Nine students presented their master’s thesis work in Biomedical Engineering this semester. Congratulations Kai, Tobias, David, Mateo, Kevin, Joshua, David, Becka, and Shailen!
Founded by Brown juniors Jack Schaeffer and Eliza Sternlicht, MediCircle addresses health disparities by repurposing unused cancer medication. The company collects leftover oral chemotherapeutics pills, ensures the medicine is quality, and then redistributes the medicine to those in need.
“The idea here is to develop a system that can help doctors to determine how severe these aneurysms are and what’s the likelihood of a rupture,” said George Karniadakis. “That could help in determining when to intervene before severe damage is done.”
BME PhD student Kiera Dwyer, as well as recent alumni Hannah Safford ’19 and Brian Vuong ’19 have each won a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship in the Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Additionally, Evan Dastin-van Rijn ’21, who will graduate this spring, was also honored with the Fellowship.
Biomedical engineer Thomas Usherwood ’22 has been named one of 410 college students to receive a Barry Goldwater Scholarship for the 2021-2022 academic year. The Scholarship Program was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue research careers in the fields of the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics, and is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these fields.
Celinski sees the program as “a great opportunity for contributing back to Brown's community, especially during the times of COVID-19 when maintaining the sense of community support and belonging is so much harder.” Stefan sees Community Fellows as, “a wonderful opportunity and responsibility. It's really important to me to contribute to my community and build positive and supportive workplace environments and relationships.” The pair, working on building international student community, have already hosted a “Morning Tea Social” event and launched a peer-to-peer mentorship program for international students who joined Brown in the 2020-2021 academic year.
Projects funded by Brown's 2021 Research Seed Awards included Role of Senescence Associated Extracellular Vesicles in Radiation-Induced Pulmonary Fibrosis (PI: Michelle Dawson), Structure and Post-Translational Modifications of Candida Transcription Factors and their Impact on Phase Separation (Co-PI Nicolas Fawzi), Pulmonary Artery Endothelial Cell Phenotypes During Pulmonary Hypertension (Co-PI Diane Hoffman-Kim), Immunomodulatory Biomaterials for Treating Ischemia in Diabetic Models (PI: Fabiola Munarin), and Responsive Hydrogel Based pH Regulation of Cancer Tumor Microenvironment to Reduce Metastasis (PI: Vikas Srivastava).
BME faculty and students from the Chen, Crisco, and Fleming labs participated in the 2021 virtual Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting from February 12 thru 16.
Abigail Kohler is co-founder and chief executive of ResusciTech, a Providence-based startup that recently developed an app that brings first aid and CPR training and certification to iOS and Android platforms, without additional equipment needed.