Biomedical Engineering hosts several respected distinguished guest speakers that are highly influential in the Biomedical world, both through research and industry. The speakers are invited as part of the Graduate Seminar for Biomedical Engineers (BME 590) taught by Dr. Kaiming Ye, Chair of Biomedical Engineering.
Dr. David Corr
“Biofabricating 2D/3D in vitro Tissue Models via Laser Direct Write"
Dr. Corr joined the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2006 and is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research specializes in soft tissue biomechanics and laser-based biofabrication techniques to create living tissue constructs. Dr. Corr’s research program aims to understand the impact of various microenvironmental and developmental stimuli on cell behavior and fate decisions, and to exploit these to improve functional tissue engineering, as well as leverage unique bioprinting capabilities to create spatially-precise cellular constructs for disease models and in vitro diagnostics.
1 December 2023
Mr. Michael Finkelstein - BU Alum '96
“You are What You Wear” Backward Deconstruction of the challenges behind the first FDA-approved medical textile that closes the loop between diagnostics and interventions.
Michael spent the last 8+ years in medical device R&D and Business Development. In 2015, he cofounded, a medical distribution company. In 2020, the company leadership team shifted focus to manufacturing and founded Neuro20 Technologies, a Tampa based medical device manufacturer, with a current market cap of ($35M).
17 November 2023
Dr. Justin Pritchard - 2021
“Using Stochastic Models of Cancer Evolution for Therapeutic Design”
Justin Pritchard studied Computational and Systems Biology at MIT in the laboratories of Doug Lauffenburger (Engineering) and Michael Hemann (Cancer Genetics). After his PhD he ran a joint experimental-computational group in industry. His group is funded by the NSF, NIBIB, DOD and the NCI.
Dr. Michael Mak - 2021
"Non-Canonical Biophysical Interactions in Tissue Microenvironments"
Prof. Mak’s lab aims to uncover the fundamental mechanics and biophysics underlying emergent mechanobiological phenomena. To achieve this, his lab develops complementary experimental and computational tools that can probe into the multiscale mechanobiology of cell and cytoskeletal dynamics, cell-matrix interactions, and collective cell behaviors in 3D microenvironments. They develop in vitro and in silico models, microfluidic systems, and novel scaffolding biomaterials. They further perform high resolution imaging experiments and develop automated image analysis tools for quantitative analyses of cell behaviors across multiple scales. They take an integrative, systems level approach investigating both biochemical and biomechanical signaling and feedback that regulate the spatial and temporal evolution of cell, tissue, and microenvironmental states.
Dr. Yu Zhang - 2021
“Data-driven Neuroimaging Biomarkers to Advance Precision Medicine in Brain Disease”
Dr. Yu Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at Lehigh University. He
received postdoctoral training at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University,
and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. In the past decade, he has been mainly working on data-driven neural pattern
decoding and biomarker discovery using neuroimaging techniques for personalized medicine.
He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers that have been published in prestigious
journals and conferences, such as Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Human Behaviour,
Nature Biotechnology, Proceedings of the IEEE, IEEE Trans. Cybernetics, IEEE Trans.
Neural Netw. Learn. Syst., IEEE Trans. Neural
Syst. Rehabil. Eng., IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., Pattern Recognition, AAAI, MICCAI,
and ICASSP. He is an IEEE Senior Member and serving as Associate Editor for Journals
including Frontiers in Neuroscience, Network Modeling Analysis in Health Informatics
and Bioinformatics, Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, Brain-Computer Interfaces.
He also served as the PC member for international conferences, such as IJCAI and MICCAI.
His research interests include computational neuroscience, brain network, machine
learning, signal processing, brain-computer interface, medical imaging computing.
Dr. Samuel Chung - 2021
“Optical approaches for studying a nematode model of central nervous system regeneration”
Prof. Chung obtained his B.S. in Applied Physics from Caltech in 2000. While in Prof.
Eric Mazur’s group at Harvard he pioneered a femtosecond laser surgery technique in
the roundworm C. elegans, obtaining a Ph.D. in Applied Physics in 2009. Subsequently,
he joined Prof. Christopher Gabel’s group at the Boston University School of Medicine,
where he developed fluorescent techniques and devices for imaging and established
a novel neuroregeneration model in C. elegans. Prof. Chung joined the Bioengineering
Department at Northeastern University in the fall of 2017 and established a multidisciplinary
group to apply innovative microscopy solutions to neuroscience. His laboratory develops
optical tools for investigating single neurons in
the worm, with the goal of automating microscopy. His laboratory also leverages laser
surgery and roundworm genetics to dissect the cellular and molecular mechanisms of
neuronal regeneration.
