Prof. Jessica Zhang has been elected chair-elect of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE)’s College of Fellows. It is a high honor to be elected to such a significant position for a national organization. As chair-elect, Zhang will oversee the nomination, review, and election of new Fellows. Next year, as chair, she will be responsible for managing the development and organization of the annual event, and be a voting member of the board.

Prof. Adam Feinberg and his international colleagues have been awarded $23.6 million by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund Transformation program to develop cutting-edge regenerative therapies for heart disease. Feinberg’s contribution focuses on 3D-bioprinting a functional heart, and in total, 22 leading laboratories will be involved in the effort across 10 research institutions in four countries (Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel).

Anne Behre, a BME fourth-year Ph.D. student, received the Graduate Student Service Award from Carnegie Mellon University for her outstanding contributions in education, teaching, advising, mentoring, and service. Anne is an active member of the community who has organized events that foster connections among her department and young learners in the Pittsburgh area. Her efforts have helped to advance the professional development of graduate students from Carnegie Mellon and beyond.

Prof. Rosalyn Abbott has been awarded the NSF CAREER Award for her “CAREER: 3D Printing High Lipid Content Cultivated Meat to Minimize Livestock Environmental Impacts” project. The NSF CAREER award is one of the most prestigious awards for early-career faculty members, and receiving it is a great honor. 

In fall 2022, Prof. Rachelle Palchesko started as a teaching faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In this role, she teaches a variety of courses focused on biomaterials, tissue engineering, and bioprinting that prepare students to become leaders in research and industry.

Congratulations to Iris Pan (BME/MechE), Allison Hunter (BME/CnemE), Chalisa (Jean) Udompanyawit (BME/ECE), Nikki Hasson (BME/MechE) for being named 2022-2023 ACS Scholars. The award recognizes undergraduate seniors who embody Carnegie Mellon University’s high standards of academic excellence, volunteerism, leadership and involvement in student organizations, athletics or the arts.

Prof. Chris Bettinger joined DARPA in August 2022 as a program manager in the Biological Technologies Office. He is broadly interested in applying bioelectronics and cellular engineering to create new technologies that monitor and improve warfighter performance.

BME Prof. Charlie Ren won the Biomedical Engineering New Innovator Award for Junior Faculty at the 48th Northeast Bioengineering Conference organized by the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. Prof. Ren’s lab works at the interface of biomaterial and stem cell engineering, with the goal of providing regenerative therapeutic solutions to repair or replace damaged tissues and organs.

CMU Professors Keith Cook (BME), Jana Kainerstorfer (BME), and Howie Choset (Robotics Institute, BME) and colleagues at Vanderbilt and Cornell have been awarded an $8.7 million dollar grant from the US Army CDMRP program to create and integrate technologies that enable artificial lungs to transition from temporary support in the ICU to permanent support at home. This will allow chronic lung disease patients to lead longer, more normal lives in which they feel comfortable engaging in every-day activities such as walking or driving.

BME/ECE Prof. Pulkit Grover was named the 2022-2023 Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE’s Information Theory Society. The Distinguished Lecturers Program was established to promote interest in information theory by supporting chapters who wish to invite prominent information theory researchers to give talks at their events. Grover plans to give talks in Asia, Africa, and various places in North and South America, supported by this program.

Prof. Charlie Ren has won an NSF CAREER Award, a prestigious 5-year grant given to junior faculty for research & education. Prof. Ren aims to advance lung tissue engineering to help patients with lung diseases and inspire therapeutics that promote lung repair & regeneration.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) of National Institute of Health (NIH) has awarded Prof. Bin He a four-year, $2 million grant to develop and validate novel neuroengineering techniques to detect and image the epileptic brain. He’s research, in collaboration with Mayo Clinic, aims to gain a better understanding of epileptic networks and establish non-invasive neuroimaging techniques to localize and map epileptogenic brain regions for aiding surgical or neuromodulation treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy.

Congratulations to Shweta Gudapati, a junior in the Mellon College of Science who also is pursuing a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering, has received the prestigious 2022 Barry Goldwater Scholarship to encourage her pursuit of a research career. The award, given by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, recognizes second- and third-year college students intending to pursue research careers in mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences, and provides up to $7,500 for tuition, mandatory fees, books, room and board. See further details. 

Prof. Adam Feinberg was quoted in the latest edition of POLITICO’s Future Pulse newsletter, on the benefits of 3D printing organs and future considerations for the industry. “If we get this to work, it fundamentally changes medicine as we know it … especially if we can do it in a way that is even remotely cost-effective,” said Adam Feinberg, who co-founded 3D bioprinting company FluidForm. “We’re talking about a technology that can rebuild different parts of the body as needed.”

