Announcements

Dr. Intes has been awarded a two-year, $378K R21 grant from the National Cancer Institute at the NIH. The grant will be used to develop a Multispectral Fluorescence Molecular Tomography (MFMT) tool capable of simultaneous tracking of multiple fluorophores in vivo in small animals. The new technique represents a significant development in the field of biomedical engineering. In particular MFMT will allow to track biological processes in vivo and provide plethora of information on diseases states, and help development of new targeted drugs.

One of the major challenges in tissue engineering field is the lack of a functional vasculature with adequate perfusion. Biomedical Engineering Department faculty Dr. Xavier Intes and Dr. Guohao Dai have led the team of investigators to develop an integrated platform that combines 3-D tissue printing and 3-D tissue imaging to study vasculature formation in thick tissues.

Dr. Thompson received a two year, $303K IDEA grant from New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM) to investigate adult neural progenitor fate in response to endothelial produced factors in collaboration with Dr. Natacha DePaola at Illinois Institute of Technology. For more information, please see the April NYSTAR newsletter.

Dr. Corr received an NSF Career Award for his project, entitled "CAREER: Engineering Functional Muscle - Tendon Structures using Scaffold - Free Cell - Based Directed Assembly and Theoretical Modeling". He was also awarded an NIH two year R56 grant to investigate the "Control of Stem Cell Microenvironments for White and Brown Adipogenesis" from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Dr. Dai has been awarded a four-year American Heart Association's National Scientist Development Grant ($308,000). The grant, awarded to junior faculty at their early career stage, is one of the most prestigious awards in Cardiovascular Medicine. The title of the project is "Arterial venous differentiation for tissue engineering application." In this project, Dr.

Dr. Dai received a two year R21 grant award from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to study how to control stem cell differentiation for vascular tissue engineering applications using the cell-printing technology in his lab.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Deanna Thompson is utilizing more than $300,000 in New York state funding as part of the state stem cell research program, NYSTEM, to study adult neural stem cells. The NYSTEM program is New York’s $600 million publicly funded grant program to advance scientific discovery in the area of stem cells. For more information, please read the article in RPI News.

We are happy to announce that the collaboration between RPI’s BME Capstone Design and the Center for Disability Services has been awarded this year’s annual Technology Innovation Award by the Center for Economic Growth. The award is based on the strong collaboration between our Capstone Design course and the work our students have done over the last 6 years with the Center for Disability Services. Within RPI, we share the recognition with the MDL who has worked with the Center for the last two years.