News

Nangia and Ren Part of Collaborative Team Researching Preventing Infections in Engineered Tissue and Implantable Devices

Advancements in biomedical devices such as knee and hip implants, heart valves, pacemakers, dental implants, stents and catheters have improved quality of life for patients worldwide. These devices, however, introduce foreign material into a patient and are prone to chronic infections. Through a new grant, a cross-disciplinary group of experts will collaborate to develop new approaches to prevent device-associated infections and enhance the use of these implants. Continue Reading

Smart Gripping with Wanliang Shan

Assembling electronic devices requires precision and the ability to place key components in tight spaces. Manufacturing systems need the ability to grip a component and then release it in the right spot. To make it even more challenging – the grippers need to be tiny and able to grip and release items that are measured in microns.

Mechanical and aerospace engineering Professor Wanliang Shan started considering the problem in 2016 while he was at the University of Nevada – Reno and was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Materials, Engineering and Processing grant to explore the concept. Continue Reading

Ma Awarded NSF Manufacturing Grant for Scale-Up of Therapeutic Cell Products

More new therapeutic treatments for various diseases could be moved into clinical trials—and potentially faster into mainstream medical use—if scientists could find ways to manufacture exponentially higher quantities of the stem cell components needed for medical testing.

Spearheading work to make those cell manufacturing process discoveries is Associate Professor Zhen Ma, the Carol and Samuel Nappi Research Scholar in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. He is working with a newly awarded $500,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) future manufacturing seed grant and coordinating the project with bioengineering experts at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Continue Reading

Research Fueled by Chemistry Professors Helps Advance Artificial Enzyme Engineering

While corrosion resistance, durability and low cost make plastic a very efficient resource, one of its major drawbacks is the harm it poses to the environment. According to a report from Greenpeace USA, 51 million tons of plastic waste were generated by households in the United States in 2021, with only 2.4 million tons recycled, making it a pressing concern to the well-being of the planet.

To curb this issue, researchers are seeking ways to develop engineered enzymes capable of breaking down plastic–similar to the way the body breaks down food during digestion. Continue Reading

Samuel Herberg awarded over $2 mil from NIH for glaucoma research

Samuel Herberg, PhD was awarded over $2 million dollars from the National Eye Institute to study the role of cellular memory in glaucoma. He’s proposing the first studies to establish the involvement of trabecular meshwork cells’ mechanical memory in the development of glaucoma. Herberg is an assistant professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and a researcher at SUNY Upstate’s Center for Vision Research. Continue Reading

BioInspired Institute’s First Symposium Provides Continuing Inspiration for Research Cluster Initiative

Energy. Excitement. Enthusiasm. Opportunity.

Those words convey the atmosphere evident at last week’s inaugural BioInspired Institute symposium and the sentiments of students, faculty, staff, University leaders and external stakeholders attending the event to describe the research cluster’s efforts of the past three-plus years.

In celebration of academic excellence and institutional collaboration, nearly 140 attendees overflowed the Life Sciences Building atrium, where 57 undergraduate and graduate students and post-doctoral fellows presented posters illustrating their interdisciplinary research projects. The work of institute members spans the fields of life science, engineering, physics and chemistry and is focused in bioengineering and biomedical projects involving smart materials, development and disease, and cell form and function. Continue Reading