr. Robert Sclabassi's lab.

Dr. Marina Kameneva's most recent paper published in BIORHEOLOGY.  Kameneva MV, Wu ZJ, Uraysh A, Repko B, Litwak KN, Billiar TR, Fink MP, Simmons RL, Griffith BP, Borovetz HS.  Blood soluble drag-reducing polymers prevent lethality from hemorrhagic shock in acute animal experiments. Biorheology. 41(1):53-64, 2004.

Dr. James Wang’s, former BioE graduate student Brian Campbell, and current BioE graduate student Charu Agarwal have authored the following paper.  "TGF-B1, TGF-B3, and PGE2 regulate contraction of human patellar tendon fibroblasts". This paper has been accepted for publication in Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology (BMMB).

February 2004 BioE senior undergraduate student, Mr. Scott Morley, has been chosen the recipient of the 2004 School of Engineering Alumni Student Leadership Award.  In selecting Mr. Morley, the Alumni Selection Committee appreciated the leadership qualities Scott exhibits, plus his extensive involvement in many organizations both at Pitt and in the community, while a student in our School.  Mr. Morley will receive a University of Pittsburgh wristwatch and a plaque in recognition of his award. Following his graduation this April, Mr. Morley will be employed by ALUNG Technologies.

Three BioE faculty were inducted as AIMBE College of Fellows (Class 2004).   David Brienza: For contributions in rehabilitation engineering leading to a better understanding of soft tissue biomechanics and the prevention of pressure sores.  Art Ciarkowski: For outstanding and dedicated service towards the development of safe and effective cardiovascular devices for improved patient care.  Michael Sacks: For outstanding contributions to the understanding of the quantitative structure-mechanical properties of native, biologically derived and engineered soft tissues.

Dr. Ali Mirnajafi's paper was accepted for publication::   A. Mirnajafi, J. Raymer, M.J. Scott, and M.S. Sacks, "The effects of collagen fiber orientation on the flexural properties of pericardial heterograft biomaterials," Biomaterials, (in-press).  Also listed as a contributing author is Jeremy Raymer, a BioE undergraduate working under the direction of Dr. Mirnajafi.

George Engelmayr Ph.D. candidate and Wei Sun, Ph.D have two papers that were accepted for publication:  G.C. Engelmayr, Jr., E. Rabkin, F.W.H. Sutherland3, F.J. Schoen, J.E. Mayer, Jr., and M.S. Sacks, “The independent role of cyclic flexure in the early in vitro development of engineered heart valve tissue,” Biomaterials, (in-press) and W. Sun, M.S. Sacks, G. Fulchiero, J. Lovekamp, N. Vyavahare, and M.J. Scott, “Response of heterograft heart valve biomaterials to moderate cyclic loading” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, (in-press).

Dan Hildebrand, BioE graduate student has accepted a position at Sadra Medical (a start-up company).  Mr. Hildebrand's work will include:  1) development of in-house hydrodynamic testing & equipment,  2) be the person responsible for all ISO/FDA required tests,  3) help design the company's heart valve.

Mr. Dan Debrah, BioE student has received Honorable Mention in USA TODAY's 2004 ALL-USA College Academic Team program.   Mr. Debrah is the 1st BioE student to be so honored.

The following chapters authored by Dr. Kaiming Ye will be included in the new book, "Frontier of Combinatorial Bioengineering," edited by Dr. Ueda.   Chapter 2: Escherichia coli display of Heterologous Proteins;  Chapter 3: Retrovirus display of peptides and proteins; Chapter 4: siRNA library; Chapter 5: Random mutagenesis and combinatorial libraries.  The book will be published by CMC Publishing Co. (Tokyo, Japan) in July, 2004.

Dr. George Stetten has been selected to receive a 2004 Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award in the Junior Scholar category.  In his letter to Dr. Stetten, Chancellor Nordenberg writes:  "You are an innovator in electronics, computer science and medicine who has been credited with moving the field forward. You are best known for your work on a handheld, real-time tomographic reflection device called the Sonic Flashlight. ... You also helped create the Insight Toolkit for the National Library of Medicine. The Toolkit is an open-source software system that supports the Visible Human Project, the goal of which is to create complete, anatomically detailed, three dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies.
January 2004

Ms. Molly Marko, who graduated with her BS in Bioengineering in December 2003 has been accepted into the SUNY Upstate Medical University's cardiovascular perfusion program.  Ms. Marko is one of only six students who were accepted.

The following paper has been accepted for podium presentation by BioE MD/PhD candidate, Wilson Chang, at the 2004 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging, in Arlington, VA.  W. Chang, N. Amesur, M. Horowitz, G. Stetten, “Refining the sonic flashlight for interventional procedures.”   Mr. Chang is conducting his Ph.D. research in Dr. George Stetten's lab.

Dr. James Wang will give a podium presentation @the Wound Healing Society 14th Annual Meeting  in Atlanta, May 24, 2004. (The abstract is: Wang, JH-C. and Wang, G.,  Superoxide regulates a-SMA via p38 MAPK ).
BioE graduate student, Rick Crawford, is a co-author of a manuscript accepted by J Biomech for publication  (Yang, G.G., Crawford, R.C., Wang, JH-C. Proliferation and collagen production of human patellar tendon fibroblasts in response to cyclic uniaxial stretching in serum-free conditions). 

BioE graduate student, Charu Agarwal, will give a podium  presentation in the 50th ORS meeting in San Francisco, March 7th, 2004.  (The abstract is: Agarwal, C,  Britton, Z.T., Wang, J-HC. Healing and normal fibroblasts exhibit differential contraction and a-smooth muscle actin expression.) 

Recent publications by BioE graduate students while working @MSRC.

Woo, S.L-Y., Moon, D., and Hanford, S.:  Biomechanics of Ligaments:  From Molecular Biology to Joint Function in New Frontiers in Biomedical Engineering (World Congress of Chinese Biomedical Engineers 2002 Proceedings).  Ed. Ned H-C. Hwang, Kluwer/ Plenum Academic Publishers, New York, NY, December, 2003.

Musahl, V., Abramowitch, S., Gilbert, T., Tsuda, E., Wang, J.H-C., and Woo, S.L-Y.:  The Use of Porcine Small Intestinal Submucosa to Enhance the Healing of the Medial Collateral Ligament - A Functional Tissue Engineering Study in Rabbits.  J. of Orthopaedic Research, 22:214-220, January 2004.

Dr. Michael Sacks and two of his students, George Engelmayr and Dan Hildebrand, have written a book chapter that  will be published by Kluwer in 2004.  The title of the chapter is: "Biomechanical considerations for tissue engineered heart valve bioreactors," by M. S. Sacks, G.C. Engelmayr, D.K. Hildebrand, J.E. Mayer, Jr.  An invited chapter for Bioreactors for Tissue Engineering, Julian Chadhuri and Mohamed Al Rubeai,Eds., Kluwer pub.

BioE graduate student, Linda Santelices was awarded 2nd place in the poster competition of the national meeting of the Hispanic Society of Hispanic Engineers.  Ms. Santelices' poster is entitled: "Mobile Decision Support System for Treatment of LVAD Patients."  Authors are: Santelices LC, Antaki JF, Dew MA, Holm MB, Kormos RL, Mathier MA, Simaan MAMs. Santelices is performing her research in Dr. James Antaki's lab.

