In this issue: Faculty Research & Awards | Trainee Awards |Alumni News | Announcements | Featured Publications
Welcome to UW Bioengineering’s Innovation & Impact!
Welcome to UW Bioengineering’s Innovation & Impact!Congratulations to our newest alumni – the Class of 2020! This issue of eNews celebrates our students’ and faculty’s many achievements.
As we look ahead and navigate through these unprecedented times, the need for equity, access and inclusion has never been more urgent. As educators we are committed to the exchange of ideas and we believe in access and equity for all. We, the Bioengineering community, stand with Black Lives Matter and commit to long-term partnership with UW leadership and students to create systemic and social change.
As UW President Ana Mari Cauce wrote in her recent blog post honoring Juneteenth, “Our nation is in the midst of a new reckoning – long overdue and far from complete – with the deeply-rooted racism that manifests in both blatant and insidious ways.”
Anti-racism work needs to be intertwined in our work as educators, students and scientists. We dedicate ourselves to the hard work necessary to advance the values of diversity, equity and inclusion in the Department of Bioengineering, and as part of the larger efforts at UW, including the UW Diversity Blueprint. Student and faculty are working now to identify training needs and opportunities for learning. Leaders are reviewing policies and procedures that create barriers to access to Black students, faculty and staff.
In the coming days, weeks and years, we commit to the conversations, the hard work and the actions that will lead to meaningful, lasting change.
For anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of historical and present-day manifestations of racism in the United States, I encourage you to make use of the many anti-racism resources made available by the UW Race & Equity Initiative as a way to educate yourself, join the conversation and take action.
Our department is known for our culture of openness and collaboration. Let’s continue to build on that to create a more equitable, inclusive and compassionate community together.
With warm regards,
Cecilia Giachelli, Ph.D.
W. Hunter and Dorothy Simpson Endowed Chair, Professor
Department of Bioengineering
Faculty Research & Awards
Bioengineer Nancy Allbritton Named Dean of UW College of Engineering
On Nov. 1, bioengineer Dr. Nancy Allbritton began her role as Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of the College of Engineering at UW. In addition to her deanship at UW, she holds an appointment in the UW Department of Bioengineering, where she plans to continue her research in single-cell enzymatic assays and organ-on-a-chip technology.
Alyssa Taylor Honored with 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award
UW Bioengineering Senior Lecturer Alyssa Taylor has received a 2020 UW Distinguished Teaching Award, which recognizes UW faculty for outstanding dedication and innovations in teaching, mentoring and service to others.
Herbert Sauro, David Baker and Dayong Gao Elected to AIMBE
UW professors and bioengineering faculty Herbert Sauro, David Baker and Dayong Gao have been named fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
NESAC/Bio Wins 2020 SFB Technology, Innovation And Development Award; Cole Deforest Wins 2020 Young Investigator Award
University of Washington bioengineers have won two awards from the Society for Biomaterials. The Society specifically honored Buddy Ratner, David Castner, Lara Gamble and Cole DeForest.
UW Bioengineers Use Cholesterol Tag to Ease Proteins into Cells
Xiaohu Gao and his lab have developed a new, simple way to bring imaging and disease-treating proteins directly into a live cell. They reported their finding June 19 in Science Advances.
New Weill Neurohub Launches First Projects; UW Bioengineering Faculty Among Project Leaders
Two UW Bioengineering faculty, Amy Orsborn and Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad, are project leaders on one of the new Weill Neurohub’s five foundational projects.
With Smartphone Camera, Researchers Can Create Hyperspectral Images To Analyze Skin Changes
Modern smartphone cameras can be harnessed to analyze and track skin changes and blood flow dynamics under the skin, report Professor Ruikang Wang and his graduate student Qinghua He, in the February issue of Biomedical Optics Express.
Engineered Capillaries Model Traffic in Tiny Blood Vessels
Associate Professor Ying Zheng, Assistant Professor Cole DeForest and Dr. Joseph D. Smith of Seattle Children’s have engineered tiny blood vessels and shed light on how severe malaria infection causes red blood cells to get stuck in the bloodstream’s narrowest passageways. Their paper appeared Jan. 17 in Science Advances.
Trainee Awards
Three UW Bioengineering Students Receive 2020 Fulbright Awards
UW Bioengineering undergraduates Sarah Slack and Vidhi Singh, and Ph.D. student Hannah VanBenschoten, were awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships for the 2020-21 academic year.
UW Bioengineering’s Parker Ruth Named a 2020 Goldwater Scholar
UW Bioengineering senior Parker Ruth is one of three students from the University of Washington and among 396 nationwide to be named Goldwater Scholars for 2020.
Seven Bioengineering Students in 2020 Husky 100
The UW recognized seven students from the Department of Bioengineering for the 2020 Husky 100, an honor awarded to extraordinary juniors, seniors and graduate students who are making meaningful contributions at UW and beyond.
Favour Orji Receives Gilman Scholarship
Favour Orji, a senior working on a dual degree in bioengineering and sociology, has received the highly competitive Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad in Morocco.
