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What's New
9.30.2009 |
Anthony Atala: Grinding Out New Organs One at a Time
Anthony Atala was the first to build a functioning organ from scratch-a bladder made cell by cell-and put it into a patient, a child whose own bladder was congenitally deformed. Since that breakthrough a decade ago, the 50-year-old pediatric urologist, director of Wake Forest University's Institute for Regenerative Medicine, has moved on to cobbling up bones, heart valves, muscles, and some 20 other body parts. |
9.30.2009 |
Building hearts, mapping memories, and restoring vision, these researchers aim high and don't give up
In 25 or 50 or 75 years, maybe today's scourges - cancer, heart disease, diabetes - will have receded into medical lore as 21st-century versions of childbirth fever (it once killed a quarter of the women who delivered at some hospitals) or tuberculosis (the cause of 1 in 4 deaths in Europe in the first half of the 20th century).
If so, thanks will be owed to medical pioneers like the 14 you can read about here - smart, imaginative, and impatient with conventional boundaries. Such cutting-edge scientists are also increasingly well funded, thanks to the new emphasis by the White House and Congress on research. The National Institutes of Health is pumping $10 billion in stimulus funds into the nation's labs, along with some $24 billion already budgeted. Much of the money will go to programs that face steep odds but that, like all long shots, will pay off big if they succeed.
These 14 pioneers have long been deep into such projects, from searching for a way to erase traumatic memories to building new body parts from scratch - long enough that some, like the use of an electromagnet to treat severe depression, deserve a term that researchers hate to use: breakthrough. |
9.3.2009 |
The secrets of the lowly ground beetle could lead to better tissue engineering
Insects are about to be analyzed in a new way by a host of Virginia Tech engineering faculty. They will be using some fancy state-of-the-art equipment, such as a kilometer-long synchrotron x-ray light source, which might be enough to scare any bug. And first up will be beetles, grasshoppers and silk moths because they have some endearing characteristics. |
9.3.2009 |
Virginia’s Tech’s proposed next generation nano-CT system will enhance nano-scale research
In 1991, Ge Wang produced the first paper on spiral cone-beam computed tomography (CT), now an imaging technique used in the mainstream of the medical CT field. Today, Wang, known as a pioneer in this field, and his colleagues have successfully applied for more than $1.3 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop the next-generation nano-CT imaging system which promises to greatly reduce the required dose of radiation. Virginia Tech and Xradia, a leading nano-CT company, are also collaborating on the project with a cost-sharing investment of close to $800,000. |
9.7.2009 |
 Garcia chosen for competition
Congratulations to SBES Student Paulo Garcia for being chosen as the North American Finalist for the EMBS (Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society) student paper competition. Mr. Garcia presented the Pilot study of Irreversible Electroporation for Intracranial Surgery. He is shown in the picture on the right, with his advisor, Rafael Davalos (left). |
9.28.2009 |
Virginia Tech College of Engineering team to design and study liver mimics
Padma Rajagopalan, an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering, is designing liver mimics that eventually could form the basis for extracorporeal liver-assist devices. She is the principal investigator on three recent federal grants totaling $1,087,091 related to liver tissue engineering. |
7.30.2009 |
Virginia Tech's proposed next generation nano-CT system will enhance nano-scale research
In 1991, Ge Wang produced the first paper on spiral cone-beam computed tomography (CT), now an imaging technique used in the mainstream of the medical CT field. Today, Wang, known as a pioneer in this field, and his colleagues have successfully applied for more than $1.3 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop the next-generation nano-CT imaging system which promises to greatly reduce the required dose of radiation. Virginia Tech and Xradia, a leading nano-CT company, are also collaborating on the project with a cost-sharing investment of close to $800,000. |
08.10.2009 |
Announcing the Nano-Bio: The Next Transformative Convergence Conference
This two-day conference, sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), will assemble world leaders in Nano-Bio to exchange ideas, present latest fi
ndings, provide networking opportunities, and charter fruitful directions for future research. |
05.07.2009 |
Pamela M. Stiff is the Winner of the 2009 Dean's Award for the College of Engineering
SBES is delighted to announce this year's winner of the 2009 Dean's Award for the College of Engineering is Pamela M. Stiff, Administrative Assistant to
Dr. Wally Grant, SBES Head. Dean Richard Benson presented Pam with a commemorative plaque in recognition of outstanding contributions in the College at the annual CASE luncheon,
held on May 7th at The Inn at Virginia Tech. |
05.2009 |
Virginia Tech's College of Engineering Announces Faculty Awards
Virginia Tech's College of Engineering held its twelfth annual engineering faculty reception and announced the recipients of numerous teaching, research and service awards for 2009.