Dr. Michael Sacks' student from Mech E, Hsiao-Ying Shadow Huang successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Micromechanical Simulations of Heart Valve Tissues."
BioE graduate student, Pui-Yan Lee's first first-authored paper has recently appeared in Pharmaceutical Research, which according to Ms. Lee's adviser, Professor Leaf Huang, is the top peer-reviewed journal of its type.
December 2003 Dr. Partha Roy's recent publication in the Journal of Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton:  Partha Roy and Ken Jacobson. "Overexpression of Profilin Reduces the Migration of Invasive Breast Cancer Cells."  Journal of Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton, 57:84-95, 2004
BioE faculty have contributed two chapters to the just published textbook, FUNCTIONAL TISSUE ENGINEERING Savio Woo, Steven D. Abramovich, John C. Loh, Volker Musahl, and James HC Wang, "Ligament Healing: The future of Functional Tissue Engineering"Chapter 2, pp. 17-34, Functional Tissue Engineering, Springer-Verlag, 2003 and  M.S. Sacks,"Biomechanics of Native and Engineered Heart Valve Tissues," Chapter 18 of Functional Tissue Engineering, pp. 243-257, Springer-Verlag, 2003.
Mr. George Engelmayr, who is doing his Ph.D. research in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab, recently did a national presentation at the Tissue Engineering Society International, 6th Annual International Conference and Exposition, Orlando, Florida.  Titled: "The Aspect Ratio of Rectangular Pores affects Collagen Fiber Orientation in Engineered Tissues."
Dr. Kaiming Ye has two manuscripts in press.  Their titles are: "Surface display of glucose binding protein" (accepted by J. Molecular Catalysis B: Enzyme) and "A genetically engineered fluorescent cell marker for labeling hematopoietic stem cells" (accepted by Biotechnology Progress.
Dr. William Wagner has been named editor of the new journal, Acta BIOMATERIALIA
Ms. Susan Moore recently was awarded 2nd place overall in the MS Thesis Competition at the ASME National Meeting. The title of Ms. Moore's presentation is: Reproducing The Motion of a Diarthrodial Joint During a Clinical Examination Using Robotic Technology. Ms. Moore is working in Dr. Richard Debski's lab @MSRC.
November 2003 Professor Sanjeev Shroff has received the 2003 Board of Visitors Faculty Award.
This award was announced by Board of Visitors Chair, Dr. Tom Usher, at last evening's Board of Visitor's Reception & Dinner.  Dr. Usher cited Professor Shroff's highly successful, NIH funded research program; Sanjeev's undergraduate and graduate course offerings that receive very high student ratings; and Professor Shroff's outstanding mentoring of 6 BioE students.
Professor Rory Cooper has won; namely the "Cool Engineer of the Month" by The Junior Engineer Technical Society.
Dr. Douglas Robertson has received an NIH award (NIBIB) for the period 09/20/2003 - 08/31/2005, for his project entitled, "Severe Acetabular Defects: Image-Guided Reconstruction."
October 2003
Two BioE PhD students have successfully defended their PhD dissertations:  Dr. Eunji Cheong, "Nitric Oxide-Mediated Regulation of Ryanodine Receptor"

Adviser: Dr. Guy Salama and Dr. Wei Sun, "Biomechanical Simulations of Heart Valve Biomaterials" Adviser: Dr. Michael Sacks

Dr. George Stetten's article featuring his sonic flashlight will appear in the December 2003 issue of IEEE Spectrum (mailed Nov 1).
Dr. Savio Woo has received a supplement to his funded NIH grant entitled, "In-Situ Forces in Normal and Reconstructed ACLs".  These funds will be used to support the graduate research of Brook Coley, a first year BioE graduate student recruited from the University of Maryland Meyerhoff Fellows Program.
Dr. Michael Sacks and Wei Sun, a PhD candidate in Dr. Sacks' lab, have authored the following article which appears in the current issue of ANNUAL REVIEWS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING:  Sacks MS and Sun Wei. "Multiaxial Mechanical Behavior of Biological Materials."  ANNUAL REVIEWS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 2003;5:251-284.
Brian Moyer and William Stauffer have been selected to receive stipend support from the Rehab NSF-IGERT grant under the direction of Dr. Rory Cooper.  Brian is a PhD candidate in Dr. Mark Redfern's lab.  William is doing his research in Dr. Tracy Cui's lab.
Dr. Jiro Nagatomi made two poster presentations at the BMES and USNCB (pre-BMES meeting) in Nashville, TN:  "Relationship between Tissue Morphology, Composition, and Biomechanics of the Urinary Bladder" and "Correlations Between Tissue Composition and Viscoelastic Response of the Urinary Bladder Following Spinal Cord Injury"
Three BioE graduate students in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab made oral presentations at the Fall 2003 BMES meeting in Nashville, TN:  George Englemayr: "The Development of Engineered Heart Valve Tissue Mechanical Properties In Vitro", Dan Hildebrand: "Design and Evaluation of a Pulsatile Bioreactor for Biologically Active Heart Valves", Thanh Lam: "Transmural Strains of Heart Valve Tissues under Flexure"

Rachelle Prantil, a BioE graduate student in Dr. David Vorp's lab, is also one of six finalists (along with Susan Moore) for the ASME 2003 M.S. Student Research Award. Rachelle will present her research entitled: "Effects of Diabetes Mellitus On the Biomechanical Properties Of the Female Rat Urethra In the Passive State"  Authors:  Rachelle L. Prantil, Ronald J. Jankowski, Ph.D., Kazumasa Torimoto, M.D., William C. de Groat, Ph.D., Michael B. Chancellor, M.D., David A. Vorp, Ph.D.  Again this year, our BioE Dept has 2 of the 6 finalists for this prestigious ASME award.

Dr. Mingui Sun was recently awarded a 4-year NIH grant from NIBIB  entitled, "Video Compresssion for Remote Monitoring of Neurosurgery." This new award is Dr. Sun's 3rd active RO1 in the medical electronics/video/imaging areas.
September 2003

MSRC graduate student, Susan Moore, is one of six finalists for the ASME 2003 M.S. Student Research Award.  Susan will present her research entitled:

Reproducing the Motion of a Diarthrodial Joint during a Clinical Examination using Robotic Technology" , Authors:  Susan M. Moore, Maribeth Thomas, Mary T. Gabriel, Jennifer Zeminski, Savio L-Y. Woo, Richard E. Debski.

Susan Moore is our most recent BioE graduate student to be so honored.
In recent years, our graduate students have competed successfully for both the M.S. and Ph.D. Student Research Awards.

Several of our BioE graduate students who are working @MSRC will be making podium presentations at the 2003 International Mechanical Engineering Congress at the Marriott Wardman Park & Omni Shoreham Hotels in Washington D.C. from November 15 - 21, 2003. Dr. Michael Sacks is the bioengineering technical program representative for the conference.  The BioE student presentations are listed below:

Daniel Moon, Mary T. Gabriel, Steven D. Abramowitch and Savio L-Y. Woo: The Effects of Refreezing on the Tensile Properties of the Medial Collateral Ligament-Bone Complex: A Rabbit Model.

Shon P. Darcy, Robert Kilger, Savio L-Y Woo, Richard E. Debski:
Estimation of ACL Forces Utilizing a Novel Non-Invasive Methodology that reproduces knee kinematics between sets of knees.

