Every undergraduate student pursuing a B.S.E. in Bioengineering participates in the Bioengineering Modeling, Analysis, and Design Laboratory I & II courses, in which students work together on a series of lab-based design challenges with an emphasis on model development and statistical analysis. Recently, junior undergraduates enrolled in this course taught by Dr. Brian Chow and Dr. David Issadore (both of whom recently received tenure) completed a project involving the use of electrocardiography (ECG) to innovate a non-invasive fatigue-monitoring device for astronauts that tend to fall asleep during long operations in space.
Using ECG lead wires and electrodes with a BioPac M-35 data collection apparatus, students collected raw data of their own heart and respiration rates, and loaded the data into MATLAB to analyze and calculate information like the heart rate itself, and portions of it like the QT-interval. “I think it was cool that we could measure signals from our own body and analyze it in a way that let us use it for a real-world application,” said junior Melanie Hillman about the project.
After taking these preliminary measurements, students used a combination of circuitry, MATLAB, and data acquisition boards to create both passive and active filters for the input signals. These filters helped separate the user’s breathing rate, which occurs at lower frequencies, from the heart rate, which occurs at higher frequencies, allowing for the data to be read and analyzed more easily. In their final design, most students used an active filter circuit chip that combined hardware with software to create bandpass filters of different frequency ranges for both input signals.
“It was nice to be able to do a lab that connected different aspects of engineering in the sense that we both electronically built circuits, and also modeled them theoretically, because normally there’s a separation between those two domains,” said junior Emily Johnson. On the final day of the project, Demo Day, groups displayed their designs ability to take one input from the ECG cables connected to a user, and filter it out into recognizable heart and respiration rates on the computer. This project, conducted in the in the Stephenson Foundation Bioengineering Educational Laboratory here at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Bioengineering, is just one of many examples of the way this hallmark course of the bioengineering curriculum strives to bring together all aspects of students’ foundational engineering coursework into applications with significance in the real world.
New Studies in Mechanobiology Could Open Doors for Cellular Disease Treatment
When we think of treatments at the cellular level, we most often think of biochemical applications. But what if we began to consider more biomechanical-oriented approaches in the regulation of cellular life and death? Under a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF),Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s (WPI) Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering Kristen Billiar, Ph.D., performs research that looks at the way mechanical stimuli can affect and trigger programmed cell death.
Billiar, who received his M.S.E. and Ph.D. from Penn, began his research by first noticing the way that cells typically respond to the mechanical stimuli in their everyday environment, such as pressure or stretching, with behaviors like migration, proliferation, or contraction. He and his research team hope to find a way to eventually predict and control cellular responses to their environment, which they hope could open doors to more forms of treatment for disorders like heart disease or cancer, where cellular behavior is directly linked to the cause of the disease.
Self-Learning Algorithm Could Help Improve Robotic Leg Functionality
Obviously, one of the biggest challenges in the field of prosthetics is the extreme difficulty in creating a device that perfectly mimics whatever the device replaces for its user. Particularly with more complex designs that involve user-controlled motion for joints in the limbs or hands, the electrical circuits implemented are by no means a perfect replacement of the neural connections in the human body from brain to muscle. But recently at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, a team of researchers led by Francisco J. Valero-Cuevas, Ph. D., developed an algorithm with the ability to learn new walking tasks and adapt to others without any additional programming.
The algorithm will hopefully help to speed the progress of robotic interactions with the world, and thus allow for more adaptive technology in prosthetics, that responds to and learns with their users. The algorithm Valero-Cuevas and his team created takes inspiration from the cognition involved with babies and toddlers as they slowly learn how to walk, first through random free play and then from pulling on relevant prior experience. In a prosthetic leg, the algorithm could help the device adjust to its user’s habits and gait preferences, more closely mimicking the behavior of an actual human leg.
Neurofeedback Can Improve Behavioral Performance in High-Stress Situations
We’re all familiar with the concept of being “in the zone,” or the feeling of extraordinary focus that we can sometimes have in situations of high-stress. But how can we understand this shift in mindset on a neuroengineering level? Using the principal of the Yerkes-Dodson law, which says that there is a state of brain arousal that is optimal for behavioral performance, a team of biomedical engineering researchers at Columbia University hope to find ways of applying neurofeedback to improving this performance in demanding high-stress tasks.
