A NICHE FOR BIOMASS espite growing interest in replacing fossil resources with renewable biobased alternatives, biomass refining industries, such as those producing biofuels, struggle to compete with the well-established machinery of petroleum refining. While biomass may not displace fossil fuels in transportation any time soon, there are places where biomass can compete. For example, crude oil is also used to synthesize reactive chemical intermediates that are used in production of solvents, plastics, and polymers. Sometimes, they are easier to synthesize from biomass.
TENSION AND FLOW Surfactants—chemical compounds that determine surface tension—are everywhere.
Professor Jesse Bond received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to further explore one such chemical intermediate’s applications. His work will support development of catalysts and cost-effective technologies to facilitate oxidation of levulinic acid to deliver value-added chemical products, such as maleic anhydride.
T
hey’re relevant to the form and function of the human body, soaps and toothpastes—even hydraulic fracturing fluids. When surfactants are dissolved in water, they come together as micelles in the form of spheres, cylinders, vesicles, and lamellae. Their shape and dynamics are of great fundamental and practical interest in all of their applications. For the first time, Professor Radhakrishna Sureshkumar and fellow researchers used molecular simulations to provide a quantitative description of the shear-induced movement, orientation, stretching, and scission of rodlike surfactant micelles. This methodology was further extended to solutions that contain multiple micelles and nanoparticles for studying emerging morphologies, flow-structure interactions, and rheological properties.
“My hope is that this research pushes a technology forward that has a positive net impact on sustainability,” says Bond. “Beyond that, my goal is to teach our students about major problems facing society and ways that chemical engineering and catalysis can address those problems by making use of natural resources.”
Paper: “Dynamics and Scission of Rodlike Cationic Surfactant Micelles in Shear Flow,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Physical Review Letters, 2015.
Paper: “Topology, length scales, and energetics of surfactant micelles,” Sureshkumar, The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2015.
Gifts from donors like you contribute to classroom upgrades like the Sandra and Avi Nash Collaborative Classroom used in Professor Cadwell’s teaching. They pay for state-of-the-art laboratory equipment needed to conduct groundbreaking research like Professor Gilbert’s in the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute. Gifts provide students like Ariel Ash-Shakoor with research endeavors and community outreach activities that simply could not exist without our donors’ steadfast commitment.
Alexis Peña ’16 and Stephen Benn ’16 received Research Awards. Peña’s most recent work characterized the spatial and temporal bias of cortical progenitors in the mammalian cortex at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Benn’s research is in developing a dissolvable plastic sleeve that goes under the skin to surround and heal broken bones as an alternative to external casts.
h.D. student Ariel Ash-Shakoor received a Community Award recognizing her efforts as a leader in the STEM tutoring program at the Syracuse Northeast Community Center.
VISIT US ON FACEBOOK @ENGINEERINGSU @ENGINEERINGSU CONNECT WITH US
Biomedical and Chemical Engineering
n an example of a true collaboration between the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Physics, Professors Jay Henderson and Lisa Manning combine knowledge from their respective disciplines to study cell behavior as part of the Soft Interfaces Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship and a National Science Foundation Collaborative Award.
Three biomedical engineering students received Student Leadership Awards at the 30th Annual Black Engineer of the Year Award STEM Conference in February.
P
Department of
I
STUDENTS RECOGNIZED AT BEYA CONFERENCE
We share these accomplishments with you because you are a part of us. As an alumnus or a friend of this Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, you have contributed to our shared success by your very association. A great many of you have also generously helped fund the endeavors highlighted within this newsletter.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
As an engineering department set within a comprehensive University, faculty and students are provided with opportunities to work with a range of other disciplines.
Their current collaborations expand their research to automated analysis of cell polarization during wound healing and modeling cell cultures on 2D shape changing substrates. Their latest research will be published in 2016.
Paper: “Uniaxial Extension of Surfactant Micelles: Counterion Mediated Chain Stiffening and a Mechanism of Rupture by Flow-Induced Energy Redistribution,” Dhakal, Sureshkumar, ACS Macro Letters, 2016.