Congratulations to Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (SBES) faculty, Raphael Davalos, Clay Gabler, and Maury Nussbaum (Industrial and Systems Engineering).
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05.2009 |
Rafael Davalos Named Outstanding New Assistant Professor
Rafael Davalos of the School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (SBES) was one of five Outstanding New Assistant Professors named. Davalos received the "Most Promising Engineer or Scientist"
Award in 2006 from the national Hispanic Engineering National Achievement Award conference, and his work in the field of cancer research is groundbreaking as a co-developer of the
irreversible electroporation technique, cited by NASA Tech Briefs as one of the top inventions for 2007.
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05.2009 |
Clay Gabler was one six faculty named as recipients of Engineering Faculty Fellows
The award carries a $5000 account for three years to be used for supporting his or her research. Gabler is an internationally recognized expert in crash injury biomechanics, participating in more than $6.9 million in research funding since joining Virginia Tech with his personal share at $2.7 million. Roy, an expert in the areas of verification and validation for scientific computing and computational fluid dynamics, has received a Department of Energy Early Career award in 2005, and in 2006 he earned a NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. |
05.2009 |
Maury Nussbaum Received an Excellence in Research Award
Maury Nussbaum of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) and a SBES core member was one of five to receive an Excellence in Research award. Nussbaum is among the world's leading experts in spine biomechanics and the measurement and modeling of localized muscle fatigue, and directs the Industrial Ergonomics and Biomechanics Laboratory. Scales is responsible for the formation of the Center for Space Science and Engineering Research or Space@VT, a research group on atmospheric science and is considered to be a world expert in the physics of dusty space plasmas, currently believed to be linked to global climate change. |
05.05.2009 |
Congratulations to SBES student Julie Steen!
Julie Anne Steen has been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA). This award is given to individual graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to fund their training in the biomedical sciences. Funding for the award is provided by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases under the National Institute of Health. Julie is a PhD student in SBES. Her thesis work focuses on tissue engineering of the meniscus and is a collaboration between the department of Orthopaedics and the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University. She is co-advised by Dr. Cristin Ferguson and Dr. Mark VanDyke. |
05.05.2009 |
Congratulations to SBES student Kerry Danelson!
Kerry Danelson has been awarded the PEO Scholar Award. The P.E.O. Sisterhood is a philanthropic and educational organization interested in bringing to women increased opportunities for higher education. The P.E.O. Scholar Awards, authorized in 1991, provides substantial merit based awards to women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing doctoral or postdoctoral studies or research. Kerry is a PhD student in SBES and the VT-WFU Center for Injury Biomechanics. Her advisor is Dr. Joel Stitzel. |
04.30.2009 |
SBES student wins NSF Research Fellow
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a graduate research fellowship to a biomedical doctoral student with the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. Cara Buchanan of New Bern, N.C, is in her first year of her Ph.D. studying in the bioheat transfer and nanotherapeutics lab and the musculoskeletal and tissue regeneration lab at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (http://www.sbes.vt.edu). She is developing an in vitro tumor model to study cancer development and environmental effects on tumorigenesis, in addition to possible target drug deliveries. |
04.04.2009 |
2009 Torgersen Graduate Student Research Excellence Award Recipients
SBES students Carolyn Hampton and Michael Sano have been named recipients of the 2009 Torgersen Graduate Student Research Excellence Awards Program held April 4, 2009. The Torgersen award recognizes outstanding research efforts by Virginia Tech graduate engineering students at the MS and PhD level. More than 80 abstracts were submitted and the judges reviewed posters and oral presentations from the finalists. Michael Sano, an ESM student with the Biomedical Option, was awarded First Place in the M.S. Poster competition. Carolyn Hampton was awarded Second Place in the M.S. Oral Presentation competition. Michael is advised by Dr. Rafael Davalos. Carolyn is advised by Dr. H. Clay Gabler. |
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