Recent UW Bioengineering Ph.D. graduate Meredith Redd has received a Whitaker International Scholar Award. The Whitaker International Fellows and Scholars Program sends predoctoral and postdoctoral biomedical engineers abroad to undertake self-guided projects in an academic, non-profit, policy or industry setting. The program promotes the professional development of superb leaders in biomedical engineering who will advance the profession through an international outlook.
Working with Assistant Professor Ying Zheng and Professor Charles Murry at UW, Dr. Redd worked on improving vascularization strategies for cardiac tissue engineering and for host integration. A key finding of her work was that functional blood vessels can be engineered from human pluripotent stem cells, and then implanted on injured hearts to enhance blood flow.
With her Whitaker award, Dr. Redd will travel to the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. She will work with Dr. Nathan Palpant’s lab to develop improved in vitro systems for studying ischemic heart disease and evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of a pool of candidate drugs.