Led by Paul Sajda, Ph.D., who received his doctoral degree from Penn, the researchers used a brain-computer interface to collect electroencephalography (EEG) signals from users immersed in virtual reality aerial navigation tasks of varying difficulty levels. In doing so, they were able to make connections between stressful situations and brain activity as transmitted through the EEG data, adding to the understanding of how the Yerkes-Dodson law actually operates in the human body and eventually demonstrating that the use of neurofeedback reduced the neural state of arousal in patients. The hope is that neurofeedback may be used in the future to help treat emotional conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Ultrasound Stimulation Could Lead to New Treatments for Inflammatory Arthritis
Arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes painful inflammation in the joints, is one of the more common diseases among older patients, with more than 3 million diagnosed cases in the United States every year. Though extreme measures like joint replacement surgery are one solution, most patients simply treat the pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or the adoption of gentle exercise routines like yoga. Recently however, researchers at the University of Minnesota led by Daniel Zachs, M.S.E., in the Sensory Optimization and Neural Implant Coding Lab used ultrasound stimulation treatment as a way to reduce arthritic pain in mice. In collaboration with Medtronic, Zachs and his team found that this noninvasive ultrasound stimulation greatly decreased joint swelling in mice who received the treatment as opposed to those that did not. They hope that in the future, similar methods of noninvasive treatment will be able to be used for arthritic patients, who otherwise have to rely on surgical remedies for serious pain.
People and Places
Leadership and Inspiration: EDAB’s Blueprint for Engineering Student Life
To undergraduates at a large university, the administration can seem like a mysterious, all-powerful entity, creating policy that affects their lives but doesn’t always take into account the reality of their day-to-day experience. The Engineering Deans’ Advisory Board (EDAB) was designed to bridge that gap and give students a platform to communicate with key decision makers.
The 13-member board meets once per week for 60 to 90 minutes. The executive board, comprised of four members, also meets weekly to plan out action items and brainstorm. Throughout his interactions with the group, board president Jonathan Chen, (ENG ‘19, W ‘19), has found a real kinship with his fellow board members, who he says work hard and enjoy one another’s company in equal measure.
Bioengineering major Daphne Cheung (ENG’19) joined the board as a first-year student because she saw an opportunity to develop professional skills outside of the classroom. “For me, it was about trying to build a different kind of aptitude in areas such as project management, and learning how to work with different kinds of people, including students and faculty, and of course, the deans,” she says.
Purdue University College of Engineering and Indiana University School of Medicine Team Up in New Engineering-Medicine Partnership
The Purdue University College of Engineering and the Indiana University School of Medicine recently announced a new Engineering-Medicine partnership, that seeks to formalize ongoing and future collaborations in research between the two schools. One highlight of the partnership is the establishment of a new M.D./M.S. degree program in biomedical engineering that will allow medical students at Indiana University to receive M.S.-level training in engineering technologies as they apply to clinical practice. The goal of this new level of collaboration is to further involve Purdue’s engineering program in the medical field, and to exhibit the benefits that developing an engineering mindset can have for medical students. The leadership of this new partnership includes
The annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition challenges students to expand the field of synthetic biology to solve tangible problems. While most iGEM projects involve imbuing microorganisms with useful new traits and adding them to a global toolkit, Penn Engineering students took a unique approach to the iGEM challenge by creating an open-source blueprint for a mechanical instrument that could make biological research more accessible.
Penn Bioengineering undergraduate Andrew Clark and recent graduates Karol Szymula, now a research assistant in Penn’s Complex Systems Lab, and Michael Patterson, now the lab engineer for Penn Bioengineering’s Instructional Laboratories, contributed to the project that originated through the 2017 iGEM challenge. Graduate student Michael Magaraci, who started Penn’s iGEM program as an undergraduate, and Sevile Mannickarottu, director of Instructional Laboratories, also participated. Brian Chow, Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at Penn, who helped create the iGEM competition when he was an MIT graduate student, oversaw the project.