Steven D. Abramowitch, Theodore Clineff, Richard E. Debski, Savio L-Y. Woo: An Experimental and Analytical Evaluation of the Nonlinear Viscoelastic Properties of the Healing Medial Collateral Ligament in a Goat Model.

Jesse A. Fisk, Melissa L. Rollins, Andrew H. Van Scyoc, Savio L-Y. Woo:
The Effect of Random Skin Motion on Knee Kinematics Calculated with Surface Markers:  A Comparison of Three Marker Sets.

Dr. Kaiming Ye was selected as a vice-chairman of the International Symposium of Combinatorial Bioengineering---Protein Display and Its Development, 2005 International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin, Hawaii, USA. December 15-20, 2005.
Dr. David Vorp is an invited speaker at the International Symposium on Arteriosclerotic Vascular Disease to be held in Sendai, Japan on October 17, 2003.  The title of Dr. Vorp's presentation is, "Aortic Aneurysm - A New Frontier."
BioE Ph.D. candidates Joie Marhefka and Jonathan VandeGeest were selected to receive a $250 travel award to attend the BMES annual meeting in Nashville, TN.  Joie is a student in Dr. Marina Kameneva's lab and Jonathan is working in Dr. David Vorp's lab.
Joie Marhefka, a PhD candidate in Dr. Marina Kameneva's lab, received a NASA-Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium Award.  Joie's project relates to the elucidation of mechanisms underlying microflow drag-reduction.
Dr. Rakie Cham has been selected as a reviewer for the Hewlett International Grant Selection Committee.  Last year, Dr. Cham was a recipient of a Hewlett International Award.
Trevor Snyder, a PhD candidate in Dr. William Wagner's lab, performed at the 500th Artificial Heart Program supported Intra-aortic Balloon Pump/VAD transport with STAT MedEvac. The STAT MedEvac Program is coordinated by  Don Severyn (completing his PhD in Dr. David Vorp's lab). The Artificial Heart Program, which many BioE students such as Trevor Snyder has been providing round-the-clock, on call coverage for this service for the past 9 years, average ~50 transports a year.
Drs. Kaiming Ye and Jerome Schultz are reported in the September issue of Modern Drug Discovery, published by the American Chemical Society.  The title of the news report is "GIP and Glucose."
Dr. Jiro Nagatomi was awarded a two year grant from the Paralyzed Veterans of America's Spinal Cord Research Foundation entitled, "Integrative Investigation of the Molecular and Biomechanical Alterations in the Urinary Bladder Following Spinal Cord Injury.  This award is effective October 1, 2003.
Dr. Guy Slama has been awarded a 5 year, $2.3 million BRP grant entitled, "High-Speed Depth-Resolved Images of Cardiac Electrophysiology."  Dr. Guy Salama's collaborators include Drs. Alan Waggoner, Lauren Ernst and Fred Lanni at CMU.
BioE graduate students Mohammed El-Kurdi (working in Dr. David Vorp's lab) and Allison Heubusch (first year graduate student) have been chosen to receive a $100 Book Scholarship Award.
The following student research awards announced by Dr. Rory Cooper Yusheng Yang: American Society of Biomechanics - Student Scientific Paper Travel Award.  Cleopatra Nacopoulos: Biomedical Engineering Society - Student Travel Award to Present her Bioengineering Undergraduate Summer Internship Project.
Dr. Michael Sacks has been elected for another three year term as Associate Editor of the JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICAL ENGINEERING beginning on January 1, 2004.
Dr. George Stetten has been awarded an NIH Bioengineering Research Grant entitled, "Guiding Vascular Access with the Sonic Flashlight."
August 2003 Dr. George Stetten has been appointed to a Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellowship effective September 1, 2003 for two years.  Dean Holder states, "This appointment is in recognition of  your outstanding productivity as a member of the faculty.  Further, it reflects the strong support of your faculty colleagues and Chairman."  Dr. Stetten joins Dr. Michael Sacks who also holds a Faculty Fellowship in the School of Engineering.
Dr. Rory Cooper and colleagues VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Center proposal was successfully renewed for another five years (July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2009) at a total direct cost of $4,250,000.  Dr. Michael Boninger was his partner in this endeavor.
Dr. David Smith who completed his PhD in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab in 2001 is currently employed by Ethicon Endo-Surgery in Cincinnati, OH. Dr. Smith states about his current job:  "I'm working for what we're calling the Advanced Analytics Team, which is part of the Design Excellence Division Excellence Division of R&D.  Design Excellence is essentially anew concept intended to bring the fundamentals of design for six sigma to our operations.  Advanced Analytics fits into that aim via computational analysis, as well as general analytical thinking and consultation.  it's a very good gig."
BioE faculty colleague Dr. Jiro Nagatomi is the 1st author on a publication in this month's ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.  Nagatomi J, Arulanandam BP, Metzer DW, Meunier A and Bizios R. Cyclic Pressure Affects Osteobalst Functions Pertinent to Osteogenesis.  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 31:917-923, 2003.
Aaron Cois, BioE graduate student in Dr. George Stetten's lab has received runner up for best student poster at the Vision and Autonomous Systems Center (VASC) retreat, sponsored by the CMU Robotics Institute.  The poster is based on a paper accepted for oral presentation at the 2003 Medical Image Computing & Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) conference, entitled "C-mode Real Time Tomographic Reflection for a Matrix Array Ultrasound Sonic Flashlight."  Paper authors include Dr. George Stetten, Aaron Cois, BioE MD, a PhD candidate Wilson Chang, former BioE undergraduate student, Damion Shelton, BioE PhD candidate Robert Tamburo, John Castellucci and Olaf von Ramm.
BioE Student Robyn Bates is co-author on the following recent publication:  Wang HE, Kupas DF, Paris PM, Bates RR and Yealy DM.  "Preliminary Experience with a Protective, Multi-centered Evaluation of Out-of-Hospital Endotracheal Intubation."  Resuscitation 58 (2003) 49-58.

Recent publications for Drs. Michael Boninger's and Rory Cooper's publications from the Human Energy Research Lab:

Cooper RA, Wolf E, Fitzerald SG, Boninger ML, Ulerich R, Ammer WA, Seat and Footrest Accelerations in Manual Wheelchairs With and WIthout Suspension, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilition, Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 96-102, January 2003.

Wainner RS, Fritz JM, Irrgang JJ, Boninger ML, Dekutti A, Allison S, Reliability and Diagnostic Accuracy of the Clinical Examination and Patient Self-Report Measures for Cervical Radiculopathy, Spine, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 52-62, January 2003.

Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Cooper R, Robertson RN, Baldini FD, Wheelchair Racing Efficiency, Disability and Rehabilitation, Vol. 25, Nos. 4-5, pp. 207-212, February 18-March 4, 2003.

Boninger ML, Cooper RA, Fitzgerald SG, Lin J, Cooper R, Dicianno B, Liu B, Investigating Neck Pain in Wheechair Users, American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Vol. 82, No. 3, pp. 197-202, March 2003.

Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Cooper R, Dobson A, Kessler J, Schmeler M, Fitzgerald SG, Technical Perspectives: Use of the Independence(tm) 3000 IBOT(tm) Transporter at Home and in the Community, Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 79-85, Spring 2003.