Your Department, Your College, Your Success
PAID
Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science Syracuse, NY 13244-1240
Together, their research groups developed an automated approach to accurately track the movement of cells—vital for understanding how cells and tissues work and helping to heal injured tissues or treat diseases such as cancer.
Paper: “Self-Assembly of Nanoparticle–Surfactant Complexes with Rodlike Micelles: A Molecular Dynamics Study,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Langmuir, 2016.
With your help, there is no limit what your Department can achieve. Please consider giving online at eng-cs.syr.edu/givenow.
JOINING FORCES IN CELL STUDIES
NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
R POLYMER PUTS NEW MEDICAL SOLUTIONS WITHIN REACH
esearchers in the medical field have been searching for a way to combine the properties of liquid crystallinity with those of hydrogels to develop things like artificial blood vessels that would be biocompatible. Liquid crystals have the fluidity of liquid with some of the order of a crystal so they can be oriented to have structure. They are not ideal for use inside the body because they are quite hydrophobic. On the other hand, hydrogels are hydrophilic and can survive in the body but lack the ordering (so-called “anisotropy”) inherent to biological tissues. Professor Pat Mather reveals a process to create a material that combines liquid crystals with hydrogel, introducing potential for new materials that have the same mechanical properties as soft tissues in the body. “It is a balancing act of not having too many water-loving groups in the polymer and incorporating components in the polymer that promote structure,” says Mather. Paper: Cover featured article “A hydrogel-forming liquid crystalline elastomer exhibiting soft shape memory,” Torbati, Mather, Polymer Physics, 2016.
Ariel Ash-Shakoor Ph.D. student
Stephen Benn ’16
Alexis Peña ’16
IMPLANTS UNDER BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
A
bout half a million people receive hip replacements worldwide every year. Of these, a small percentage will develop health complications due to their implant, such as inflammation and infection.
Gilbert inspected hip and knee implants that had been removed from patients. In examining them, his research team discovered telltale corrosive “footprints” of phagocytic cells on the metal surface of the implant.
For more than 40 years, total hip replacements have primarily been made from metal alloys and plastic. As the patient walks, the metal ball and plastic socket surfaces rub together and particles and corrosion-based ions are released into surrounding tissue. The assumption in the orthopedic research community has been that these particles and ions were causing biological reactions that may result in some health problems in some patients.
These findings reveal that the relationship between implants and the body are more complicated than previously thought and expand the scope of potential research and medical advances in the area of orthopedics.
Professor Jeremy Gilbert’s research shows that wear is not the only way implants can corrode. Our biology may also wage an attack on the foreign implant directly. “Our research finds that our bodies’ own biological reactions may cause the corrosion directly, and that’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about these interactions,“ explains Gilbert.
ENG-CS.SYR.EDU
SPRING 2016
“The idea that inflammatory cells in the body can directly corrode the surface of an implant opens up the possibility that it is not just that wear and corrosion that causes adverse local tissue reactions, but that adverse local tissue reactions can cause corrosion,” explains Gilbert. “A small fundamental advance like this can uncover countless new paths and questions that can lead to many technical advances to help deal with an issue that is significant in orthopedics today.” Paper: “Direct in vivo inflammatory cell-induced corrosion of CoCrMo alloy orthopedic implant surfaces,” Gilbert, Sivan, Liu, Kocagöz, Arnholt, Kurtz, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2015.
TEARING THE BRAIN’S “VELCRO” TO TREAT DISEASE
AN ACHILLES HEEL OF DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS
NEW FACULTY
There are more than five million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease. One million are living with Parkinson’s. Unfortunately, treatments for these diseases often hit a wall— literally and figuratively.
T
his wall is known as the blood-brain barrier — a selectively permeable wall that prevents harmful chemicals in the bloodstream from entering the brain. This defense mechanism also blocks drug molecules. Currently, the most effective way medicine can be administered directly to the brain is by opening the patient’s skull. Funded by her National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, Professor Shikha Nangia’s research seeks to identify ways to open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to allow disease-fighting medicines to reach the brain in noninvasive ways. “On one side you have blood and on the other you have the brain. There is a tightly packed layer of cells between them that forms the barrier. We need to open up the spaces between this layer of cells. We want to understand the structure of proteins in this barrier and find strategies to open and close them like Velcro.”