In a paper recently published in Biochemistry, a group of University of Pennsylvania Bioengineering students describe the results of their work designing a new, open-source, low-cost microplate reader. Plate readers are instruments designed to measure light absorption and fluorescence emission from molecules useful for clinical biomarker analyses and assays in a diverse array of fields including synthetic biology, optogenetics, and photosensory biology. This new design costs less than $3500, a significantly lower price than other commercially available alternatives. As described in the paper’s abstract, this design is the latest in a growing trend of open-source hardware to enhance access to equipment for biology labs. The project originated as part of the annual International Genetically Engineering Machine Competition (iGEM), an annual worldwide competition focusing on “push[ing] the boundaries of synthetic biology by tackling everyday issues facing the world” (iGEM website).
The group consists of current junior Andrew Clark (BSE ’20) and recent graduates Karol Szymula (BSE ’18), who works in the lab of Dr. Danielle Bassett, and Michael Patterson (BSE ’18), a Master’s student in Bioengineering and Engineer of Instructional Laboratories. Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Dr. Brian Chow served as their faculty mentor alongside Director of Instructional Labs Sevile Mannickarottu and Michael Magaraci, a Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering, all of whom serve as co-authors on the published article. The research and design of the project was conducted in the Stephenson Foundation Bioengineering Educational Laboratory here at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Bioengineering.
On January 8, 2019 the Department of Bioengineering at Penn held its annual Graduate Group Research Symposium to great success.
Thank you to everyone who attended and participated, our student volunteers, our faculty who participated as judges for the student talks and poster competition, and especially to our keynote speaker, Dr. Sujata Bhatia, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware.
Congratulations to the award winners:
Student Talks:
First prize – Meagan Ita
Second prize – Nicolette Driscoll
Third prize – Minna Chen
Poster Presentations:
First prize – Mariia Alibekova
Second prize – Jonathan Galarraga, Sonia Kartha, and John Viola
Third prize – Andrei Georgescu
First prize winner Meagan Ita delivers her talk.
We had a great turnout!
John Viola’s group won second prize in the poster competition.
First prize winner Mariia Alibekova discusses her poster.
Mi Yi Kwon with her poster.
Keynote speaker Dr. Sujata Bhatia with Penn BE’s Dr. Daniel Hammer.
Scientific claims are a foundation of scientific discourse. Extracting claims from scientific articles is primarily done by researchers during literature review and discussions. The enormous growth in scientific articles makes this ever more challenging and time-consuming. Here, we develop a deep neural network architecture to solve the problem. Our model an F1 score of 0.704 on a large corpus of expertly annotated claims within abstracts. Our results suggest that we can use a small dataset of annotated resources to achieve high-accuracy claim detection. We release a tool for discourse and claim detection, and a novel dataset annotated by experts. We discuss further applications beyond Biomedical literature.
Multiple Sclerosis Lesion Segmentation with Joint Label Fusion Evaluated on OASIS and CNN
Scientific claims are a foundation of scientific discourse. Extracting claims from scientific articles is primarily done by researchers during literature review and discussions. The enormous growth in scientific articles makes this ever more challenging and time-consuming. Here, we develop a deep neural network architecture to solve the problem. Our model an F1 score of 0.704 on a large corpus of expertly annotated claims within abstracts. Our results suggest that we can use a small dataset of annotated resources to achieve high-accuracy claim detection. We release a tool for discourse and claim detection, and a novel dataset annotated by experts. We discuss further applications beyond Biomedical literature.
The BE Seminar Series continues next week with three lectures delivered by our current PhD Students. We hope to see you there!