Corfman TA, Cooper RA, Boninger ML, Koontz AM, Fitzgerald SG, Range of Motion and Stroke Frequency Differences Between Manual Wheelchair Propulsion and Pushrim Activated Power Assisted Wheelchair Propulsion, Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, Vol. 26, No. 2, Summer 2003.

Recent publications co-authored by BioE graduate students in the MSRC. Faculty advisors are Drs. Richard Debski and Savio Woo:

Costic RS, Jari R, Rodosky MW, Debski RE: Joint compression alters the kinematics and loading patterns of the intact and capsule-transected AC joint.  Journal of Orthopaedic Research.  2003 May; 21 (3): 379-85.

Debski RE, Moore SM, Mercer JL, Sacks MS, McMahon PJ; The collagen fibers of the anteroinferior capsulolabrum have multiaxial orientation to resist shoulder dislocation.  Journal of Shoulder Elbow Surgery. 2003 May-Jun; 12(3):247-52.

Abramowitch SD, Papageorgiou CS, Debski RE, Clineff TD, Woo SL-Y: A biomechanical and histological evaluation of the structure and function of the healing medial collateral ligament in a goat model.  Knee Surgery Sports Traumatology and Arthroscopy. 2003 May; 11(3):155-62.

Abramowitch SD, Papageorgiou CD, Withrow JD, Gilbert TW, Woo SL-Y: The effect of initial graft tension on the biomechanical properties of a healing ACL replacement graft: a study in goats. Journal of Orthopaedic Research. 2003 Jul;21(4):708-15.

A Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP) grant was awarded by the NIH/NHLBI to Dr. William Wagner and a collaborative group from the University of Pittsburgh and Children's Hospital for a project entitled "Cardiopulmonary Organ Engineering".  The grant is for a five year period with total costs of $4.9 million, and brings together local expertise in biomaterials, biomechanics, cardiac and vascular tissue engineering, imaging , stem cell biology, and surgical models.  The group is comprised of several bioengineering faculty members and associates including: Drs. David Vorp, Michael Sacks, Johnny Huard, Eric Beckman, Alan Russell and Liza Villanueva.
July 2003

BioE faculty and students were very prominent at two side-by-side International Conferences in Bethesda, MD (Second International Interdisciplinary Conference on Cardiovascular Medicine and Science and First International Conference on Medical Implants).

Drs. James Antaki and Marina Kameneva organized three Scientific Sessions at these conferences: "Drag-Reducing Polymers in Blood Circulation"; "Response of Blood to Mechanical Circulatory Support I" and "Response of Blood to Mechanical Circulatory Support II"

Dr. William Federspiel was a Co-chair of the session "Cardio-Pulmonary Mechanics." Dr. David Vorp was a Co-chair of the session "Atherosclerosis: Mechanism of Initiation and Development."  

There were several slide presentations delivered by BioE faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate):

Introduction of MMP Expression in Porcine Carotid Arteries by Longitudinal Cyclic Stretching: Implications for Vascular Pathology. (D.W. Hamilton, M. S. El Kurdi, L. Du, E. Pekarcik, R. Toth, D. A. Vorp)

Drag-Reducing Polymers in Blood Circulation. (Keynote Speech) (Marina V. Kameneva

Effect of Drag Reducing Polymers on Micro Scale Flow Behavior of Red Blood Cells. (ZJ Wu, R Zhao, T. Bachman, A Fu, P Marascalco, JF Antaki, MV Kameneva)

Study of the Interaction of Drag-Reducing Polymers (DRP) and Red Blood Cells (RBC). (JN Marhefka, PJ Marascalco, DK Arnold, MV Kameneva)

High Molecular Weight Polyethylene Glycol Effect on Filterability of Normal and Pathological Red Blood Cells (RBCs). (PJ Marascalco, JN Marhefka, N Narayana, TM Cotroneo, MV Kameneva)

Influence of Morphometric Measurement Technique on Mathematical Descriptions of Middle Ear Gas Exchange. (SC Kanick, SN Ghadiali, JD Swarts, WJ Doyle, WJ Federspiel)

Microfabrication of Biohybrid Artificial Alveolar Capillary Modules. (KA Henchir, WR Wagner, WJ Federspiel)

Enhanced Gas Exchanged in an Emergency Respiratory Support Lung. (RG Svitek, BJ Frankowski, WJ Federspiel)

Implementation of a Biaxial Constitutive Model in A Finite Element Model of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Tissue (J. P. Vandegeest, E. S. Di Martino, W. Sun, M. S. Sacks, D. A. Vorp)

Blood Cell Tracking Velocimetry for Studying Flow-Induced Blood Damage Dynamics. (ZJ Wu, R Zhao, MV Kameneva, JF Antaki)

Leukocyte Activation Following Bovine VAD Implantation. (Trevor Snyder, Kenneth Litwak, Shin'Ichiro Kihara, William Wagner)

Red Blood Cell Survival in Assisted Circulation. (Marina V. Kameneva)

Drs. DiMartino and David Vorp's publication in the current ANNALS FO BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.  Di Martino ES and Vorp DA.  "Effect of Variation in Intraluminal Thrombus Constitutive Properties on Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Wall Stress." Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 31:804-809, 2003.
Dr. Kacey Marra was awarded her second patent.  U.S. Paten, 6,583,251, Chaikof, E.L.; Marra, K.G.; Chon, J.H. "Modular Cytomimetic Biomaterials, Transport Studies, Preparation and Utilization THereof," issued June 24, 2003.
Dr. Rory Cooper earned two gold medals and three silver medals at the 23rd National Veterans Wheelchair Games; Gold in 100m wheelchair race, and 50m breast stroke; Silver in the Slalom (obstacle course for wheelchairs), 50m freestyle and 50m backstroke. 
Drs. Kaiming Ye and Jerome Schultz research regarding genetically engineering new glucose biosensors is reported in the July 15, 2003 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Dr. David Brienza has been awarded a five-year NIH RO1 granted entitled, "RCT on preventing pressure ulcers with seat cushions."
BioE PhD candidate, Wei Sun won Second Place at the recent ASME Summer Bioengineering Ph.D student contest in Miami, FL.  There were 87 Ph.D student abstracts presented, and awards were presented in three categories (Heat and Mass transfer, Tissue Biomechanics, Cell and Tissue engineering).  Mr. Sun was placed int he Tissue Biomechanics track and competed with 30 other doctoral students in t his category.  Mr. Sun is completing his PhD research in Dr. Michael Sacks' lab.
Dr. Rory Cooper was presented with an award at the annual RESNA 26th International Conference during the RESNA awards ceremony held in Atlanta, GA.  He was honored by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Research and Development Office, "For pioneering work in coalescing contemporary knowledge across multiple disciplines and for selfless dedication to building careers of young scientists with the VA Healthcare System."

The Magnuson Award which is the highest award given by the VA for Rehabilitation Research and Development, includes a $5,000 cash prize and $150,000 for research and development support.  It is given "In recognition of Outstanding Rehabilitation Research Dedicated to Seeking New Knowledge To Benefit the Nation's Veterans".

Drs James Antaki and J. Robert Boston recent publication, Baloa LA, Boston JR, Simaan MA and Antaki JF. "Performance of an Extended Certainty-Weighted Detection Model."  IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics-Part A: Systems and Humans, vol 33, pp 12-22, 2003.
June 2003 BioE PhD candidate, Wei Sun presented a paper entitled, "FE implementation of Fung elastic model for planar anisotropic biological materials," at the Second Annual MIT Conference on Computational Mechanics on June 19, 2003.
Dr. Michael Sacks has been awarded three NIH grants. 

