12/08/2020- Cryopreservation and Laser Nanowarming: Tools for Aquaculture, Conservation and Biobanking
nanoComposix and the University of Minnesota collaborated on a joint webinar to share Dr. John Bischof’s and Dr. Kanav Khosla’s research on: Cryopreservation and Laser Nanowarming: Tools for Aquaculture, Conservation and Biobanking
09/01/2020- Rhonda Franklin named ARCS Minnesota Scientist of the Year
RHONDA FRANKLIN NAMED ARCS MINNESOTA SCIENTIST OF THE YEAR
Rhonda Franklin, Co-Director of the IEM Inspire Program and Abbott Professor for Innovative Education, has been selected to be the ARCS Minnesota Chapter Scientist of the Year for 2020 in recognition of her leadership of the University of Minnesota IEM Inspire Program.
The ARCS Foundation started over 60 years ago, and is one of the largest member-based funders of student scientists in the U.S., having awarded over $115 million to over 10,000 Scholars at top research universities in the U.S. during its 60-year history. The Minnesota Chapter was founded 10 years ago and has provided nearly $200,000 in Scholar Awards to 22 top students at the University of Minnesota. One of its Scholars, Kianna Elahi-Gedwillo, was a speaker at the 2019 IEM Inspire Conference.
During the ARCS’s 11th Annual Scholar Awards Webinar (Wednesday, October 21, 2020 at 6:30pm-7:0pm), Dr. Franklin will share the fascinating story of her journey as a scientist and how she inspires young people to follow STEM careers.
Watch U of M’s research spotlight featuring Dr. Franklin here
08/11/2020- IEM Announcement - New BMDC Associate Director
IEM is pleased to announce that Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the department of Pediatrics, is now an associate director of the Bakken Medical Devices Center (BMDC).
Dr. Panoskaltsis-Mortari joins the BMDC leadership team of Director Art Erdman and Associate Director Matt Johnson. She will help develop and execute plans to expand BMDC's research portfolio, high-impact meetings (such as the Design of Medical Devices Conference), and educational programs. She will particularly focus on using BMDC's 3D printing capacities to forge new research partnerships within the University, with clinical teams, and with industry.
08/04/2020- IEM AWARDED AN ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTER BY NSF
The Institute for Engineering (IEM) is proud to announce that it will receive an Engineering Research Center (ERC) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This five-year, $26 million grant will fund the Center for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio). This is one of the largest grants awarded by NSF.
NSF’s announcement is here, and the University of Minnesota’s press release is here. You can also access a Fact Sheet about ATP-Bio’s mission, goals, and organization.
ATP-Bio aims to rapidly accelerate biopreservation technologies for cells, tissues, organs, and whole organisms, and it aims to grow the biopreservation workforce through educational initiatives and research. The Center will be co-led by faculty within IEM at the University of Minnesota and the Center for Engineering in Medicine (CEM) at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with collaboration from the University of California Riverside, and University of California Berkeley. Fourteen faculty members from the University of Minnesota are part of ATP-Bio which has a total of 32 faculty in all institutions.
07/28/2020- New study explores how coronavirus travels indoors: Research findings may help schools and businesses reopen
IEM member Dr. Suo Yang (Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering) and Dr. Jiraong Hong (Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering) just published a new study: “Risk Assessment of airborne transmission of COVID-19 by asymptomatic individuals under different practical settings.” The study was funded in part by the UMN Rapid Response Grant from OVPR and IEM’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant program. The COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant is a collaboration between IEM, CTSI, MnRI, and the Medical School. The COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant is a collaboration between IEM, CTSI, MnRI, and the Medical School. Read the full article here
07/07/2020- University of Minnesota faculty receive Abbott Professorships to introduce prospective students to STEM
The Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) at the University of Minnesota has named Rhonda Franklin and Chris Pennell as the inaugural recipients of the IEM Abbott Professorships in Innovative Education.
The Abbott Professorships will be awarded to the faculty co-directors of the IEM Inspire Program to advance IEM’s mission to inspire eighth grade through junior college students towards future STEM careers in biomedicine and healthcare delivery. This will be accomplished by guiding the expansion of the Inspire Program through new on-campus, in-school and virtual events for secondary and post-secondary students.
“I am honored to receive one of the inaugural Abbott Professorships for Innovative Education, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to develop and prepare the next generation of engineers who work on solutions to medical problems,” said Franklin, IEM Inspire Program co-director and a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Science and Engineering. “We are now seeing research as a form of education — researchers as educators. The academic community at large are educators contributing with different types of educational approaches. Dr. Pennell and I are sitting at the center of all of this. We will need to architect a framework to serve as a foundation, with the flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of the constituents.”
The new Abbott Professors will be expanding on the Inspire conference and will be building out the program with local public schools and post-secondary institutions. On-campus attendees will meet with representatives from Minnesota’s medical technology industries, participate in virtual and in-person seminars and laboratory and professional skills training, meet with mentors, and visit labs and research centers on the Twin Cities campus.
