News

Brown BME presents at NEBEC, NSBE, and SFB 2019

April 5, 2019
Hannah Blakely & Celinda Kofron
conferences

Hannah Blakely '19, Colette Bare '19, Kelly Williams '19, and Sumaiya Sayeed '19.5 at NEBEC 2019

Sumaiya Sayeed '19.5 presenting her research at NEBEC 2019

Victoria Vafaee ’20 presenting her research poster at NEBEC 2019

PhD students Kiara Lee and Alicia Minor at NSBE 2019

Anita Shukla, Hannah Safford, and Fabiola Munarin at SFB 2019

Northeast Bioengineering Conference (NEBEC) - Piscataway, NJ

Twelve Brown Biomedical Engineering graduate and undergraduate students and faculty members attended and presented at the 45th Annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference hosted by Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ on March 20-22. The topics ranged from device design to nanoparticles, and students either presented in focused sessions or with a poster. All Brown attendees showed diligence to scientific excellence and an impressive ability to teach and learn from the other conference participants.

The three-day conference included a wide variety of topics, starting in a seminar with a global health focus on the first morning. Later in the day, graduate student Yue Hu presented “A Method of Making Biocompatible Antioxidant Ceria Nanoparticles Loaded in Multi-Layer Polymer Films on Device” in a Biomaterials session. On the second day, graduate student Zhen Xiao presented “Forming Libraries of Magnetic Multicore Nanoparticles with Tunable Dimensions and their Biomedical Applications” in a Micro/Nanodevices session. Shorty after, postdoctoral research associate Hyewon Kim presented “A Facile Method of Protein Crystalization using Gold Nanoparticles” in the Biomanufacturing session. At the end of the day, undergraduate student Sumaiya Sayeed ‘19.5 presented her research on “Trophoblast Enrichment Using Surface Adhesion Properties” in the Stem Cells/Gene Editing session. The poster session during the second day included two posters from Brown BME from graduate student Jake Villanova and undergraduate Victoria Vafaee ’20. They shared their work on “Gadolinium Oxide Nanoplates as MRI Contrast Agents” and “Antioxidant Nanoparticle Films for Improving Deep Brain Recording” respectively. On the final day, postdoctoral research associate Qingbo Zhang presented “Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanocrystal Clusters for Cancer Therapy” in a Cancer Biology session.

Four undergraduates, Colette Bare '19, Hannah Blakely '19, Sumaiya Sayeed '19.5, and Kelly Williams '19, presented their capstone project as finalists in the Student Design Competition on the last day of the conference. The project was proposed by Dr. Sakina Sojar, a fellow at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, and defines a device to locate totally implanted venous access ports in pediatric cancer patients. This project stemmed from the Biomedical Engineering Design and Innovation course that is the pinnacle of the undergraduate curriculum in biomedical engineering and brings together components of coursework from previous years in an applied setting. All Brown representatives did an excellent job of showcasing their research, and many will be back at next year’s bioengineering conference at Penn State.

Abstracts:

A Method of Making Biocompatible Antioxidant Ceria Nanoparticles Loaded in Multi-Layer Polymer Films on Device - Yue Hu, Elaina Atherton, Vivian Ling, David Borton, and Vicki Colvin

Forming Libraries of Magnetic Multicore Nanoparticles with Tunable Dimensions and their Biomedical Applications - Zhen Xiao, Qingbo Zhang, and Vicki Colvin

A Facile Method of Protein Crystalization using Gold Nanoparticles - Hyewon Kim, Xiaoting Guo, Becka Padgett, and Vicki Colvin

Trophoblast Enrichment Using Surface Adhesion Properties - Sumaiya Sayeed, Christina Bailey-Hytholt, Anita Shukla, and Anubhav Tripathi

Design of Detection System for Inaccessible Venous Access Ports in the Pediatric Emergency Department - Hannah Blakely, Sumaiya Sayeed, Kelly Williams, Colette Bare, and Sakina Sojar

Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanocrystal Clsuters for Cancer Therapy - Qingbo Zhang, Zhen Xiao, Linlin Zhang, Sheng Tong, Gang Bao, and Vicki Colvin

Gadolinium Oxide Nanoplates as MRI Contrast Agents - Jake Villanova, Edward Esposito, and Vicki Colvin

Antioxidant Nanoparticle Films for Improving Deep Brain Recording - Victoria Vafaee, Yue Hu, Elaina Atherton, David Borton, and Vicki Colvin

 

National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE) - Detriot, MI

Associate Director Celinda Kofron and graduate students Kiara Lee and Alicia Minor represented Brown at NSBE, April 27-29. During the two day career fair, they spoke with more than 50 attendees interested in graduate programs at Brown and networked with a variety of other exhibitors. Minor also presented her research work as a talk and poster.

Abstract:

Evaluating calcium sensitivity in human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) derived cardiomyocytes - Alicia J Minor and Kareen LK Coulombe

 

 

Society for Biomaterials (SFB) - Seattle, WA

Faculty members Anita Shukla and Fabiola Munarin, graduate student Shashank Shukla, and undergraduate student Hannah Safford traveled to Seattle, WA to present at the Society for Biomaterials annual meeting April 3-6. A. Shukla, Munarin, and S. Shukla gave oral presenations while Safford presented one of 2 posters from the Shukla Lab. A. Shukla also moderated sessions on  From Bench-to-Bedside: Translating Biomaterials Research, Biomaterials for Therapeutic Drug Delivery, Targeted and Stimuli-Repsonsive Biomaterials, and Recent Advances in Antimicrobial and Antibiofilm Materials I & II.

Abstracts:

Integrating Revascularization Therapy with Cardiac Tissue Engineering for Treating Myocardial Infarction - F. Munarin, R. Kant, C. Rupert, A. Khoo, K. Coulombe

A Novel Chromogenic ε-Lactamase Substrate for Diagnostic Biomaterials - H. Safford, D. Alkekhia, S. Shukla, A. Shukla

Targeted Delivery of Kartogenin-Encapsulated Nanoparticles for Improved Uptake by Mesenchymal Stem Cells - B. Almeida, Y. Wang, A. Shukla

Investigating Antibiofilm Properties of IDR-1018 Peptide Loaded Hydrogels - S. Shukla, A. Shukla

Influence of Poly-L-Lysine Molecular Weight on Antibacterial Activity of Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Films - A. Shukla, D. Alkekhia