(1) Fluid-structure simulation for prosthetic heart valves, NIH RO1 (NHLBI), July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2007.  The goal of this project (between U Iowa and Pitt) is to develop a comprehensive solid-fluid coupled model of the native and bioprosthetic heart valve.

(2) "Functional Tissue Engineering for Stress Incontinence," NIH RO1, May 1, 2003 through November 30, 2008.  The goal of this project at Pitt is to develop organized, functional tissue engineered repair biomaterials for urinary incontinence. 

3) "Biocompatible Heterograph Biomaterials," NIH RO1, August 1, 2003 through July 31, 2008.  The goal of this project (between Children's Hospital of PA and Pitt) is to develop and evaluate novel heterograft biomaterials for bioprosthesthetic heart valves.

Dr. Jack Patzer has been awarded a grant from NIH (1 RO1 DK063244) entitled, "Bound Soluate Dialysis," for the period July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2007.
BioE undergraduate student, Sara Doll has been accepted to the NIMH Undergraduate Fellowship Program in Mental Health Research for the 2003-04 academic year.
May 2003 Drs.  Ye Kaiming and Jerome Schultz have two papers that will be published in the following journals: 

Kaiming Ye, Harpreet, K.D., Joseph Suhan, and Schultz, S.J. (2003).  Effect of pH on infectivity and morphology of ecotropic moloney murine leukemia virus.  Biotech Progress. 19: 538-543

Kaiming Ye and Schultz S. Jerome (2003).  Genetic engineering of an allosteric-based glucose indictor protein for continuing glucose monitoring by fluorescence resonance energy transfer.  Analytical Chemistry. In press.

BioE PhD candidate, Nicolas Perrusquia, is co-author on an accepted journal article entitled, "Microstructure and Mechanical Behavior of Laser-welded 6061 Aluminum Alloy Blanks," authored by N.Q. Wu, Cedrix Xia, Ming Li, Nicolas Perrusquia and Scott X. Mao.  The article will appear in the Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology (ASME).  This work was conducted under the direction of Dr. Scott X. Mao.
MD/PhD candidate Samuel Clanton, "Speeding Up The Scientific Process," appeared in Linux Journal, June 2003.  Featured on the cover was a photograph taken by Mr. Clanton of a system he worked on at NASA for controlling devices using a subject's EEG.  Mr. Clanton's is working in Dr. George Stetten's lab.
BioE PhD Candidate, Philip Marascalco received the "Best Poster" award at the First Annual Richard L. Simmons Lecture in Surgical Science.  The title of Mr. Marascalco's poster is "Effects of Blood Soluble Drag-Reducing Polymers on Hemodynamics and Hemorheology in Normal and Diabetic Rats."
BioE Graduate student Thomas Payne will receive a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award from the American Heart Association.  The title of Mr. Payne's proposal is "Muscle-Derived Stem Cells for Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine."  The reviewers of Mr. Payne's proposal were extremely complimentary of his graduate academic record and research plan, which is under the direction of Dr. Leaf Huard.
Drs Patrick Loughlin and Mark Redfern are the guest editors for the March/April IEEE EMB Magazine.  They have assembled a series of 11 articles on the topic, "Analysis & Modeling of Human Postural Control."  One of the papers is entitled, "Nonstationarities of Postural Sway," and is authored by Drs Loughlin, Redfern and Joseph Furman."
Dr. George Stetten has been awarded a BRG grant from NIH (NIBIB).  Title "Tomographic Reflection for Image Guided Intervention (1-RO1-EB00860-1)". May 15, 2003 through March 15, 2007 for $1.67 million.
April 2003 BioE Ph.D student, Trevor Snyder won the student abstract competition for the Cardiovascular Biomaterials Special Interest Group for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Biomaterials to be held in Reno, NV.  Dr. William Wagner is Mr. Snyder's research advisor.
BioE Ph.D candidate,  Andy Rentschler, was chosen as one of the winners for the RESNA 2003 Student Scientific Paper competition sponsored by the Whitaker Foundation.  The title of Mr. Rentschler's paper is, "Evaluation of the VA-PAMAID Robotic Walker".  Dr. Rory Cooper is Mr. Rentschler's thesis advisor.
BioE graduate student, Mariah Hout successfully defended her PhD thesis.  The title is, "Selective Antibody Removal from Blood Plasma and Buffer Using Hollow Fiber-Based Specific Antibody Filters."  Dr. William Federspiel is her advisor and served as the Committee chair.  Other Committee members were Drs.  Allan Russell, William Wagner and Adriana Zeevi.
Ron Jankowski successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled, "Development of a Muscle Progenitor Cell-Based Therapeutic Approach for the Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence.Dr. Johnny Huard served as the Committee Chair and thesis advisor.
BioE graduate student, Ryan Costic successfully defended his Master's thesis.  His thesis entitled, "Functional Evaluation of the Intact, Injured and Reconstructed Acromioclavicular Joint."  Committee:   Mark W. Rodosky, MD., Lars Gilbertson, PhD, Gina Bertocci, PhD, Richard Debski, PhD (thesis advisor).
BioE undergraduate, Dan Debrah has been selected as a Beckman Scholar for the 2003-2004 academic years.  The Beckman Scholarship is among the most prestigious awarded to an undergraduate student.  Dan will continue his work in Dr. Sanjeev Shroff's lab for the upcoming year.  Graduating senior, Nima Salari and former BioE undergrad, Damian Shelton were past Beckman Scholars.
BioE graduate student, Tiffany Sellaro successfully defended her MS thesis.  The title is: The effects of collagen orientation on the medium-term fatigue response of heart valve biomaterial.  Dr. Michael Sacks is her advisor.
A new publication issued by two BioE  graduate students, George Engelmayr and Dan Hildebrand from Dr. Michael Sacks' lab:  Engelmayr GC, Hildebrand DK, Sutherland FWH, Mayer JE and Sacks ME.  A Novel Bioreactor for the Dynamic Flexural Stimulation of Tissue Engineered Heart Valve Biomaterials.  BIOMATERIALS 24 (2003) 2523-2532
Three BioE graduate students have been selected to receive 2003 American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (ASAIO) Biomedical Engineering students fellowships which is sponsored by The Whitaker Foundation.  Mohammed El-Kurdi, advisor Dr. David Vorp; Philip Marascalco, advisor Dr. Marina Kameneva and Joie Marhefka, advisor Dr. Marina Kameneva.
Kristir Henchir, a PhD Student in Dr.William  Federspiel's lab won second place for her poster presentation at the BMES Symposium.
Three BioE students at the BMES Symposium won MSRC prizes.  Steven Abramowitch and Susan Moore won first and second place for their podium presentations and Tom GIlbert won first place for his poster presentation.
Ryan Costic, who is a student @MSRC, worked on a project that recently won the Achilles Orthopedic Sports Medicine Award from ISAKOS (International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopedic Sports Medicine) in recognition for a researcher who has performed the most outstanding clinical or laboratory research in the filed of orthopedic sports medicine.  The title of the award paper is "Biomechanical Evaluation of Three Common Reconstruction Procedures for Complete Dislocations of the Acromicoclavicular Joint" by Raj Jari, Ryan Costic, Mark Rodosky, and Richard Debski (BioE Faculty Advisor).
Dr. Rakie' Cham was selected by the Hewlett International Faculty Committee to receive a Hewlett International Travel Grant to speak at the International Society for Postural & Gait Research meeting in Australia.
BioE PhD student, Steven Abramowitch is a co-author on a recently published paper in Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology and Arthroscopy.  The complete reference is:  Musahl V, Abramowitch SD, Gabriel MT, Debski RE, Hertel P, Fu FH, Woo, SL-Y: Tensile properties of an anterior cruciate ligament graft after bone-patellar tendon-bone press-fit fixation.  Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 11:68-74, 2003.  Mr. Abramowitch is advised by Dr. Savio Woo.
March 2003 BioE MD, PhD student, Greg Weller, successfully defended his PhD dissertation.  The title of Dr. Weller's thesis is, "Development and Characterization of Ultrasound Contrast Microbubbles Targeted to Dysfunctional Endothelium."  Dr. William Wagner served as the principal thesis adviser.
BioE MD, PhD graduate student,  Wesley Sivak, was selected to receive a Whitaker Foundation Graduate Fellowship.  The duration of the Fellowship is three years.  Mr. Sivak is working under the direction of Dr. Eric Beckman.
Emily Miner, a BioE undergraduate working in Dr. David Vorp's lab, was awarded the best undergraduate poster presentation at the ETG meeting.  Ms. Miner's poster (authored by Miner, Hamilton and Vorp) was entitled "The Influence of Cyclic Strain on Human Bone marrow Derived Progenitor Cells."
Karin Corsi, a BioE graduate student in Dr. Johnny Huard's lab was awarded a post-graduate Scholarship award (PGS B) for a period of two years by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Last Year's senior design projects, the A-MED (drug dispenser for patients with Alzheimer's disease), received Honorable Mention in the NATIONAL COLLEGIATE INVENTORS AND INNOVATORS ALLIANCE'S CEO Technology Entrepreneurship Awards competition.  BioE undergraduate students participating in this work are Erica Authier, Frank Freker and Rebecca Green
The 33rd Annual Donald Katz Lectureship in Chemical Engineering will be presented by Jerome Schultz on April 11, 2003, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
BioE undergraduate student Melissa Barrell Georgi, who graduated in April 2001 has been accepted to the SUNY Stony Brook Ph.D Program in BioE.
Mr. Mohammed El-Kurdi, a BioE graduate student working in Dr. David Vorp's lab, has had his abstract entitled: "Short-Term Effects of Diminished Pulsatile Perfusion on Arterial Structural Protein Content," accepted for a slide presentation at this June's annual meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs.  Erin Pekarick, a current BioE senior and accepted graduate student for the fall, is a co-author.
Several BioE graduate students shared 1st place at the poster session at the MIRM Retreat.  Kristie Henchir, a BioE PhD student in Dr. William Federspiel's lab and Alexa Polk, a BioE PhD student in Dr. William Wagner's lab, won 1st place for their poster entitled, "Toward Biohybrid Artifical Lungs."  Sharing 1st place was BioE PhD student Tim Deglau for his poster entitled, "Surface Modification of Vascular Tissue for Targeted Delivery of Cells and Microspheres."  Mr. Deglau's reasearch adviser is Dr. William Wagner.
BioE graduate student Jonathan Vande Geest is one of 22 graduate students selected nationwide to participate in the 53rd meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany later this year.  Mr. Vande Geest will spend mornings attending lectures, and afternoons will be dedicated to informal meetings with Nobel Laureates.  Mr. Vande Geet's participation is funded through the Oak Ridge Associated Universities.  Dr. Klinzing's office handled the nomination process fir Mr. Vande Geest.
The Artificial Heart Program @UPMC received the 2003 Health Care Hero Award in the medical professional/non-physician category.  The team includes: bioengineer Steve Winowich, the program's clinical director, BioE PhD student Donald Severyn and BioE faculty Dr. Richard Schaub.  Also, former BioE graduate student Dr. Linda Baker was honored as one of the five finalists in the health care innovation and research category.
Two BioE Ph.D students working in Professor Kameneva's lab will be making presentations at this June's annual meeting of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs in Washington, D.C.  Phil  Marascalco will give a slide presentation entitled, "Effect of Drag Reducing Polymers (DRPs) on Red Blood Cell (RBC) Filterability.Joie Marhefka will present a poster entitles, "Effect of Drag-Reducing Polymers (DRP) on Blood Flow in Model of Blood Vessels."
February 2003 Dr. James Wang has two publications in this month's JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS:  J.H.-C Wang, F. Jia, T.W. Gilbert and S.L.-Y, Woo, "Cell orientation determines the alignment of cell-produced collagenous matrix" JBIOMECH 2003; 36:97-102 and B.H. Campbell, W.W. Clark and J.H.-C. Wang, "A multi-station culture force monitor system to study cellylar contractility."  JBIOMECH 2003; 36:137-140.  