Nangia’s research seeks to open specialized physical barriers called tight junctions that act as intercellular gatekeepers in regulating passive diffusion molecules and ions into the brain.
Mandy B. Esch Assistant Professor Ph.D. Würzburg University
Ian D. Hosein Assistant Professor Ph.D. Cornell University
Research focus: Microphysiological systems, in vitro models of the liver and the GI tract epithelium, modeling of barrier tissues using microfluidic systems, and development and use of body-on-a-chip systems.
Research focus: Advanced materials for energy conversion and storage, spontaneous patterning formation in polymers for microfabrication, and 3D printing using sunlight.
The addition of these new faculty members expands our department’s course offerings and expertise in tissue engineering, microfabrication, sustainable energy, and materials synthesis and processing.
M
ost bacterial infections can be solved by a trip to the doctor and a prescription for an antibiotic. But bacterial persister cells are able to survive the attack of antibiotics—leading to chronic infections.
FACTS AND STATS
RESEARCH AREAS
18 300 # of Faculty
# of Undergraduate Students
70 50
In his published research, Professor Dacheng Ren uncovered findings that suggest a particular immune system factor may play an important role in how well antibiotics clear infections caused by persisters.
# of Master’s Students
His team found that an important immune factor, known as the human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor, can sensitize persister cells of the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the effects of certain antibiotics. In doing so, the persisters are affected in a way to be effectively killed by these antibiotics. Discoveries like this could help combat drug resistant infections that the medical community struggles to battle with antibiotics alone.
# of Ph.D. Students
Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering
Catalysis & Reaction Engineering
Complex Fluids, Soft Condensed Matter & Rheology
Molecular Biotechnology
Multiple Phase Systems
Multiscale Modeling & Simulation
Nanotechnology
Rehabilitative & Regenerative Engineering
Sustainable Energy Production
Degrees Awarded May 2014–2015
73
Undergraduate
28 Graduate
7
Ph.D.
Paper: “Human granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor enhances antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa persister cells,” Choudhary, Yao, Wang, Peng, Bader, Ren, Scientific Reports, 2015.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT FACILITY SPOTLIGHT
Andrew Ramos ’17
Syracuse Biomaterials Institute The Syracuse Biomaterials Institute (SBI) is a cohesive group of highly collaborative faculty and students engaged in research that focuses on biological materials — from the properties of individual cells, to their organization into tissues and organs, to the development of smart medical devices.
space with state-of-the-art labs for polymer synthesis and molecular/solution characterization, thermal analysis, materials physical characterization, optics, microstructures, material morphology, tissue culture, microbiology, molecular biology, nanomanufacturing, and 3D printing.
Located on the Syracuse University campus, its central research facilities encompass approximately 15,000 square feet of multiuser
To learn more, please visit biomaterials.syr.edu.
Andrew Ramos came to Syracuse as a self-described “shy freshman” who was unsure about who he was or where he was headed. By taking advantage of the opportunities available to him on campus, he has become an extremely active, outgoing scholar and student leader. Today, he contributes to Professor Pranav Soman’s bone engineering research, serves as president of Engineering World Health’s Syracuse chapter, and tutors fellow undergrads as an Academic Excellence Workshop Facilitator. He is also a member of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Ramos sees his current trajectory leading to graduate school to attain a Ph.D. in bioengineering with a concentration in tissue engineering and stem cells or entering industry to work for a biotechnology company as a research and development scientist. “Syracuse University has become so much more to me than my ‘college years.’ It has become a second home filled with a wealth of opportunities, people I love, and professors and students that push me to become someone better.”
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Tagbo Niepa ’09, G’14, Bioengineering & Chemical Engineering
Professor Katie Cadwell
“The mentorship that I received in the College made the school very special to me. The passion of the researchers and teachers made me love the function of a university professor. Their contributions helped define my interest in teaching and performing research in the areas of bioelectrochemistry, biointerfaces, and soft nanomaterials.”
