Brown Biomedical Engineering students conducting research this summer showcased their work at the Brown Summer Research Symposium held on August 2nd and 3rd, 2018, at Sayles Hall presented by The Office of the Dean of the College. These poster presentations reflected the wide range of cutting-edge biomedical research going on at Brown- from biomaterials to tissue engineering to retinal prosthesis, students enthusiastically presented their work to those present at the symposium, talking in depth about their current findings and future directions of the projects.

Among participating Biomedical Engineering students was Itzel Aponte ‘19, who worked at Dr. Jonghwan Lee’s lab this summer, and presented her work on Test and optimization of high-throughput OCT Assessment of Cellular Viability Using Liver Tumor Spheroids. She spoke zealously about her research experience this summer, “The reason I continued my research was the encouraging environment that Brown creates for research as well as through the encouragement of Professor Jonghwan Lee, my PI. Brown makes it so easy to pursue what interests you as well as making it financially accessible over the summer for students.” The Summer Research Symposium participants were recipient of various research grants, including the Karen T. Romer Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award (UTRA), that supports Brown students collaborating with Brown faculty on research and teaching projects during the summer or the academic year. Aponte’s work focused on the Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging of 3-Dimensional liver tumor spheroids in real time without damaging the cells and testing the impact of drug dosage on the cells.

Senior Jessica Bellows ‘19 mentioned how she wanted to immerse herself in full-time research in pursuit of a career in research. Bellows said, “During the semester, my time in the lab was limited by classes, sports, and other activities. Spending a summer in the lab seemed like a great way to immerse myself in the work. I also want to write a senior thesis and the summer allowed me to make more progress than I would have been able to during the semester.” Bellows, who worked at Dr. Kareen Coulombe’s lab this summer, presented her findings on Designing and Characterizing Anisotropy in Fibrous Scaffold Materials for Engineered Myocardium. Bellows worked to design and characterize composite scaffold materials in order to improve the mechanical structure and function of tissue engineered myocardium.

Brian Vuong ‘19 who worked with Dr. Brett Owens for the Department of Orthopaedics, Warren Alpert Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital, said, “I think the highlight of my summer research experience was the breadth of involvement - from tissue and cell culture, histology, biochemical assessments, mechanical testing - I was allowed in this project.” Vuong’s project, titled The Effects of Doxycycline on Chondrocyte Viability, Biochemical and Biomechanical Properties of Cartilage in Osteochondral Allografts, focused on the preservation of the mechanical properties of cartilage for osteochondral allografts. Voung enjoyed the experience saying, “It was actually pretty fun presenting my work at the symposium. The best part of presenting at the symposium was being able to receive valuable feedback and advice regarding my research from fellow students and professors.” However, not everything was fun and games, Voung mentioned the challenges of presenting his work at the symposium, “What I found most challenging was how to convey the main points of the project in a concise manner and provide viewers a comprehensive understanding of my findings in a limited amount of time with the limited visuals I had available on the poster.”

Aponte also gained from the experience, mentioning, “This was my first real experience presenting my experiment/data before an audience, so I felt really proud to be in a room full of other researchers. I was really anxious before the symposium since I don't do well with public speaking but after the symposium began, I felt more at ease. I realized it was more so a time to check in with our peers and see what cool projects they were working on this summer and appreciate them.” During the two days of the symposium, the students made sure to take some time out to check out their friends’ research posters from Biomedical Engineering and other departments as well.

Other Biomedical Engineering students participating at this symposium included: Beatriz de Arruda ‘19, Eric DuBois ‘20, Brian Felalaga '20, Jasmine Gabor (undeclared) '21, Gaia-Marie Gerbaka (undeclared) '21, Jonathan Lee '21, Zachary Neronha ‘19, Alicia Rocha ‘20, Hannah Safford ‘19, Sumaiya Sayeed ‘20, Rachel Walker ‘19, and Soobin Wang ‘19, Olivia Woodford-Berry (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) '19.