BioE PhD graduate student Tom Gilbert is a co-author on the first paper with Dr. Wang and Professor Woo.  BioE M.S. graduate (and current Pitt medical student) Brian Campbell is the first author on the second article.

   
  Dr. David Vorp presented a paper "Computer Modeling Offers a Noninvasive Evaluation For Rupture Potential Of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms" in Stockholm, Sweden.  The study details a new computational tool to predict the rupture potential for individual abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), an advance that could positively impact the lives of thousands of patients a year.
   
  Daniel Debrah, an outstanding undergraduate BioE student, has been awarded an undergraduate NIH research fellowship effective February 1, 2003.  Mr. Debrah is undertaking research in Dr. Sanjeev Shroff's lab.  Mr. Debrah is mentored by Professor Shroff and Professor Kirk Conrad.
 
January 2003 The full-time clinical staff of the Artificial Heart Program (AHP) have been selected as one of the five finalists in the 2003 Health Care Hero Awards sponsored by the Pittsburgh Business Times.  The clinical staff were nominated in the MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL - NON PHYSICIAN section by Lisa Rossi.  The finalists will be honored at an awards ceremony on Thursday, March 6, 2003 at the Sheraton in Station Square, Pittsburgh, PA. The full-time AHP clinical staff include BioE faculty Dr. Richard Schaub, BioE PhD. student Don Severyn and AHP BioE Director Steve Winowich.
   
  Dorothy Claire Gloeckner successfully defended her PhD dissertation on January 22, 2003.  The title of her dissertation is "Tissue Biomechanics of the Urinary Bladder Wall".  Dr. Michael Sacks was Dr. Gloeckner's adviser.
   
  Casey Hetrick who graduated with a dual B.S. in BioE and Chem E this past December 2002 has been hired by Compact Membrane Systems (CMS), Inc. Newark, DE.  Ms. Hetrick is our second BS graduate to be employed by CMS.  Christina Sander who graduated last Spring 2002 is also employed by CMS.
   
  J. Scott Van Epps, who is a MD/PhD student who will be enrolling in Bioengineering in the fall, did a research rotation with Dr. David Vorp this past summer and had two abstracts accepted.  One is for poster presentation at the Engineering Tissues conference (presented by Bob Nerem at Hilton Head) and the other for oral presentation at the Engineered Tissue Growth conference in Pittsburgh, PA.
   