Today, Tagbo Niepa, Ph.D is studying phenomena linked to bacterial films, relevant to understanding disease and bioremediation, at the University of Pennsylvania. His aim is to further explore his scientific curiosity as a professor at a research university.
“I expect my students to continuously learn and improve their engineering and communication skills, and I expect the same constant improvement from myself. Each time I teach a course, I aim to make conscientious and substantial changes to enhance student outcomes.” Professor Cadwell shares her enthusiasm for engineering education with students and colleagues alike by using innovative
teaching methodologies in her classes and introducing them to fellow faculty members in monthly forums. In recognition of her talents, Cadwell was given Syracuse University’s Teaching Recognition Award and the Chancellor’s Inspiration Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship.
A NICHE FOR BIOMASS espite growing interest in replacing fossil resources with renewable biobased alternatives, biomass refining industries, such as those producing biofuels, struggle to compete with the well-established machinery of petroleum refining. While biomass may not displace fossil fuels in transportation any time soon, there are places where biomass can compete. For example, crude oil is also used to synthesize reactive chemical intermediates that are used in production of solvents, plastics, and polymers. Sometimes, they are easier to synthesize from biomass.
TENSION AND FLOW Surfactants—chemical compounds that determine surface tension—are everywhere.
Professor Jesse Bond received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to further explore one such chemical intermediate’s applications. His work will support development of catalysts and cost-effective technologies to facilitate oxidation of levulinic acid to deliver value-added chemical products, such as maleic anhydride.
T
hey’re relevant to the form and function of the human body, soaps and toothpastes—even hydraulic fracturing fluids. When surfactants are dissolved in water, they come together as micelles in the form of spheres, cylinders, vesicles, and lamellae. Their shape and dynamics are of great fundamental and practical interest in all of their applications. For the first time, Professor Radhakrishna Sureshkumar and fellow researchers used molecular simulations to provide a quantitative description of the shear-induced movement, orientation, stretching, and scission of rodlike surfactant micelles. This methodology was further extended to solutions that contain multiple micelles and nanoparticles for studying emerging morphologies, flow-structure interactions, and rheological properties.
“My hope is that this research pushes a technology forward that has a positive net impact on sustainability,” says Bond. “Beyond that, my goal is to teach our students about major problems facing society and ways that chemical engineering and catalysis can address those problems by making use of natural resources.”
Paper: “Dynamics and Scission of Rodlike Cationic Surfactant Micelles in Shear Flow,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Physical Review Letters, 2015.
Paper: “Topology, length scales, and energetics of surfactant micelles,” Sureshkumar, The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2015.
Gifts from donors like you contribute to classroom upgrades like the Sandra and Avi Nash Collaborative Classroom used in Professor Cadwell’s teaching. They pay for state-of-the-art laboratory equipment needed to conduct groundbreaking research like Professor Gilbert’s in the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute. Gifts provide students like Ariel Ash-Shakoor with research endeavors and community outreach activities that simply could not exist without our donors’ steadfast commitment.
Alexis Peña ’16 and Stephen Benn ’16 received Research Awards. Peña’s most recent work characterized the spatial and temporal bias of cortical progenitors in the mammalian cortex at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Benn’s research is in developing a dissolvable plastic sleeve that goes under the skin to surround and heal broken bones as an alternative to external casts.
h.D. student Ariel Ash-Shakoor received a Community Award recognizing her efforts as a leader in the STEM tutoring program at the Syracuse Northeast Community Center.
VISIT US ON FACEBOOK @ENGINEERINGSU @ENGINEERINGSU CONNECT WITH US
Biomedical and Chemical Engineering
n an example of a true collaboration between the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Physics, Professors Jay Henderson and Lisa Manning combine knowledge from their respective disciplines to study cell behavior as part of the Soft Interfaces Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship and a National Science Foundation Collaborative Award.
Three biomedical engineering students received Student Leadership Awards at the 30th Annual Black Engineer of the Year Award STEM Conference in February.