“Magnetic Susceptibility of Hemorrhagic Myocardial Infarction”
Brianna Moon, PhD Candidate
Speaker: Brianna Moon, PhD Candidate
Research Advisor: Walter Witschey, PhD
Date: Thursday, September 20, 2018
Time: 12:05pm-12:25pm
Location: Room 337 Towne Building
Abstract:
Hemorrhagic myocardial infarction (MI) has been reported in 41% and 54% of ST-elevated MI patients after primary percutaneous coronary intervention. These patients are at high risk for adverse left ventricle (LV) remodeling, impaired LV function and increased risk of fatal arrhythmias. Relaxation time MRI such as T2*-maps are sensitive to hemorrhagic infarct iron content, but are also affected by myocardial edema and fibrosis. Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM), which uses the MR signal phase to quantify tissue magnetic susceptibility, may be a more specific and sensitive marker of hemorrhagic MI. The objective of this study was to develop and validate cardiac QSM in a large animal model of myocardial infarction, investigate the association of magnetic susceptibility with iron content and infarct pathophysiology, and compare QSM to relaxation time mapping, susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI), and late-gadolinium enhanced (LGE) MRI.
“Role of ACTG2 Mutations in Visceral Myopathy”
Sohaib Hashmi, MD/PhD Student
Speaker: Sohaib Hashmi, MD/PhD Student
Research Advisor: Robert O. Heuckeroth, MD, PhD
Date: Thursday, September 20, 2018
Time: 12:30-12:50pm
Location: Room 337 Towne Building
Abstract:
Visceral myopathy is a debilitating chronic medical condition in which smooth muscle of the bowel, bladder, and uterus is weak or dysfunctional. When the bowel muscle is weak and unable to efficiently contract, the bowel becomes distended which causes pain, bilious vomiting, growth failure, and nutritional deficiencies. The abdominal distension can become life-threatening. Patients often become dependent on intravenous nutrition and undergo multiple rounds of abdominal surgery, which only partially alleviates symptoms. Recently, rare mutations in gamma smooth muscle actin (ACTG2) have been shown to be responsible for a large subset of visceral myopathies. ACTG2 is a critical protein in the smooth muscle contractile apparatus. However, we have only limited knowledge of how ACTG2 mutations may cause human disease. To improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of ACTG2 mutations, my work has the following specific aims:
1)Determine how pathogenic ACTG2 mutations affect actin structure and function in primary human intestinal smooth muscle cells (HISMCs).
2) Examine the effects of ACTG2 mutations on differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into smooth muscle cells (SMCs).
These studies will allow us to elucidate the mechanisms through which ACTG2 mutations impair normal visceral smooth muscle development and function. I am examining the effects of ACTG2 mutations on actin filament organization in fixed cells and actin dynamics in live cells using fluorescent probes. I will investigate changes in contractile force generation using traction force microscopy. I am also developing a novel differentiation method to convert pluripotent stem cells into cells closely resembling visceral SMCs. We will use this method with CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to study the effects of the mutations on SMC differentiation. We are currently generating pluripotent stem cell lines containing ACTG2 mutations and performing assays to investigate actin organization and dynamics. We are using these systems to identify robust phenotypes highlighting the mechanisms through which ACTG2 mutations cause disease. We hope to leverage this information in the selection of targets for high-throughput drug screening, which may eventually lead to novel treatment strategies for visceral myopathies.
“Distinct Patterns of Longitudinal Cortical Thinking and Perfusion in Pathological Subtypes of Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Degeneration”
Christopher Olm, PhD Student
Speaker: Christopher Olm, PhD Student
Research Advisor: Murray Grossman, MD, EdD
Date: Thursday, September 20, 2018
Time: 12:55-1:15pm
Location: Room 337 Towne Building
Abstract:
Two main sources of pathology have been identified in the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD): tau inclusions (FTLD-tau) and TDP-43 aggregates (FTLD-TDP). With therapies emerging that target these proteins, exploring distinct trajectories of degeneration can be extremely helpful for tracking progression in clinical trials and improve prognosis estimation. We hypothesized that longitudinal cortical thinning (CT) would identify areas of extant disease progression in bvFTD subgroups and longitudinal hypoperfusion would identify distinct regions of anticipated neurodegeneration. We included N=47 patients with probable or definite bvFTD and two MRI scanning sessions including T1-weighted and arterial spin labeling (ASL) scans, recruited through the Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center. Neuropathology, genetic mutations, or CSF protein markers (phosphorylated tau (p-tau)/Ab1-42<.09 for likely FTLD; p-tau<8.75 for FTLD-TDP) were used to identify bvFTD with likely FTLD-tau (n=28, mean age=63.1 years, mean disease duration=3.89 years) or likely FTLD-TDP (n=19, mean age=61.9, mean disease duration=3.06). Voxel-wise cortical thickness and cerebral blood flow estimates were generated for each T1 and ASL scan, respectively, using longitudinal pipelines in ANTs. We created annual change images by subtracting follow-up images from baseline and dividing by inter-scan interval. In whole brain voxel-wise comparisons, FTLD-tau showed significantly greater right orbitofrontal CT and longitudinal hypoperfusion in right middle temporal and angular cortex relative to FTLD-TDP. FTLD-TDP displayed greater progressive CT in left superior and middle frontal cortex, precentral gyrus, and right temporal cortex, and longitudinal hypoperfusion in medial prefrontal cortex relative to FTLD-tau. In conclusion, FTLD-tau and FTLD-TDP show distinct patterns of longitudinal CT and hypoperfusion. Structural and functional MRI contribute independent information potentially useful for characterizing disease progression in vivo for clinical trials.
