Tag: Society for Biomaterials

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Penn Bioengineering Student Kaitlin Mrksich Wins Outstanding Research Award from the Society for Biomaterials

Kaitlin Mrksich, an undergraduate student in Penn Bioengineering, was honored with the Student Award for Outstanding Research (Undergraduate) by the Society for Biomaterials (SFB). This prestigious award recognizes undergraduate students who have shown outstanding achievement in biomaterials research.

Mrksich is a third-year student from Hinsdale, Illinois. She is interested in developing drug delivery systems that can serve as novel therapeutics for a variety of diseases. She works in the lab of Michael Mitchell, Associate Professor in Bioengineering. In the Mitchell Lab, Mrksich investigates the ionizable lipid component of lipid nanoparticles for mRNA delivery.

“In Kaitlin’s independent projects, she has focused on probing the role of lipophilicity and chirality for LNP-mediated mRNA delivery,” Mitchell said in the award announcement. “She has synthesized dozens of unique lipids, formulated these lipids into LNPs, and evaluated their potential for mRNA delivery in vivo and in primary T cells. She has been able to deduce structure-function relationships that help explain the role of lipid hydrophobicity in the delivery of mRNA by LNPs. Her findings have not only been instrumental in helping our lab design better LNPs but will also provide fundamental knowledge that will benefit all labs working on LNP technology.”

In addition to her academic activities, Mrksich is also the President of the Penn Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), where she plans community-building and professional-development events for bioengineering majors, and the visit coordinator for special programs for the Kite and Key Society, where she organizes virtual programming to introduce prospective students to Penn. She also tutors a West Philadelphia high school student in chemistry as part of the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project and is a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and Sigma Kappa sorority. After graduating, she plans to pursue an M.D.-Ph.D. in Bioengineering. 

Read the full list of 2024 SFB award recipients here.

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CiPD Fellows Recognized with Research Awards

Members of the inaugural cohort of fellows in the Center for Innovation and Precision Dentistry (CiPD)’s NIDCR T90/R90 Postdoctoral Training Program have been recognized for their research activities with fellows receiving awards from the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR), the Society for Biomaterials, and the Osteology Foundation. All four of the honored postdocs are affiliated with Penn Bioengineering.

Zhi Ren

Zhi Ren won first place in the Fives-Taylor Award at the AADOCR Mini Symposium for Young Investigators. A postdoctoral fellow in the labs of Dr. Hyun (Michel) Koo at Penn Dental Medicine (and member of the Penn Bioengineering Graduate Group) and Dr. Kathleen Stebe of Penn Engineering, Dr. Ren’s research focuses on understanding how bacterial and fungal pathogens interact in the oral cavity to form a sticky plaque biofilm on teeth, which gives rise to severe childhood tooth decay that affects millions of children worldwide. In his award-winning study, titled “Interkingdom Assemblages in Saliva Display Group-Level Migratory Surface Mobility”, Dr. Ren discovered that bacteria and fungi naturally present in the saliva of toddlers with severe decay can form superorganisms able to move and rapidly spread on tooth surfaces.

Justin Burrell

Justin Burrell won second place in the AADOCR Hatton Competition postdoctoral category for his research. Dr. Burrell has been working with Dr. Anh Le in Penn Dental Medicine’s Department of Oral Surgery/Pharmacology and Dr. D. Kacy Cullen of Penn Medicine and Penn Bioengineering. Together, their interdisciplinary team of clinician-scientists, biologists, and neuroengineers have been developing novel therapies to expedite facial nerve regeneration and increase meaningful functional recovery.

Marshall Padilla

Marshall Padilla earned third place at the Society for Biomaterials Postdoctoral Recognition Award Competition for a project titled, “Branched lipid architecture improves lipid-nanoparticle-based mRNA delivery to the liver via enhanced endosomal escape”. Padilla was also a finalist in the AADOCR Hatton Award Competition, presenting on a separate project titled, “Lipid Nanoparticle Optimization for mRNA-based Oral Cancer Therapy”. Both projects employ lipid nanoparticles, the same delivery vehicles used in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine technology. A postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Michael J. Mitchell of Penn’s Department of Bioengineering, Dr. Padilla’s research focuses on developing new ways to enhance the efficacy and safety of lipid nanoparticle technology and its applications in dentistry and biomedicine. He has been working in collaboration with Dr. Shuying (Sheri) Yang and Dr. Anh Le in Penn Dental Medicine.

Dennis Sourvanos

Dennis Sourvanos (GD’23, DScD’23) was the recipient of the Trainee Travel Grant award through the Osteology Foundation (Lucerne Switzerland). Dr. Sourvanos will be presenting his research related to medical dosimetry and tissue regeneration at the International Osteology Symposium in Barcelona, Spain (April 27th – 29th 2023). He also presented at the 2023 AADOCR/CADR Annual Meeting for his project titled, “Validating Head-and-Neck Human-Tissue Optical Properties for Photobiomodulation and Photodynamic Therapies.” Dr. Sourvanos has been working with Dr. Joseph Fiorellini in Penn Dental Medicine’s Department of Periodontics and Dr. Timothy Zhu in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Radiation Oncology and the Smilow Center for Translational Research (and member of the Penn Bioengineering Graduate Group).