  A figure in Dr. Michael Sacks' article "Surface Strains in the Anterior Leaflet of the Functioning Mitral Valve" is in this January issue of the ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING.  It is also presented on the front cover of the journal.  The authors of this paper are M. Sacks, Z. He, L. Baijens, S. Wanant, P. Shah, H. Sugimoto and A. Yoganathan.  Mr. Sugimoto is a BioE graduate student who is completing his MS in Dr. Sacks' lab.  Ms. Wanant is a MD, PhD student @ Emory-GA Tech and also a former BioE undergraduate here at Pitt.  She was a member of our first BS graduating class.
   
  Drs. Michael Boninger and Leaf Huang were elected Fellow of AIMBE Class of 2003.
   
  The University of Pittsburgh's Bioengineering Department was very well represented at the ASME student award competitions.  Of the 12 graduate entries, 3 (25%) were our BioE graduate students.  Of the 6 winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd place for each of the MS and PhD contests), 2 (33%) were our students.
   
  Claire Gloeckner, who is Dr. Michael Sacks' student, won 2nd place in the ASME Bioengineering Ph.D. student paper contest for her work on Bladder Wall Constitutive Modeling.
   
  Jonathan Vande Geese who works in Dr, David Vorps's lab won first place in the MS-level student paper contest of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Bioengineering Division at this year's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition.  He was one of 6 students chosen from a field of many to compete, and won first place for his paper entitled "Age-Related Differences in The Biaxial Biomechanical Behavior of Human Abdominal Aorta".
   
December 2002 Dr. George Stetten has been awarded two contracts form the National Library of Medicine: $88,000 for "Methods in Medical Image Analysis:  An ITK-Based Course with Deliverable Algorithms,"  and $100,000 for "Real Time 3D Echocardiographic Data with Semi-Automated Boundary Tracking Algorithms."
   
  Dr. Rory Cooper has announced that his and BioE's former graduate student, Brad Lawrence has now completed his PhD @ North Carolina State.  Dr. Lawrence is currently employed by IBM, Human Factors & User Centered Design, Storage Systems Group in North Carolina.
   
  Carl Engman successfully defended his master's thesis entitled, "Immunoprotection of Pancreatic Islets by Covalent Modification with PEG."  Mr. Engman performed this work in Dr. William Wagner's lab.
   
  Dr. Marina Kameneva has received an Innovation Award from the American Association, National Office, for her project entitled, "Application of blood soluble drag-reducing polymers for treatment of impaired microcirculation in diabetes."
   
November 2002 BioE graduate student Claire Gloeckner won 2nd place in the ASME Bioengineering PhD. student presentation contest for the work she is conducting in Dr. Michael Sack's lab on Bladder Wall Constitutive Modeling.
   
  BioE graduate student Jonathan Vande Geest won first place in the MS-level student paper contest of the ASME Bioengineering Division at this year's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition.  He was one of 6 students chosen from a field of many to compete, and won first place for this paper entitled "Age-Related Differences In The Biaxial Biomechanical Behavior Of Human Abdominal Aorta".
   
  In the newly published Textbook of Sports Medicine, BioE is pleased to announce a new book chapter reference which is co-authored by one of our BioE PhD candidates, Steve Abramowitch.  (Peter Magnusson, Timo Takala, Steven D. Abramowitch, John C. Loh, and Savio L-Y Woo:  "Connective Tissue in Ligaments, Tendon and Muscle:  Physiology and Repair, and Musculoskeletal Flexibility, in Textbook of Sports Medicine".  Ed. M. Kjaer, M. Krogsgaard, P. Magnussom, L. Engebretsen, H. Roos, T. Takala and S. L-Y. Woo, ,Blackwell Science, Oxford, United Kingdom, November 2002.)  Mr. Abramowitch is performing his PhD research in MSRC.
   
  Jiro Nagatomi, Research Assistant Professor in BioE who is collaborating with Dr. Michael Sacks, has been awarded a travel fellowship to attend the Society for Basic Urologic Research Fall Symposium and present his paper entitled, "Spinal Cord Injury Indices Early Changes in Urinary Bladder Wall Composition."
   
  Greg Weller recently cited a new peer-reviewed publication.  Greg is completing this PhD in Dr. William Wagner's lab.  Weller GER, Villanueva FS, Klibanov AL and Wagner WR: "Modulating Target Adhesion of an Ultrasound Contrast Agent to Dysfunctional Endothelium."  ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING 30:pp, 1012-1019, 2002.
   
October 2002 Bridget Deasy was awarded a Biomedical Engineering Society Graduate Student Travel Award for her paper entitled "Modeling Stem Cell Population Growth:  Incorporating Terms for Cell Quiescence, Differentiation, Senescence and Apoptosis."
   
  Greg Weller, BioE PhD student in Dr. William Wagner's lab made the following two presentations at the EMBS-BMES meeting Houston, TX:  "Shear and ICAM-1 Expression Modulate Adhesion of Ultrasound Contrast Microbubbles Targeted to Dysfunctional Endothelium" and "Ultrasound Contrast Microbubbles Targeted to Tumor Angiogenesis Specifically Bind Tumor-Derived Endothelial Cells"
   
  George Engelmayer, BioE PhD student in Dr. Michael Sack's lab presented the following paper at the EMBS-BMES meeting in Houston in October 2002,  "Dynamic Flexure Bioreactor: A Novel Bioreactor for the Dynamic Flexural Stimulation of Tissue Engineered Heart Valve Biomaterials."
   
  Rachelle Prantil, BioE PhD student working in Dr. David Vorp's lab, made the following presentation at the EMBS-BMES meeting in Houston, TX, "Effects of Diabetes Mellitus on the Biomechanical Properties of the Female Rat Urethra."
   
  Bridget Deasy, BioE PhD student working in Dr. Johnny Huard's lab, presented the following paper at the EMBS-BMES meeting in Houston, TX, "Modeling Stem Cell Population Growth:  Incorporating Terms for Cell Quiescence, Differentiation, Senescence and Apoptosis."
   
  Greg Weller, BioE PhD student from Dr. William Wagner's lab, is the lead author of an article in the September 2002 issue of Annals of Biomedical Engineering online: Weller GER, Villanueva FS, Klibanov AL, Wagner WR: "Modulating targeting adhesion of an ultrasound contrast agent to dysfunctional endothelium". Annals of Biomedical Engineering 30:1012-1019 (2002).
   
  A figure from Dr. Michael Sacks publication will be featured on the cover of ABME. (2nd time).  Dr. Sacks work will be the cover figure for the November/December issue.
   
  Ron Jankowski, BioE PhD student from Dr. Johnny Huard's lab, has the following recent publications in the Journal of Cell Science:  Jankowski RJ, Deasy BM, Cao B, Gates C, Huard J: "The role of CD34 expression and cellular fusion in the regeneration capacity of myogenic progenitor cells".  Journal of Cell Science 115(Pt 22): 4361-4374, (2002).  Also, this article and a corresponding figure was chosen to be featured on the cover.
   
  Brian Campbell, BioE graduate student from Dr. James Wang lab, has just been notified that the following manuscript has been accepted in THE JOURNAL OF BIOMECHANICS:  "A MultiStation Culture Force Monitor System to Study Cellular Contractility"  The authors of this paper are Brian H. Campbell, William W. Clark and James H-C Wang.  Brian is currently a 1st year medical student at Pitt.
   