A new approach uses “mechanoceuticals” to treat pain.
Drugs are commonly injected directly into an injury site to speed healing. For chronic pain, clinicians can inject drugs to reduce inflammation in painful joints, or can inject nerve blockers to block the nerve signals that cause pain. In a recent study, a group from UCLA developed a technique to deform a material surrounding nerve fibers to trigger a response in the fibers that would relieve pain. The combination of mechanics and treatment – i.e., ‘mechanoceuticals’ – is a clever way to trick fibers and reverse painful symptoms. Done without any injections and simply controlling magnetic fields outside the body, this approach can be reused as necessary.
The design of this mechanoceutical was completed by Dino Di Carlo, PhD, Professor of Bioengineering, and his team at UCLA’s Sameuli School of Engineering. By encasing tiny, magnetic nanoparticles within a biocompatible hydrogel, the group used magnetic force to stimulate nerve fibers and cause a corresponding decrease in pain signals. This promising development opens up a new approach to pain management, one which can be created with different biomaterials to suit different conditions, and delivered “on demand” without worrying about injections or, for that matter, any prescription drugs.
Understanding the Adolescent Brain
It’s no surprise that adults and adolescents often struggle to understand one another, but the work of neurologists and other researchers provides a possible physical reason for why that might be. Magnetic resonance elastrography (MRE) is a tool used in biomedical imaging to estimate the mechanical properties, or stiffness, of tissue throughout the body. Unexpectedly, a recent study suggests that brain stiffness correlates with cognitive ability, suggesting MRE may provide insight into patients’ behavior, psychology, and psychiatric state.
A new paper in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience published the results of a study using MRE to track the relative “stiffness” vs. “softness” of adult and adolescent brains. The University of Delaware team, led by Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Curtis Johnson, PhD, and his doctoral student Grace McIlvain, sampled 40 living subjects (aged 12-14) and compared the properties to healthy adult brains.
The study found that children and adolescent brains are softer than those of adults, correlating to the overall malleability of childhood development. The team hopes to continue their studies with younger and older children, looking to demonstrate exactly when and how the change from softness to stiffness takes place, and how these properties correspond to individual qualities such as risk-taking or the onset of puberty. Eventually, establishing a larger database of measurements in the pediatric brain will help further studies into neurological and cognitive disorders in children, helping to understand conditions such as multiple sclerosis, autism, and cerebral palsy.
Can Nanoparticles Replace Stents?
Researchers and clinicians have made amazing advances in heart surgery. Stents, in particular, have become quite sophisticated: they are used to both prop open clogged arteries as well as deliver blood-thinning medication slowly over days to weeks in the area of the stent. However, the risk of blood clotting increases with stents and the blood vessels can constrict over time after the stent is placed in the vessel.
A recent NIH grant will support the design of a stent-free solution to unclog blood vessels. Led by Shaoqin Gong, PhD, Vilas Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UW-Madison, the team used nanoparticles (or nanoclusters) to directly target the affected blood vessels and prevent regrowth of the cells post-surgery, eliminating the need for a stent to keep the pathways open. These nanoclusters are injected through an intravenous line, further reducing the risks introduced by the presence of the stent. As heart disease affects millions of people worldwide, this new material has far-reaching consequences. Their study is published in the September edition of Biomaterials.