Read the full announcement in Penn Dental Medicine News.

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More 2023 SFB STAR Awards for Penn Bioengineering Students

Following up on our recent announcement of two Student Travel Achievement Recognition (STAR) Awards from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB) for members of the lab of Mike Mitchell, we are pleased to announce that two more Penn Bioengineering students also received STAR Awards!

Matthew Aronson and Alexandra Dumas are both members of the lab of Riccardo Gottardi, Assistant Professor in Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine and in Bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Both presented their work at the recent 2023 SFB Annual Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, California in April 2023 and were honored with STAR Awards for their research.

The Gottardi Bioengineering and Biomaterials Laboratory studies treatment and function restoration for children with otolaryngologic disorders through the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia  (CHOP) in the Division of Otolaryngology.

Matthew Aronson

Matthew Aronson is a third-year Ph.D. student in Bioengineering, an Ashton Fellow, and a NSF Fellow. His doctoral research focuses on studying pediatric airway diseases and disorders. More specifically, he is interested in how bacteria of the upper airway are responsible for the development and progression the disease subglottic stenosis, narrowing of the airway. In addition to understanding this devastating disease in the context of pediatric patients at CHOP, he also designed a novel drug-eluting endotracheal tube to deliver a selective antimicrobial peptide to function as a treatment modality for the prevention of the disease.

Alexandra Dumas

Alexandra Dumas is a rising fourth-year undergraduate in Bioengineering from Durban, South Africa. She is a PURM Fellow and a University Scholar. Her recent work in the Gottardi Lab focuses on using decellularized cartilage scaffolds to repair the meniscus and airway. After her undergraduate degree, she hopes to pursue a Ph.D. or M.D.-Ph.D. in bioengineering to pursue the design of new biomaterials for low-resource communities.

 

Read more stories featuring Gottardi and his team here.

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Two Penn Bioengineering Students Win SFB STAR Awards

Congratulations to two Bioengineering graduate students who were awarded Student Travel Achievement Recognition (STAR) Awards from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB). The STAR Award recognizes research excellence and develops future leaders within SFB and comes with a certificate and a monetary award of $250. Penn Bioengineering graduate students Rebecca Haley and Alex Hamilton, both members of the lab of Michael J. Mitchell, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in Bioengineering, received their awards and presented on their research in the SFB annual meeting in April 2023.

Rebecca Haley, Ph.D. student in Bioengineering

Rebecca Haley is a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering and a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. In the Mitchell Lab, she focuses on the use of ionizable lipid nanoparticles for the delivery of protein cargos. Supported by this STAR award, she presented her work delivering small protein RAS-inhibitors that reduce cancer cell proliferation. Rebecca is interested in expanding the applications of lipid nanoparticle technology, allowing currently limited therapeutics to achieve functional delivery and, hopefully, clinical success.

Alex Hamilton, Ph.D. student in Bioengineering

Alex Hamilton is a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Alex’s work in the Mitchell lab focuses on non-viral nucleic acid delivery. His research interests include cancer immunotherapy, vaccines, and fetal-maternal medicine. He is currently engaged in using novel high-throughput screening techniques to accelerate the discovery process for lipid nanoparticle development for a variety of disease applications.

Two more Mitchell Lab members were likewise recognized with honorable mention inn the STAR Awards: Hannah Safford, a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering and NSF Fellow, and Rohan Palanki, a M.D.-Ph.D. student in Bioengineering and NIH Fellow

Learn more about the Mitchell Lab’s research in biomaterials science, drug delivery, and cellular and molecular bioengineering in the lab’s website.

Read more stories featuring Mitchell and his team here.

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Bioengineering Student Savan Patel Receives the 2022 C. William Hall Scholarship

Savan Patel

Savan Patel, a junior studying Bioengineering and Finance in the Jerome Fisher Management and Technology dual degree program, was selected as the recipient of the 2022 C. William Hall Scholarship from the Society for Biomaterials. The C. William Hall Scholarship is named in honor of the Society for Biomaterials’ first president and is awarded annually “to a junior or senior undergraduate pursuing a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering or a related discipline focusing on biomaterials.” As this year’s recipient, Savan will receive complimentary membership to the Society and will have expenses paid to the Society’s annual meeting being held April 27-30, 2022 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Savan is currently a member of the lab of Michael J. Mitchell, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in Bioengineering. Savan’s research interests lie in the interface of drug delivery and immunoengineering with a particular focus on T cell delivery. His current project involves the use of modified cholesterol molecules to improve the delivery of nucleic acids (i.e., mRNA) to cell populations using lipid nanoparticles.