P
Department of
I
STUDENTS RECOGNIZED AT BEYA CONFERENCE
We share these accomplishments with you because you are a part of us. As an alumnus or a friend of this Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, you have contributed to our shared success by your very association. A great many of you have also generously helped fund the endeavors highlighted within this newsletter.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
As an engineering department set within a comprehensive University, faculty and students are provided with opportunities to work with a range of other disciplines.
Their current collaborations expand their research to automated analysis of cell polarization during wound healing and modeling cell cultures on 2D shape changing substrates. Their latest research will be published in 2016.
Paper: “Uniaxial Extension of Surfactant Micelles: Counterion Mediated Chain Stiffening and a Mechanism of Rupture by Flow-Induced Energy Redistribution,” Dhakal, Sureshkumar, ACS Macro Letters, 2016.
Your Department, Your College, Your Success
PAID
Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science Syracuse, NY 13244-1240
Together, their research groups developed an automated approach to accurately track the movement of cells—vital for understanding how cells and tissues work and helping to heal injured tissues or treat diseases such as cancer.
Paper: “Self-Assembly of Nanoparticle–Surfactant Complexes with Rodlike Micelles: A Molecular Dynamics Study,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Langmuir, 2016.
With your help, there is no limit what your Department can achieve. Please consider giving online at eng-cs.syr.edu/givenow.
JOINING FORCES IN CELL STUDIES
NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
R POLYMER PUTS NEW MEDICAL SOLUTIONS WITHIN REACH
esearchers in the medical field have been searching for a way to combine the properties of liquid crystallinity with those of hydrogels to develop things like artificial blood vessels that would be biocompatible. Liquid crystals have the fluidity of liquid with some of the order of a crystal so they can be oriented to have structure. They are not ideal for use inside the body because they are quite hydrophobic. On the other hand, hydrogels are hydrophilic and can survive in the body but lack the ordering (so-called “anisotropy”) inherent to biological tissues. Professor Pat Mather reveals a process to create a material that combines liquid crystals with hydrogel, introducing potential for new materials that have the same mechanical properties as soft tissues in the body. “It is a balancing act of not having too many water-loving groups in the polymer and incorporating components in the polymer that promote structure,” says Mather. Paper: Cover featured article “A hydrogel-forming liquid crystalline elastomer exhibiting soft shape memory,” Torbati, Mather, Polymer Physics, 2016.
Ariel Ash-Shakoor Ph.D. student
Stephen Benn ’16
Alexis Peña ’16
IMPLANTS UNDER BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
A
bout half a million people receive hip replacements worldwide every year. Of these, a small percentage will develop health complications due to their implant, such as inflammation and infection.
Gilbert inspected hip and knee implants that had been removed from patients. In examining them, his research team discovered telltale corrosive “footprints” of phagocytic cells on the metal surface of the implant.
For more than 40 years, total hip replacements have primarily been made from metal alloys and plastic. As the patient walks, the metal ball and plastic socket surfaces rub together and particles and corrosion-based ions are released into surrounding tissue. The assumption in the orthopedic research community has been that these particles and ions were causing biological reactions that may result in some health problems in some patients.
These findings reveal that the relationship between implants and the body are more complicated than previously thought and expand the scope of potential research and medical advances in the area of orthopedics.
Professor Jeremy Gilbert’s research shows that wear is not the only way implants can corrode. Our biology may also wage an attack on the foreign implant directly. “Our research finds that our bodies’ own biological reactions may cause the corrosion directly, and that’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about these interactions,“ explains Gilbert.
ENG-CS.SYR.EDU
SPRING 2016
“The idea that inflammatory cells in the body can directly corrode the surface of an implant opens up the possibility that it is not just that wear and corrosion that causes adverse local tissue reactions, but that adverse local tissue reactions can cause corrosion,” explains Gilbert. “A small fundamental advance like this can uncover countless new paths and questions that can lead to many technical advances to help deal with an issue that is significant in orthopedics today.” Paper: “Direct in vivo inflammatory cell-induced corrosion of CoCrMo alloy orthopedic implant surfaces,” Gilbert, Sivan, Liu, Kocagöz, Arnholt, Kurtz, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2015.
