UW Bioengineering Assistant Professor Deok-Ho Kim has been named a 2015 Young Innovator of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE) by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).

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2015 BMES CMBE Young Innovators

Dr. Kim is one of only 11 distinguished honorees this year who are tenure-track assistant professors working in the field of cellular and molecular bioengineering. This year’s honorees represent some of the best and brightest working in the field and were chosen from a highly competitive pool of candidates, noted a CMBE official.

As part of the selection process, they were invited to submit full-length manuscripts that underwent a rigorous peer-review process prior to publication in the most recent issue of the scientific journal Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.

As a 2015 CMBE Young Innovator, Dr. Kim will present his research at the 2015 Annual Biomedical Engineering Society Meeting in Tampa, Fla. A special two-part platform session will be held at 8 a.m. and 1:45 p.m., October 9 as part of the cellular and molecular bioengineering track. Each corresponding author will present his or her research and receive recognition as a 2015 CMBE Young Innovator.

Dr. Kim was recognized for the development of a nanopatterned human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived model of a dystrophin-null cardiomyopathic phenotype. His research group has demonstrated the utility of bio-inspired nanotopographically-defined materials for controlling the structural and functional properties of hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, providing an enabling platform for effectively stratifying normal and structural cardiac disease phenotypes in vitro. Their findings are published in the September issue of CMBE Journal.

“Advanced heart cell-based systems such as these offer unprecedented opportunities to study a wide range of heart diseases in more rigorous and innovative ways; paving the way for breakthroughs in treatment options and someday cures for patients where none exist today,” said Jesse Macadangdang, lead author of the paper and graduate student in Dr. Kim’s laboratory.

Dr. Kim, who joined University of Washington in 2011, received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2010. He completed his postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. His research spans diverse fields, including nanobiomaterials, mechanobiology, stem cell and tissue engineering, and micro/nanofabrication of polymeric biomaterials.

For more information on the 2015 CMBE Young Innovators and Dr. Kim’s research, visit http://link.springer.com/journal/12195/8/3/page/1 and http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12195-015-0413-8.