September 2002  Dr. David Wang (former student of Dr. David Vorp) recently defended his PhD thesis: David H.J. Wang, Michel S. Makaroun, a Marshall W. Webster, and David A. Vorp: "Effect of intraluminal thrombus on wall stress in patient-specific models of abdominal aortic aneurysm." JOURNAL OF VASCULAR SURGERY 2002;36:598-604.
   
  Robyn Bates and Prophete Charles (both advised by Drs. Sclabassi and Mingui Sun) presented papers at the 21st Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference.
   
  Joie Marhefka and Phil Marascalco, BioE graduate students (both advised by Dr. Marina Kameneva) presented at the Twenty-First Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference at the Bethesda Hyatt Regency, Bethesda, MD, September 28-29, 2002.  Presentations were "Molecular Characteristics and Drag Reducing Ability of Polyethylene Oxides" (Joie N. Marhefka, Philip J. Marascalco, Marina V. Kameneva) and "Effect of Drag Reducing Polymers (DRPs) on Red Blood Cell (RBC) Filterability" (Philip J. Marascalco, Kara L. Pensenstadler, Garrett C. Smith, Steven A. Baer, Joie N. Marhefka, Zhongjun J. Wu, Marina V. Kameneva)
   
  Dr. Mark Redfern informed BioE that John Jolly has won the Rita Schaffer Award from the BMES.  Professor Redfern submitted Mr. Jolly's name a few months ago.  In addition to an award certificate, Mr.  Jolly also received $200. For those who may not know, Rita Schaffer served as Executive Director of BMES for many years until her very untimely passing.  Ms. Schaffer was totally devoted to BMES and bioengineering.
   
June 2002 BioE PhD candidate, Claire Gloeckner, has been selected as one of 6 finalists for the PhD student award of the ASME Bioengineering Division.  The final paper presentations and selection of awardees will be made at the ASME meeting in November 2002.  Ms. Gloeckner's PhD adviser is Dr. Michael Sacks.
   
  BioE PhD candidate, Stephanie Kute, has been selected as one of 6 finalists for the PhD student award of the ASME Bioengineering Division.  The final paper presentations and selection of awardees will be made at the ASME meeting in November 2002.  Ms. Kute's PhD adviser is Dr. David Vorp.
   
  BioE graduate student, Brian Campbell had a poster presentation at the Orthopaedic Research Society in Dallas, Texas 2002 and also made a podium presentation at the Wound Healing Society and European Tissue Repair Society joint meeting in Baltimore, MD 2002. (Brian H. Campbell, James H-C Wang. PGE2 Inhibits Human Tendon Fibroblast Contraction:  A Potential Role in Tendon Healing)
   
  Dr. William Wagner has informed BioE that one of his PhD graduate students, Trevor Snyder has just been awarded first place in the Malchesky Award for the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs (the student presentation competition at the annual society meeting recently held in New York City).  Mr. Snyder was recognized for his work on cardiovascular device biocompatibility analysis.
   
  Steven Abramowitch, a BioE PhD candidate has a recent peer-reviewed publication.  (Papageorgiou, C.D., Ma, B., Abramowitch, S.D., Clineff, T.D. and Woo, S. L-Y.: "A Multi-Disciplinary Study of the Healing of an Intra-Articular Anterior Cruciate Ligament Graft in a Goat Model".  Am. J. of Sports Medicine, 19(5):620-626, 2001.)
   
May 2002 Trevor Snyder, BioE PhD candidate in Dr. William Wagner's lab had a very recent peer-reviewed publication: Snyder TA, Watach MJ, Litwak, KN and Wagner, WR: "Platelet activation, aggregation and life span in calves implanted with axial flow ventricular assist devices".  Annals of Thoracic Surgery 2002;73:1993-8.
   
  Claire Gloeckner, BioE PhD candidate in Dr. Michael Sack's lab had a very recent peer-reviewed publication: D.C. Gloeckner, M.S. Sacks, M.O. Fraser, G.S. Somogyi, W.C. de Groat, M.B. Chancellor, "Passive Biaxial Mechanical Properties of the Rat Urinary Bladder Wall After Spinal Cord Injury," J. Urology, vol. 167, pp. 2247-2252, 2002.
   
  One of our BioE undergraduate students, Benjamin Novak was selected as one of 6 summer interns with the US House Science Committee.  Each intern will work with a different subcommittee and will have a congressman mentor.  Ben will be working with the subcommittee on Research.  He'll be staying at George Washington University for the summer.
   
April 2002 BioE is delighted to announce that the Provost's Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence has chosen to fund Dr. James Antaki's grant application entitled, "A Course in Integrated Bioengineering Design."  Dr. Antaki's award of $20,610 is for the period 9/1/02 - 4/30/03.  According to Dr. Antaki's, senior design students will use these funds to purchase supplies, tools and interact with engineering mentors.
   
  The second place winner in the oral competition at the recent BMES Symposium was "The Effect of Joint Compression on Acromioclavicular Joint Mechanics" Ryan S. Costic, B.S.   Co-authors: Raj Jari, MD, Mark W. Rodosky, MD, Richard E. Debski, PhD; Musculoskeletal Research Center, Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Pittsburgh.
   
  John Jolly and Jennifer Mercer, BioE undergraduates from the Shoulder Dynamics Laboratory at the  MSRC participated and presented excellent work in their poster competition at the BMES Symposium.
   
  Claire Gloeckner  won first place in the podium presentations with her presentation titled "3D Fiber Architecture of the Urinary Bladder Wall" at the BMES Symposium awards in February 2002. 
   
  Greg Fulchiero won first place in the poster sessions on "The Change in Collagen Crimp Length of Bioprosthetic Heart Valve Leaflets Through Accelerated Durability Testing," with his poster session at the BMES Symposium awards in February 2002. 
   
  Sara Doll, BioE undergraduate was awarded an internship for the Fall 2002 in Switzerland through the IAESTE program.
   
  Tom Gilbert and Steve Abramowitch, BioE Graduate students were selected as first and third place winners, respectively, at last week's Engineering Graduate Student Organization (EGSO) Poster Fair.  Mr. Gilbert's poster was "Small Intestinal Submucosa Supports Growth of Tendon Fibroblasts In Vitro."  Mr. Abramowitch's poster was entitled, "The Distribution of Forces between an ACL Graft and Healing MCL after Combined Injury."
   
March 2002 AWARDEES OF THE BIOE CLASS OF 2002:

Outstanding Biosystems Student: Brian Wessel

Outstanding Biotechnology Student: Christina Sander

Outstanding Biomechanics Student: Stephanie Coquia (Also the Fung award winner)

Outstanding BioE Student for 2002Brian Wessel

   
January 2002 Robyn Bates, BioE graduate student was co-author on a paper that was selected:  Winner of a Best Paper Award (Resident/Fellow) at the National Association of EMS Physicians Conference, Tucson, AZ, January 10-12, 2002.  The title of the paper is: "Feasibility of a Prospective, Multi-Center, Evaluation of Prehospital Exdotracheal Intubation," Henry E. Wang, MD, Douglas F. Kupas, MD, Paul M. Paris, MD, Robyn R. Bates, MS, Donald M. Yealy, MD.  Ms. Bates is PhD BioE candidate working in Dr. Scalabassi's lab.