“My choice of an academic career is based on my desire to pay it forward. I am excited to develop the Inspire Program to promote more STEM careers that focus on medicine,” said Pennell, IEM Inspire Program co-director, associate director of Education for the Masonic Cancer Center and an associate professor in the Medical School’s department of laboratory medicine and pathology. “In its first two years, I’ve been impressed by student engagement in our Inspire conferences and look forward to working with Dr. Franklin to build on that momentum.”
The Abbott Professorships in Innovative Education were established to inspire and empower tomorrow's engineering leaders to explore new answers in health and medicine. With grants from the global healthcare company Abbott, the Abbott Professorships advance this goal in two ways: by supporting the efforts of outstanding faculty members who are leading the IEM Inspire program and encouraging the next generation; and by recognizing and assisting promising early-career IEM faculty in pursuing their research.
Abbott has supported IEM research since 2001. These efforts are part of Abbott's broader work to inspire the inventors and innovators of tomorrow to pursue careers in science, engineering and other STEM fields.
Read the press release online here
Also featured on the College of Science & Engineering website
03/12/2020- Remembering Bob Nerem, a Renowned Scientist, Wonderful Person and Good Friend of IEM
PROFESSPR EMERITUS BOB NEREM
Founding Executive Director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
President, IUPESM (1991–1994)
President, IFMBE (1988–1991)
Chair, U.S. National Committee on Biomechanics (1988–1991)
Founding President, AIMBE (1992–1994)
President (2002-2004), Tissue Engineering Society International
Dr. Robert M. Nerem, a Georgia Tech professor who was known as one of the “Founding Fathers of Bioengineering” for having helped bring NIH NIBIB and AIMBE into being, passed away on 7th March 2020. He was 82 years old.
Bob (as he was fondly known) was a highly regarded leader in the global Biomedical Engineering community. He had dedicated his life as a champion for Biomedical Engineering. He was an outstanding mentor, educator and statesman. He had served in leadership position not only in the United States but also globally. He strongly advocated integration, bringing BME communities around the world together and collectively with one voice to effectively raise public policy issues. Bob was instrumental in the creation of NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). He was a recipient of multiple awards, i.e. the AIMBE Pierre Galletti Award, the ASME H.R. Lissner Award and the IUPESM Hopps Award for Distinguished Service. Bob was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a member of the Institute of Medicine. He was elected Fellow of numerous learned professional societies in the USA and other countries. He was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris.
Dr. Nerem served as an IEM Otto Schmitt Distinguished Lecturer and helped to guide the early development of the IEM Inspire Program. This Program was greatly influenced by Project Engages, a high school outreach program established by Dr. Nerem to bring promising inner-city Atlanta youth into the labs of Georgia Tech. More than 130 students have completed the program, and many are moving towards promising careers in biomedicine.
Bob Nerem’s Rules of Life:
1. There are no such things as mistakes, only lessons, i.e., a series of learning experiences; growth is through a series of such experiences, a process which involves both successful and unsuccessful experiments.
2. An unsuccessful experiment does not represent failure, it is just a learning experience; often one learns more from these than from successes; apply the lessons of today so as to make yourself a better person tomorrow.
3. Always be open in the widest possible way to encountering a new person, to a new opportunity, as these represent new teachers, new learning experiences; “leave the screen door (to the outside world) unlatched,” you never know who or what will walk in.
4. If you encounter a closed door, simply look for another door that might be open; life is filled with a lot of paths and doors to walk through, do not waste time on a door which is closed, let the “rock” in your path be a “stepping stone.”
5. Your life is up to you; at birth you were provided a “canvas” onto which you have the opportunity to “paint your life”; take charge of your life and the “painting of this picture,” if you do not someone or something else will.
6. People will remember not what you said, but only how you made them feel; strive to make a difference in the lives of others.
7. Remember that the cup is always half full, never half empty, but remember that the only cards you can play are the ones that you were dealt.
8. Look for the good in people, try to imagine the world as it seems to the other person.
9. Never, never worry about something over which you have no control.
10. Whatever happens, place the least dramatic interpretation on the event, the incident, and/or whatever is said.
11. Never have expectations, only hopes, and welcome each and every new day for “each dawn is a new beginning”; each day presents new opportunities and as has been said, “a day spent without real enthusiasm, is an opportunity lost.”
12. Love yourself, make peace with who you are and where you are at this moment in time, be willing to let go of the life that you had planned so as to have the life that waits you.
13. Listen to your heart; if you cannot hear what it is saying in this noisy world, make time for yourself, enjoy your own company, let your mind wander among the stars.
14. Do not let your preoccupation with reality stifle your imagination; if someday, why not now, even though the impossible may take a while.
15. Finally, life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, worn out, shouting—holy cow, what a ride!
“Bob was a great mentor and friend to many of us here at the University of Minnesota and will be sorely missed. He has left a great legacy and is a shining example of what a committed biomedical engineer can accomplish.” IEM Director John Bischoff