Concentric Wins Second Place Prize At 2020 Health Innovation Challenge
A team of Master’s of Applied Bioengineering students took home the $10,000 second place prize at the 2020 Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge March 5. Concentric won for their low-cost, portable screening device for corneal disease.
Arogya wins Prizes at UW Dempsey Startup Competition, Environmental Innovation Challenge
A team of bioengineering and psychology undergraduates have created an electricity-free clothes washer and dryer that has captured the attention of judges at several business design competitions.
Bioengineering Students Finish in Top 3 in Microsoft Imagine Cup
Two bioengineering students were part of a team that finished in the top three of Microsoft’s 2020 Imagine Cup, a global technology competition for student developers.
BioE Students win Summer Fellowships Bridging Science and Entrepreneurship
Fifth year Bioengineering Ph.D. student Nicole Zeinstra and Master’s of Applied Bioengineering Student Samuel Broadwell were selected for summer fellowship projects on kidney organoids and HIV medication adherence.
Alumni News
Bioengineering Alumna Jane Grande-Allen Receives 2020 UW Diamond Award
Bioengineering alumna Jane Grande-Allen, Ph.D. ’98, has received the UW College of Engineering’s 2020 Diamond Award for Distinguished Achievement in Academia.
A-Alpha Bio Wins $620K NSF Grant; Builds on $2.8 Million in Seed Funding
A-Alpha Bio, a startup co-founded and led by UW Bioengineering alumni David Younger, Ph.D. ’17, and Randolph Lopez, Ph.D. ’18, received a $620,472 grant from the National Science Foundation to continue developing their AlphaSeq platform.
BioE Alumna’s Nanodropper Startup Gets Boost from Accelerator Program
Nanodropper, a company co-founded by Bioengineering alumna Mackenzie Andrews, M.S. ’19, has completed this year’s Jones + Foster Accelerator program and received $25,000 in seed funding.
Announcements
GRE exam optional for all Autumn 2021 Bioengineering Graduate applicants
With the reduction of GRE testing globally, the Bioengineering department is waiving the GRE exam requirement for all graduate program applicants for Autumn 2021. The GRE exam was already optional for the Master’s of Applied Bioengineering and online Master’s of Pharmaceutical Bioengineering, and now it also will be optional for our M.S. and Ph.D. programs for the Autumn 2021 admissions cycle.
Featured Publications
In utero MRI identifies consequences of early-gestation alcohol drinking on fetal brain development in rhesus macaques
Xiaojie Wang, et al.
(Colin Studholme’s lab / UW Departments of Pediatrics and Radiology / Oregon Health & Science University)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Multiplexed drug testing of tumor slices using a microfluidic platform
Lisa Horowitz et al.
(Albert Folch’s lab / UW Departments of Neurosurgery, Pathology, Genome Sciences / Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute)
Nature Precision Oncology
Development of a neural interface for high-definition, long-term recording in rodents and nonhuman primates
Chia-Han Chiang, et al.
(Amy Orsborn / Duke University / Sungkyunkwan University / Yonsei University / Northwestern University / University of Wisconsin-Madison / Soongsil University / Columbia University / Northeastern University / University of Pennsylvania / New York University)
Science Translational Medicine
Guided vascularization in the rat heart leads to transient vessel patterning
Eileen Brady et al.
(Kelly Stevens’, Jennifer Davis’, Ruikang Wang’s labs)
APL Bioenginering
Engineering anisotropic 3D tubular tissues with flexible thermoresponsive nanofabricated substrates
Nisa Williams, et al.
(Charles Murry’s and Marta Scatena’s labs / Johns Hopkins University)
Biomaterials
Healthy fats and exclusion-zone size.
Abha Sharma et al.
(Gerald Pollack’s lab)
Food Chemistry
Biophysical and biomolecular interactions of malaria-infected erythrocytes in engineered human capillaries
Christopher Arakawa et al.
(Cole DeForest’s and Ying Zheng’s labs / UW Global Health / Seattle Children’s Research Institute)
Science Advances
OLA-Simple: A software-guided HIV-1 drug resistance test for low-resource laboratories
Nuttada Panpradist et al.
(Barry Lutz’s lab / UW Department of Global Health / Seattle Children’s Research Institute / University of Pretoria / Chiang Mai University / Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo)
EBioMedicine
Cellular Interactome Dynamics during Paclitaxel Treatment
Juan Chavez et al.
(Rong Tian’s lab, UW Genome Sciences)
Cell Reports
Exploiting the Semidestructive Nature of Gas Cluster Ion Beam Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry Imaging for Simultaneous Localization and Confident Lipid Annotations
Tina Angerer et al.
(Lara Gamble’s lab / UW NESAC/BIO / Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
Analytical Chemistry
Targeting Ligands Deliver Model Drug Cargo into the Central Nervous System along Autonomic Neurons
Drew Sellers et al.
(Drew Sellers and Suzie Pun’s lab / UW Department of Laboratory Medicine)
ACS Nano
Computationally guided personalized targeted ablation of persistent atrial fibrillation
Patrick Boyle et al.
(Patrick Boyle / John’s Hopkins University / University of Pennsylvania)
Nature Biomedical Engineering