On Wednesday, Jan. 30^th, three IGERT students, Sarah Runge, Heather Cirka and Karen Levi and pre-IGERT student, Lindsay Lozeau, attended Student Entrepreneurship Night at the MassChallenge headquarters in Boston. The event held an opening panel of CEOs from start-up companies in the Boston area such as Jessica Cole from Roammeo answering questions about their entrepreneurial success, followed by a networking session of many local entrepreneurs sharing their ideas.

 I think the most valuable part of this trip was realizing how young all of the entrepreneurs were at this event. Most of them were either still in college or had just graduated, and they all had great ideas. Meeting people who had fueled their start-up with the pure passion for solving a problem was inspiring; that is what the IGERT at WPI program is all about.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren visited WPI on February 1, 2013 where she toured the lab space at Gateway Park.  She got a firsthand look at the innovative research being conducted here that IGERT fellows take part in. Sen. Warren was impressed with the facility, calling it a prime example of the future of education. IGERT fellow Heather Cirka and pre-IGERT fellow Katrina Hansen had a chance to talk with Sen. Warren and explain how funds from the federal government are training students to become future leaders in Biofabrication.

Pre-Igert fellow Katrina Hansen had the opportunity to show some of the research she is working on, in Prof. Gaudette’s lab, to a couple members of The J. Geils Band.  Band members Richard Salwitz and Danny Klein are WPI Alum and were visiting campus on January 30, 2013. Danny Klein’s dog recently received stem cell therapy. The technology that Katrina is working on seeks to improve delivery of stem cell therapy for animals and humans.

IGERT student Todd Alexander’s synopsis of the innovation and entrepreneurship event he recently attended:

One entrepreneurial event I attended was put on by the MIT-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (MIT-Chief). It was a weekend long event focused on the Big Data revolution. The days were broken up into a morning session held by a handful of keynote speakers who talked about various topics including US Chinese relations and of course the central theme, big data. In the afternoon there were two sets of two separate talks and attendees could choose which talks they would like to attend. The talks were lecture style with opportunities to ask questions to the panel at the end. I went with friend Tim who is very interested in entrepreneurship. His hometown is about 4 hours from Shanghai and his family owns a successful business. Even though he is not here for a business degree he is very interested in business topics and invited me to attend the conference with him. Many of the speakers were world renowned professors as well as entrepreneurs and representatives from investment firms. Many of the speakers were from China. It gave them a different perspective which was interesting to hear. From what I gathered it seems like there is a lot of innovation and entrepreneurial activity in the big data field. This included how to analyze the information, how it can best be used, and how the data can be stored and organized.

One of the speakers was the chairman of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in China KYXH Pharmaceuticals. He talked about the “5 Genes of Outstanding Cooperation”. They were as follows: common vision and goals, creativity and flexibility, operation and management skills, clear positioning and core competence, leadership decisiveness and execution. One of the things that struck me was the importance he placed on common vision and goals. This has been a reoccurring theme in the technology commercialization course I took and has been strongly emphasized. Case after case the companies with a clear vision have more success than those who don’t.  It was also interesting he called it the 5 Genes of Outstanding Cooperation’s. Some of the ideas mirrored the ideas held in the 5 Disciplines for Creating what Customers Wants which was required reading for the IGERT program. One similar idea was that of organizational alignment which is what I think he meant by common vision and goals and leadership. It was interesting how many parallels I could draw between course materials and what was discussed.

I found one of the more interesting talks was the one held by the Venture Investment Panel. Two of the panelists were from larger venture firms, one was from a smaller venture firm, and one was an Adjunct Professor involved in the capital investment field. It was interesting to see the difference of strategy of the big firms compared to the smaller one in terms of size of companies they were looking for, the aversions to risk, and ways that they helped nurture the companies. It made me think about whom to go to when looking for investment. Certain investors offer different advantages such as more capital available, different types of support (some more personal, some more distant), as well as various other benefits such as contacts etc. This obviously depends on what stage your company is what your technology or service is etc. but it was interesting to see how a decision of how and where to get money from has an impact.

Overall I enjoyed the conference but I felt the same way my buddy Tim did in that there was not really enough time for networking. For those who purchased the VIP Package this was a little different and networking was built into the schedule in the form of dinner’s and other events. Overall the experience was enjoyable and worthwhile.

Prof. Dominko has established a Center for biomedical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia. Where next year they will be conducting their first three MQP projects!

Professor Camesano’s group publishes a new study on the use of antimicrobial peptides to kill bacteria on surfaces.  IGERT Fellow Todd Alexander and pre-IGERT Fellow Lindsay Lozeau will be continuing to develop this technology to create antimicrobial biomaterials, for the treatment of implant infections and chronic wounds.

Prof. Tanja Dominko recently gave a lecture at Natick Army labs about regeneration and the use of anti-aging and antioxidant substances to ameliorate the effects of aging.

The BMES meeting recently held in Atlanta, Georgia was attended by six faculty members of the IGERT Biofabrication Program. Five Professors from Biomedical Engineering had presentations.

Assoc. Professor Kris Billiar had the following poster presentations:

1. Regulation of Valvular Interstitial Cell Phenotype by Boundary Stiffness.

Kural, M., Billiar, K.

2. Cell Ensing on Strain-Stiffening Substrates is not Fully Explained by the Nonlinear Mechanical Property

Rudnicki, M., Billiar, K.

Assoc. Professor Glenn Gaudette had the following Podium Talk:

The Biomechanical Effects of Fibrin Biological Sutures on the Infarcted Rat Heart

John T. Favreau, Jacques P. Guyette, Zewei Tao, Angelica Demartino, Nancy Duffy, John Fitzpatrick, Justin Stedman, George D. Pins, Glenn R. Gaudette

Assoc. Professor George Pins had the following:

Posters:

1. Tunable Carbodiimide Crosslinking of Fibrin Microthreads Increases Myoblast   Attachment, Proliferation, and Outgrowth

J. M. Grasman, R. L. Page, T. Dominko, and G. D. Pins

2. Characterizing Collagen Biopolymer with Microscale Surface Topographies

J. Forte, J. M. Grasman, G. D. Pins

Oral:

The Effect of Fibrin Biological Sutures on the Infarcted Rat Heart

J. Favreau, J. Guyette, Z. Tao, A. Demartino, N. Duffy,  J. Fitzpatrick, J. Stedman,  G. Pins, G. R. Gaudette

Asst. Professor Marsha Rolle had the following poster presentation:

Development of Cell Self-Assembled, 3-Dimensional Skeletal Muscle tissue Models in Vitro

C. Malcuit1,2, T. Gwyther1, M. McCorry1, C. Ohlson1, K. Larson1, S. Delfosse1, M. Aschettino3, C. Quinn1, S. Higginbottom1, S. Gunnel1, M. Rolle1, and R. Page1

1Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  Worcester,  MA,  2Kent  State  University,  Kent,  OH,  3Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,Worcester

Asst. Professor Anjana Jain had the following poster presentation:

One Step Acrylation of Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels for Neural Tissue Engineering

A. M. Dede1, C. M. Valmikinathan2, and A. Jain1

1Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 2Johnson and Johnson, Summerville, NJ

See the article on the IGERT Biofabrication program recently published in DIVERSITY/CAREERS in Engineering & Information Technology.