Prof. Bin He was featured in a recent NIH research spotlight highlighting new treatment options on the horizon for pain associated with sickle cell disease. His lab is exploring focused ultrasound waves targeted at specific brain areas, to gauge if this non-invasive technology could change the activity of nerve cells that create and spread pain signals.

Prof. Sossena Wood was recently featured in Pittsburgh Business Times’ “20 People to Know in Engineering” series. Wood is focused on developing and designing medical devices that detect neurological damage and/or diseases.

MechE/BME professor by courtesy Eni Halilaj has earned an NSF CAREER Award to investigate musculoskeletal modeling with wearable sensors and smartphone cameras. The work will help to personalize rehabilitation for those with mobility challenges.

MechE/BME professor by courtesy Conrad Tucker has joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence Competition, Inclusion, and Innovation to advance U.S. leadership in the use and regulation of AI technology. The Commission will research and recommend artificial intelligence policies as it relates to regulation, international research and development competitiveness, and future jobs.

Prof. Tzahi Cohen-Karni was recently awarded a $3.1 NIH/NHLBI grant to further cardiac electrophysiology research. Over the next five years, Cohen-Karni will partner with Pitt’s Aditi Gurkar (co-PI), BME/MSE’s Adam Feinberg, MechE’s Carmel Majidi, and ECE’s Pulkit Grover to study the role of DNA damage in the cardiac unit using induced pluripotent stem cells.

CMU spinout company FluidForm, co-founded by Prof. Adam Feinberg, recently announced an investment from Hackensack Meridian Health and its Bear’s Den innovation program, which seeks to drive medical science forward by supporting strategic candidates in biotech and pharma. The investment will enable FluidForm to advance key applications in tissue for drug discovery and surgical repair, including collaboration on preclinical work in 2022.

Prof. Barbara Shinn-Cunningham is part of an interdisciplinary team that won the 2021 Misha Mahowald Prize for Neuromorphic Engineering. This year the prize was shared by two teams of researchers. Shinn-Cunningham’s team used technology to find new ways to help hearing-impaired persons focus attention on individual speakers in a noisy environment, such as a cocktail party. 

Prof. Keith Cook has been awarded a $1.45M grant from the US Army Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. The overarching goal of this project is to develop a pulmonary assist system (PAS) to support military veterans and other patients with long-term, incurable lung disease for a period of months to years. This award funds the comparison of the performance of a proposed PAS pump, the Cardiodyme CDX, to the function of established, commercial pumps to ensure that the pump can provide appropriate blood flow rates with low levels of blood damage, clot formation, and activation of the immune system.

The National Institute of Health’s BRAIN Initiative has awarded Prof. Bin He a three-year, ~$2 million grant to investigate the neuroscience mechanisms of novel transcranial focused ultrasound neuromodulation at cellular and neural circuit levels. He’s research aims to gain a better understanding of the effects of stimulation technology in order to non-invasively manipulate and control neural circuits. The grant will characterize neural and inter-neural interactions using the noninvasive stimulation technology, which could benefit patients suffering from various brain disorders. Dr. Kai Yu, research scientist at He’s Lab, is a co-investigator.

Prof. Charlie Ren is among the 25 US awardees of prize in the Catalyst Phase of the National Academy of Medicine Healthy Longevity Global Competition. This competition rewards bold, new, potentially transformative ideas to improve the physical, mental, or social well-being of people as they age, in a measurable and equitable way. Prof. Ren’s research intends to reveal the common extracellular mechanisms of aging across different organs.

Prof. Chris Bettinger was quoted on WIRED about his biomaterials research. “It's really cool to see simple materials; we already know about their toxicity burden,” says Chris Bettinger, a biomedical engineer at Carnegie Mellon. “I think simplicity is often underappreciated.”

Prof. Byron Yu was quoted on Axios about his brain-computer interface (BCI) research. "Our understanding of what happens in the brain as one learns is super limited right now,” says Yu. But BCI “gives us an amazing window into how this happens.” This work was also featured by Yahoo! News and The Ladders.

Congratulations to former BME minor and X-COR Therapeutics co-founder Brian Chang (Class of 2013) for receiving the 2021 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship! Selected from 2,445 applicants, the 2021 Class of Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows is made up of 30 outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school here in the United States. Check out more. 

ChemE/BME (Class of 2010) alumna Young Hye Song, who is currently a BME Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas, has received a $429,000 grant from the National Institute of Health for research in tissue engineering. The goal of the project is to understand mechanisms of fibrotic scar formation after a spinal cord injury to identify novel therapeutic targets. See further details.