NIST Grant Supports
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded a $30 million grant to Johns Hopkins University, Binghamton University, and Morgan State University as part of their Professional Research Experience Program (PREP). Over five years, this award will support the collaboration of academics from all levels (faculty, postdoc, graduate, and undergraduate) across the three universities, enabling them to conduct research and attend NIST conferences.
The principal investigator for Binghamton U. is Professor and Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department, Kaiming Ye, PhD. Dr. Ye is also the Director of the Center of Biomanufacturing for Regenerative Medicine (CBRM), which will participate in this collaborative new enterprise. Dr. Ye hopes that this grant will create opportunities for academics and researchers to network with each other as well as to more precisely define the standards for the fields of regenerative medicine and biomaterial manufacturing.
The gift honors the late A. James Clark, former CEO of Clark Enterprises and Clark Construction Group LLC, one of the country’s largest privately-held general building contractors. It is designed to prepare future engineering and business leaders, with an emphasis on low income families and first-generation college students. Clark never forgot that his business successes began with an engineering scholarship. This has guided the Clark family’s longstanding investments in engineering education and reflects its commitment to ensure college remains accessible and affordable to high-potential students with financial need.
We are proud to say that three incoming Clark Scholars from the Freshman Class of 2022 will be part of the Bioengineering Department here at Penn.
And finally, our congratulations to the new Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Mississippi: David A. Puleo, PhD. Dr. Puleo earned his bachelor’s degree and doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Most recently he served as Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Kentucky’s College of Engineering. Building on his research in regenerative biomaterials, he also founded Regenera Materials, LLC in 2014. Over the course of his career so far, Dr. Puleo received multiple teaching awards and oversaw much departmental growth within his previous institution, and looks poised to do the same for “Ole Miss.”
White fat stories calories and provides the body with insulation.
There are two types of fat in the human body: brown and white. Brown fat, the “good” fat, is rich in mitochondria, which gives it its brown appearance. Whereas white fat stores calories and acts as an insulator, mitochondria-rich brown fat burns energy to produce heat throughout the body and maintains body temperature. White fat, conversely, uses its stored energy to insulate the body and keep its temperature level. While all fat serves a purpose in the body, an excess of white fat cells causes obesity, a condition affecting one in three adults in the U.S. and the root cause of many potential health problems. Finding ways to convert white fat to brown opens a possibility of treating this problem naturally.
A new study in Scientific Reports proposes a clever way to convert fat types. Professor of Biomedical Engineering Samuel Sia, PhD, of the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science, led a team which developed a method of converting white fat into brown using a tissue-grafting technique. After extracting and converting the fat, it can then be transplanted back into the patient. White fat is hard-wired to convert to brown under certain conditions, such as exposure to cold temperatures, so the trick for Dr. Sia’s team was finding a way to make the conversion last for long periods. The studies conducted with mice suggested that using these methods, newly-converted fat stayed brown for a period of two months.
Dr. Sia’s team will proceed to conduct further tests, especially on the subjects’ metabolism and overall weight after undergoing the procedure, and they hope that eventual clinical trials will result in new methods to treat or even prevent obesity in humans.
Cremins Lab Student Appointed Blavatnik Fellow
Linda Zhou is currently pursuing her MD/PhD in Genomics and Computational Biology under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Phillips-Cremins.
The Perelman School of Medicine named Linda Zhou, a student in BE’s Cremins Laboratory, a Blavatnik Fellow for the 2018-2019 academic year. The selection process for this award is highly competitive, and Linda’s selection speaks to the excellent quality of her scholarship and academic performance. The fellows will be honored in a special ceremony at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Linda received her B.S. in Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and is currently pursuing her M.D./Ph.D. in the Genomics and Computational Biology Program at Penn. “I am honored to be named a Blavatnik Fellow and am extremely excited to continue my graduate studies investigating neurological disorders and the 3D genome,” she said. “This support will be integral to achieving my long term goal of driving scientific discovery that will help treat human disease.”
