UW Bioengineering eNews – Winter/Spring 2017

In this issue: Innovation and Impact | Student Highlights | Alumni Highlights | Community Highlights | Featured Publications

Have feedback? Contact the editors at bioenews@uw.edu.

Welcome to UW Bioengineering’s Winter/Spring 2017 Innovation and Impact!

I’m pleased to send you this update on our advances in bioengineering research, education, translation and outreach, and recognize the recent achievements of our faculty, students and alumni.

Sincerely,

Cecilia Giachelli, Ph.D.
W. Hunter and Dorothy Simpson Endowed Chair, Professor
Department of Bioengineering
University of Washington

Mark your calendars: 2017 Distinguished Lecturer Series!

We are excited to invite internationally recognized leaders in the field of bioengineering to present their work and to engage with our faculty, students and trainees. In Spring Quarter, we will welcome:

Karl Deisseroth, Stanford University
May 4, 2017

Talk title: Nature’s gift: how the discovery of structural principles in a microbial protein helped illuminate the pathophysiology of psychiatry

Innovation and Impact

UW’s new WAMIT imaging center to link diagnostics, therapy

To help lead the next major wave in medical diagnosis and treatment, the University of Washington is planning a molecular imaging center to bring individualized, precision medicine to patients. The WAMIT team includes several BioE core and adjunct faculty.

New technology images fetal brain activity in 4D

Colin Studholme, UW joint professor of bioengineering and pediatrics, is leading research that has pioneered a way to image activity in a baby’s brain before birth. The technique enables the capture of moving subjects, and opens a window on how fetal brains develop.

Scaffold-free tissue engineering method pairs nanopatterned cell sheets, magnetic levitation

In a recent Nanotechnology paper, BioE Assistant Professor Deok-Ho Kim and colleagues demonstrated a novel method for engineering physiologically relevant tissues that could be adapted for drug screening and regenerative medicine applications.

Alyssa Taylor receives Award for Excellence in Science Education from Seattle Association for Women in Science

The award recognizes BioE Senior Lecturer Alyssa Taylor’s passion for teaching, excellence in leadership and outreach, and dedication to serving as a positive role model for students in science and engineering.

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Student Highlights

Ph.D. student Efren Lee works to improve CT/PET scan gold standard, safety

Efren aims to advance PET/CT imaging technology to help physicians better plan and evaluate the success of individualized treatment, and o improve patient outcomes. Efren works with Paul Kinahan, UW professor of radiology and adjunct faculty in BioE, in the Imaging Research Laboratory.

College of Engineering, KING 5 report on Ph.D student’s HIV rapid diagnostics test

In recent interviews with the College of Engineering and Seattle’s KING 5, BioE Ph.D. student Nuttada Panpradist talks about how she started the OLA-SIMPLE HIV diagnostics project, and the impact she hopes her work will have on global health.

Bioengineers without Borders Anesthesia team wins $10,000 second place prize at Holloman Health Innovation Challenge

The team, led by BioE Ph.D. students David Peeler and Eric Swanson, is developing an electricity-free device to increase access to inhaled anesthesia in low-resource regions. Three other teams from BioE were finalists in the competition.

Students unite the brain with technology at 2017 CSNE Hackathon

BioE Ph.D. students Nile Wilson and James Wu co-organized this year’s CSNE Hackathon, which brought together students from UW and five other universities to create technologies to address neural engineering challenges.

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Alumni Highlights

Ph.D. alumnus aims to freeze your cells – and help you regrow your body later

While still a Ph.D. student in BioE Assistant Professor Deok-Ho Kim’s lab, Dr. Jiao (’16) co-founded Silene Biotech with a novel idea: offer consumers a way to store their cells now, and retrieve them to use later for regenerative medicine applications and personalized medicine.

B.S. alumna discusses career in product development in Product Design Studio Profile

Amanda Woodcock (’15, Yager lab), discusses discovering the field of product development while she was a senior in BioE, and her current job at Seattle’s Product Design Studio. “I love being in the trenches, brainstorming and coming up with solutions to the most difficult problems.”

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Community Highlights

K-12 students explore neuroscience research at UW Brain Awareness Week Open House

Eric Chudler, research associate professor of BioE and executive director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, annually organizes the educational outreach event. This year’s event hosted over 700 students, who participated in hands-on activities led by UW
faculty, staff and students. Read more

BioE Outreach hosts Highline High School students to explore research, toy adaptation

BioE students led students and mentors from the BIOXMS (Biomedical Research and Mentors in Science) program, a partnership between Highline High School and UW that helps expose underrepresented minority students to STEM majors and prepare them for college. Read more

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