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a clinically proven delivery platform for nucleic acid therapeutics. One drawback of these particles is their high cellular recycling rate. Savan and the members of the Mitchell lab are working to reduce this recycling by leveraging cellular processes and incorporating modified molecules into our lipid nanoparticle formulations. The focus of Savan’s project is on modifying cholesterol, a molecule that is important to both our LNP formulations and cell membranes. The goal is to generate a more potent delivery platform to improve current therapeutics.

Following graduation, Savan intends to pursue a Ph.D. in Bioengineering.

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Michael Mitchell Receives the 2022 SFB Young Investigator Award

by Ebonee Johnson

Michael Mitchell, Ph.D.

Michael Mitchell, Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering, has been awarded the 2022 Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Young Investigator Award for his “outstanding achievements in the field of biomaterials research.”

The Society for Biomaterials is a multidisciplinary society of academic, healthcare, governmental and business professionals dedicated to promoting advancements in all aspects of biomaterial science, education and professional standards to enhance human health and quality of life.

Mitchell, whose research lies at the interface of biomaterials science, drug delivery, and cellular and molecular bioengineering to fundamentally understand and therapeutically target biological barriers, is specifically being recognized for his development of the first nanoparticle RNAi therapy to treat multiple myeloma, an incurable hematologic cancer that colonizes in bone marrow.

“Before this, no one in the drug delivery field has developed an effective gene delivery system to target bone marrow,” said United States National Medal of Science recipient Robert S. Langer in Mitchell’s award citation. “Mike is a standout young investigator and leader that intimately understands the importance of research and collaboration at the interface of nanotechnology and medicine.”

Academic recipients of the SFB Young Investigator Award should not exceed the rank of Assistant Professor and must not be tenured at the time of nomination. The award includes a $1,000 endowment.

This story originally appeared in Penn Engineering Today.

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Michael Mitchell Elected Society for Biomaterials Drug Delivery Chair

by Sophie Burkholder

 

Michael Mitchell, Ph.D., Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, was elected Chair of the Drug Delivery Special Interest Group for the Society for Biomaterials at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. According to the Society for Biomaterials website:

The Drug Delivery Special Interest Group will deal with the science and technology of controlled release of active agents from delivery systems. Controlled drug release is achieved by the use of diffusion, chemical reactions, dissolutions or osmosis, used either singly or in combination. While the vast majority of such delivery devices are based on polymers, controlled release can also be achieved by the use of mechanical pumps. In a broader sense, controlled release also involves control over the site of action of the active agent, using the active agent using pro-drugs, targetable water soluble polymers or various microparticulate systems. Relevant aspects of toxicology, bioavailability, pharmacokinetics, and biocompatibility are also included.

The Society for Biomaterials is an interdisciplinary organization comprised of academic, industry, health care, and governmental professionals dedicated to promoting advancements in all aspects of biomaterial science and engineering, education, and professional standards to enhance human health and quality of life. The Society for Biomaterials was established in 1974, and is the oldest scientific organization in the field of biomaterials.

Michael Mitchell, Ph.D.

Mitchell joined the Department of Bioengineering at Penn in 2018 as Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation. Previously, he was an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow with Institute Professor Robert Langer at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. His research interests include biomaterials, drug delivery, and cellular and molecular bioengineering for applications in cancer research, immunotherapy, and gene therapy. Since joining Penn in 2018, Mitchell has received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, a Rising Star Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the T. Nagai Award from the Controlled Release Society.

Mitchell’s new role as the Chair of the SFB’s Drug Delivery Special Interest Group will allow him to lead conversations across academia on the future of drug delivery as it relates to biomaterials. With his fellow officers, Mitchell will help spread knowledge about the field of controlled drug release by hosting research forums, helping to publish news and activities of the SFB in Biomaterials Forum, and foster connections and mentorship among members of his and other Special Interest Groups. We can’t wait to see where Mitchell’s leadership will help take the community of research on areas like toxicology, pharmacokinetics, and biocompatibility next!

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BE Alumni Among Biomaterials Society Leaders

Penn has one of the most distinctive graduate programs in the country, and is proud to graduate the first Ph.D. in Bioengineering in the United States. With such a history, our alumni have succeeded as professors, entrepreneurs, policy leaders, and industry pioneers. One recent example of this Penn tradition  is leadership in national organizations.

At this moment, several faculty in the department (Drs. Susan Margulies, Beth Winkelstein, and Dan Hammer) hold significant positions within the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), a cross-cutting national organization for Bioengineering.

Withing the field of biomaterials, the preeminent international organization is the Society for Biomaterials (SfB). Dedicated to the advancement of biomaterials science, the SfB was created more than four decades at nearly the same time the Bioengineering department was established at Penn. Many of our alumni are now part of the senior leadership in the SfB, including the following.

President: David Kohn

leaders kohn

President-elect: Andrés García

leaders garcía

Member-at-large: Helen Lu

leaders lu

In fact, of the three officers elected this year, two were from Penn (Andrés and Helen).  We also have strong alumni representation across the various committees within the SfB. We extend our congratulations — with great pride — to our Penn family.