Linda’s research is overseen by Penn Bioengineering Assistant Professor Jennifer Phillips-Cremins, PhD. “Linda is an outstanding graduate student,” said Dr. Cremins. “It is a true delight to work with her. She is hard working, intelligent, kind, and has extraordinary leadership ability. Her unrelenting search for ground-state truth makes her a shining star.”
The Blavatnik Family Fellowship in Biomedical Research is a new award announced by the Perelman School of Medicine in May of this year. This generous gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation awards $2 million to six recipients in the Biomedical Graduate Studies Program at Penn for each of the next four years.
Growing Lungs in a Lab
As the demand for lung transplants continues to rise, so does the need for safe and effective transplanted lungs. Bioengineered lungs grown or created in labs are one way of meeting this demand. The problem – as is ever the case with transplants – is the high rate of rejection. The results of success are always better when cells from the patient herself (or autologous cells) are used in the transplanted organ.
Recently Joan Nichols, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine, and Microbiology and Immunology, at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, successfully bioengineered the first human lung. Her latest study published in Science Translational Medicine describes the next milestone for Dr. Nichols’ lab: successfully transplanting a bioengineered lung into a pig.
These advances are possible due to Dr. Nichols’ work with autologous cells, continuing the trend of “on demand” medicine (i.e. medicine tailor for a specific patient) which we track on this blog. Dr. Nichols’ particular method is to build the structure of a lung (using the harvested organs of dead pigs in this case), de-cellularize the tissue, and then repopulate it with autologous cells from the intended recipient. This way, the host body recognizes the cells as friendly and the likelihood of acceptance increases. While further study is needed before clinical trials can begin, Dr. Nichols and her team see the results as extremely promising and believe that we are on the way to bioengineered human lungs.
Nanoparticles Combat Dental Plaque
Combine a diet high in sugar with poor oral hygiene habits and dental cavities likely result. The sugar triggers the formation of an acidic biofilm (plaque) on the teeth, eroding the surface. Early childhood dental cavities affect one in every four children in the United States and hundreds of millions more globally. It’s a particularly severe problem in underprivileged populations.
Dr. David Cormode is Assistant Professor of Radiology and Secondary Faculty in Bioengineering at Penn. His research includes Bioengineering Therapeutics, Devices and Drug Delivery and Biomaterials.
The flu virus is notoriously contagious, but there may be a way to stop it before it starts. In order for the influenza virus to successfully transport itself into the cells of a human host, it needs a certain protein called hemagglutinin which mediates its entry. By interfering with this vital ingredient, researchers can effectively kill the virus.
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discusses a method of disrupting the process by which this protein causes the virus to infect its host cells. This discovery could lead to more effective flu vaccines that target the flu virus at its root, rather than current ones which have to keep up with the ongoing changes and mutations of the virus itself. Indeed, the need for different vaccines to address various “strains” of the flu is moot if a vaccine can stop the virus from infecting people in the first place.
This breakthrough results from grants provided by the NSF, the Welch Foundation, and the NIH to Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine. Lead researchers José Onuchic, PhD, Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair of Physics and Professor of Chemistry and BioSciences at Rice University; Jianpeng Ma, PhD, Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University and Lodwick T. Bolin Professor of Biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine; and Qinghua Wang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine. Their team will continue to study the important role proteins play in how the flu virus operates.
People and Places
This week, we congratulate a few new leadership appointments in bioengineering. First, the Georgia Institute of Technology appointed Penn BE alumnus Andréas García, PhD, the new Executive Director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. In addition to his new role, Dr. García is also the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Regents Professor. He conducts research in biomolecular, cellular, and tissue engineering and collaborates with a number of research centers across Georgia Tech. Dr. García graduated with both his M.S.E. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Bioengineering.
Secondly, the University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) named the Distinguished McKnight University Professor John Bischof, PhD, their new director. This follows Dr. Bischof’s recent position as interim director for the IEM. Dr. Bischof earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and is currently a faculty member in both the Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Departments at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Bischof holds the Carl and Janet Kuhrmeyer Chair in Mechanical Engineering.