Dr. Ibrahim Tarik Ozbolat - 2021
“3D Bioprinting of Living Tissues and Organs: From Basic Science to Future Clinical Translation”
Ibrahim Tarik Ozbolat is a Hartz Family Associate Professor of Engineering Science
and
Mechanics, Biomedical Engineering and Neurosurgery, and a member of the Huck Institutes
of the Life Sciences at Penn State University. Dr. Ozbolat’s main area of research
is in the field of 3D Bioprinting. He has been working on several aspects of bioprinting
such as bioprinting processes, bioink materials, bioprinters and post-
bioprinting tissue maturation for manufacturing of more than a dozen tissues and organs.
Dr. Ozbolat is a leading scientist with over 140 publications, including a sole-authored
book in his domain. Due to his notable contributions to the field of bioprinting,
he has received several prestigious international and national awards
including 2014 NSF CAREER Award, 2014 SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer
Award, 2014 ASME Chao and Trigger Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, 2014 ASME Tau
Pi Sigma Gold Medal, 2015 IIE Dr. Hamid K. Eldin Outstanding Early Career Industrial
Engineer in Academia Award, 2015 International Outstanding Young Researcher in Freeform
and Additive Manufacturing Award and 2017 Hartz Family Career Development Professorship
at Penn State.
Dr. Scott Wilson - 2021
“Polymer-based Strategies for Engineering Immunity and Tolerance”
Scott earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. While at Georgia Tech, Scott worked with Professor Niren Murthy developing drug delivery platforms for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, cranial re-synostosis, acute lung injury, and osteoarthritis. As a postdoc in Professor Jeffery A. Hubbell’s Laboratory, Scott synthesized glycopolymer-based subunit vaccines that elicit cellular immunity against infections and malignancy, as well as disease-modifying inverse vaccines for autoimmunity. In 2020, Scott joined the Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering Department as an assistant professor. Scott’s Laboratory focuses on the synthesis and preclinical validation of biomaterials-based immunomodulatory therapies that bias the adaptive immune response towards antigen-specific immunity or tolerance.
Dr. Jun Wang - 2021
“MIST Technology for Single-Cell Functional Proteomics”
Jun Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University. Prior to joining SBU, he was an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department of SUNY Albany. He received postdoctoral training in the Department of Chemistry and the NanoSystems Biology Cancer Center at the California Institute of Technology. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from Purdue University. He has received several top awards including Chorafas Foundation prize.
Dr. Caitlin Howell - 2021
“Engineering Bio-Inspired Surfaces to Control Biological Systems”
Caitlin Howell is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Maine. She earned her PhD in Physical Chemistry from Heidelberg University, Germany, studying the organization and orientation of biological molecules and cells at abiotic surfaces using spectroscopic techniques. She then completed a postdoc as a Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University where she designed and tested bio-inspired surfaces for use in industry and medicine and worked toward moving those technologies to market. Her current research focus is on the development of new surface-based strategies for controlling biological systems at interfaces.
Dr. SuPing Lyu - 2021
“Materials Technologies, Medical Devices, and Healthcare”
Dr. SuPing Lyu received his B.E. from Tsinghua University in China in 1991 and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2000. He joined Medtronic in 2000 and currently is a Distinguished Scientist. He was elected to Medtronic Technical Fellow in 2008, Medtronic Bakken Fellow in 2018, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellow in 2020. He has been involved in material research in multiple technology areas including cardiac, spinal, vascular, and renal disease management. He has served on industrial advisory boards for multiple institutes. He authors over 25 peer-reviewed papers and over 35 US patents. He has given many talks and guest lectures to graduate students. SuPing’s current research focus is on material stability and new materials.
Dr. Zengmin Xia - 2021
“Life as an Engineer in Medical Device Industry”
Dr. Zengmin Xia is a Principle Materials Engineer at Medtronic, one of the largest
medical device companies in the world and a global leader in medical technology, services,
and solutions. Dr. Xia received her BE in Chemical Engineering from Zhejiang University
in 2004 and PhD in Materials Science from the University of Connecticut in 2014, where
she was named one of eight “Women of Innovation” for collegian
innovation and leadership. She was previously a Research Assistant Professor in the
Biomedical Engineering Department at before joining Medtronic
in 2015. Dr. Xia has experience in polymeric materials and related technologies for
cardiac products. She has authored over 10 peer-reviewed papers and has published
a book chapter and a patent.
Dr. Christof T. Grewer - 2021
“Glutamine transporter inhibitors as potential tools to block growth of cancer cells”
Dr. Christof Grewer received his MS and PhD degrees from Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Germany. He completed his postdoc training in Cornell University. He was Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Miami School of Medicine before he joined as Associate Professor of Chemistry in 2008. He became Professor of Chemistry in 2011. Dr. Grewer’s long-term goal of research is to understand the function and the working mechanism of membrane-bound transport proteins. In general, transporters use different types of energy sources to actively move specific substrates, such as inorganic ions or small, organic molecules across the membrane into or out of cells. Recently, significant progress has been made towards his understanding of the molecular architecture through the availability of high-resolution structures of several transporters. However, the actual transport mechanism(s) remain elusive. His aim is to combine functional and structural evidence in order to obtain an understanding of how these transport proteins work.