Month: December 2014

Lindsay’s abstract, “Recombinant LL37 Antimicrobial Peptide with Collagen Tethering for Wound Healing Applications”, co-authored by Denis Kole, Ray Gasper, Chelsea Miller, Tanja Dominko, Marsha Rolle and Terri Camesano, was chosen in the top 25 abstracts for the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society Americas 2014 meeting (or TERMIS-AM) in Washington D.C. The top 25 abstracts were invited to participate in a separate poster competition by which three judges would come around to each poster and judge it based on presentation and content. On the last day of TERMIS-AM, program coordinators announced the winners, and Lindsay’s presentation won first place. The TERMIS world congress will be in Boston, MA in 2015.

Sarah Hernandez recently gave a presentation at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society Americas 2014 meeting “Restoring Lives Through Regenerative Medicine,”. (or TERMIS-AM) in Washington D.C. December 13-16. Sarah’s talk was titled Pre-Cancer Biomarkers Identified From Induced Regeneration Competent Cells.

On December 10^th, some 210 master’s and PhD candidates shared their innovative research at the Graduate Research Innovation Exchange (GRIE). During the day, judges visited all of the participants, evaluating their posters and learning more about their work. They selected 65 finalists—46 PhD and 19 MS candidates divided proportionately among four categories: business and social science, engineering, life sciences and bioengineering, and science. They will compete again during the Poster Finals on April 13th in conjunction with the i3: Investing in Ideas with Impact competition.

The IGERT fellows are:

Lindsay Lozeau-

Activity And Collagen-Binding Ability Of A Recombinant Antimicrobial Peptide For Wound Healing Applications

Christopher Nycz-

Modeling And Testing Of Force Control Applications in High Torque, Low Power DC Actuators

Megan O’Brien-

Towards The Design Of A Composite Cardiac Patch: Fabrication Of A Fibrin Microthread-Based Engineered Myocardial Layer

Marsha Rolle received a three month Faculty Research Visit award from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service). Prof. Rolle will work with Dr. Katja Schenke-Layland at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany to develop label-free imaging techniques to assess vascular smooth muscle cell structure. The DAAD is a joint organization of institutes of higher education in the Federal Republic of Germany that promotes international academic cooperation through the exchange of students and academics.

Study by a team, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute shows standard bone density scans may underestimate the fracture risk for spinal cord injury patients and, by extension, those with osteoporosis.

The results suggest that physicians need to begin therapies for spinal cord injury patients sooner to maintain bone mass and strength. The data also serve as a warning to physicians treating patients with osteoporosis to think beyond the standard bone density test when assessing risks of hip and other fractures. Details of the study are reported in the paper “Reduction in Proximal Femoral Strength in Patients With Acute Spinal Cord Injury” published by the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

“It’s not just a question of how much bone mass is lost, but where that loss is occurring,” said Karen Troy, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at WPI and senior author of the paper. “We found that bone loss occurred sooner in mechanically important areas and significantly increased the risk of fracture.”

Study image is featured on the cover of the Journal of Bone Mineral Research. Red areas of the bone are stiffer and blue areas are less stiff.