At an earlier, but no less impressive, point in his academic career, Tanishq Abraham became the youngest person to graduate with a degree in biomedical engineering. The fifteen year old recently graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Davis. As part of his graduating research, Abraham – a first-generation Indian-American – designed a device to measure the heart rates of burn victims. Abraham has already been accepted by U.C. Davis for his Ph.D. and plans to continue on to his M.D.
Finally, the work continues to create affordable and well-fitted prosthetics, especially for remote, rural, and underfunded areas both in the U.S. and abroad. Unfortunately, recent studies published by the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the India Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT) demonstrate the uphill nature of this battle; stating that India alone contains over half a million upper limb amputees. To address this explosive population, researchers and entrepreneurs are using new bioengineering technologies such as digital manufacturing, 3D scanning and printing, and more. The best innovations are those that save time, resources, and money, without sacrificing quality in the prosthetic or patient comfort. Penn Engineering’s Global Biomedical Service (GBS) program similarly responds to this need, as each year students follow an academically rigorous course with a two-week immersive trip to China, where they learn how to create and fit prosthetic limbs for local children in conjunction with Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
By Summer Kollie, Health & Societies ’19; Amber Figueroa, Biology ’21; and Bosede Ajiboye, Psychology ‘19
(left to right) Penn students Amber Figueroa, Bosede Ajiboye, and Summer Kollie watch a nurse at KATH demonstrate how she teases Kangaroo Mother Care to new mothers.A photo of the Kangaroo Mother Care ward as well as public service posters explaining their benefits.
Today, we made a visit to the premature infants and Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) wing of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH). Our visit was very informative. The overall goal for premature babies was for mothers to engage in KMC. When talking to the doctor in the premature clinic, she mentioned that, on average, a baby would stay in the clinic, where there are incubators and CPAP machines, for about one week before being referred to the KMC ward. In some cases, babies who have more severe cases might stay for a month or longer. The goal of the premature clinic was to stabilize the baby. An infant was stable when they no longer needed supplied oxygen and IV fluids, they had no more difficulties in breathing, and they were able to take food, as in breastmilk, through their mouths. After the baby was stable, then they were moved to the maternal ward, where the mother could administer KMC.
Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is an efficient way to take care of premature infants without using an incubator. With skin-to-skin contact, the baby is placed on the mother’s chest between her breast. Then, two to three blankets are wrapped securely around the baby to keep them warm.
At the KMC ward, a nurse demonstrated on herself how a mother would tie her infant onto her chest. Th nursey emphasize for mothers to be able to perform the process of tying the blanket on their own. In this ward, KMC is administered 24/7. The only time a mother gets a break is if she needs to use the bathroom or to buy food. Fathers and other relatives only assist in this process for short periods when the mother needs a break or when the mother has more than one baby, as in twins or triplets, and cannot physically carry more than one on her chest.
When we think of treatments at the cellular level, we most often think of biochemical applications. But what if we began to consider more biomechanical-oriented approaches in the regulation of cellular life and death? Under a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF),Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s (WPI) Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering 
Scientific claims are a foundation of scientific discourse. Extracting claims from scientific articles is primarily done by researchers during literature review and discussions. The enormous growth in scientific articles makes this ever more challenging and time-consuming. Here, we develop a deep neural network architecture to solve the problem. Our model an F1 score of 0.704 on a large corpus of expertly annotated claims within abstracts. Our results suggest that we can use a small dataset of annotated resources to achieve high-accuracy claim detection. We release a tool for discourse and claim detection, and a novel dataset annotated by experts. We discuss further applications beyond Biomedical literature.
Scientific claims are a foundation of scientific discourse. Extracting claims from scientific articles is primarily done by researchers during literature review and discussions. The enormous growth in scientific articles makes this ever more challenging and time-consuming. Here, we develop a deep neural network architecture to solve the problem. Our model an F1 score of 0.704 on a large corpus of expertly annotated claims within abstracts. Our results suggest that we can use a small dataset of annotated resources to achieve high-accuracy claim detection. We release a tool for discourse and claim detection, and a novel dataset annotated by experts. We discuss further applications beyond Biomedical literature.