TEARING THE BRAIN’S “VELCRO” TO TREAT DISEASE
AN ACHILLES HEEL OF DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS
NEW FACULTY
There are more than five million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease. One million are living with Parkinson’s. Unfortunately, treatments for these diseases often hit a wall— literally and figuratively.
T
his wall is known as the blood-brain barrier — a selectively permeable wall that prevents harmful chemicals in the bloodstream from entering the brain. This defense mechanism also blocks drug molecules. Currently, the most effective way medicine can be administered directly to the brain is by opening the patient’s skull. Funded by her National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, Professor Shikha Nangia’s research seeks to identify ways to open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to allow disease-fighting medicines to reach the brain in noninvasive ways. “On one side you have blood and on the other you have the brain. There is a tightly packed layer of cells between them that forms the barrier. We need to open up the spaces between this layer of cells. We want to understand the structure of proteins in this barrier and find strategies to open and close them like Velcro.”
Nangia’s research seeks to open specialized physical barriers called tight junctions that act as intercellular gatekeepers in regulating passive diffusion molecules and ions into the brain.
Mandy B. Esch Assistant Professor Ph.D. Würzburg University
Ian D. Hosein Assistant Professor Ph.D. Cornell University
Research focus: Microphysiological systems, in vitro models of the liver and the GI tract epithelium, modeling of barrier tissues using microfluidic systems, and development and use of body-on-a-chip systems.
Research focus: Advanced materials for energy conversion and storage, spontaneous patterning formation in polymers for microfabrication, and 3D printing using sunlight.
The addition of these new faculty members expands our department’s course offerings and expertise in tissue engineering, microfabrication, sustainable energy, and materials synthesis and processing.
M
ost bacterial infections can be solved by a trip to the doctor and a prescription for an antibiotic. But bacterial persister cells are able to survive the attack of antibiotics—leading to chronic infections.
FACTS AND STATS
RESEARCH AREAS
18 300 # of Faculty
# of Undergraduate Students
70 50
In his published research, Professor Dacheng Ren uncovered findings that suggest a particular immune system factor may play an important role in how well antibiotics clear infections caused by persisters.
# of Master’s Students
His team found that an important immune factor, known as the human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor, can sensitize persister cells of the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the effects of certain antibiotics. In doing so, the persisters are affected in a way to be effectively killed by these antibiotics. Discoveries like this could help combat drug resistant infections that the medical community struggles to battle with antibiotics alone.
# of Ph.D. Students
Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering
Catalysis & Reaction Engineering
Complex Fluids, Soft Condensed Matter & Rheology
Molecular Biotechnology
Multiple Phase Systems
Multiscale Modeling & Simulation
Nanotechnology
Rehabilitative & Regenerative Engineering
Sustainable Energy Production
Degrees Awarded May 2014–2015
73
Undergraduate
28 Graduate
7
Ph.D.
Paper: “Human granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor enhances antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa persister cells,” Choudhary, Yao, Wang, Peng, Bader, Ren, Scientific Reports, 2015.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT FACILITY SPOTLIGHT
Andrew Ramos ’17
Syracuse Biomaterials Institute The Syracuse Biomaterials Institute (SBI) is a cohesive group of highly collaborative faculty and students engaged in research that focuses on biological materials — from the properties of individual cells, to their organization into tissues and organs, to the development of smart medical devices.
space with state-of-the-art labs for polymer synthesis and molecular/solution characterization, thermal analysis, materials physical characterization, optics, microstructures, material morphology, tissue culture, microbiology, molecular biology, nanomanufacturing, and 3D printing.
Located on the Syracuse University campus, its central research facilities encompass approximately 15,000 square feet of multiuser
To learn more, please visit biomaterials.syr.edu.
Andrew Ramos came to Syracuse as a self-described “shy freshman” who was unsure about who he was or where he was headed. By taking advantage of the opportunities available to him on campus, he has become an extremely active, outgoing scholar and student leader. Today, he contributes to Professor Pranav Soman’s bone engineering research, serves as president of Engineering World Health’s Syracuse chapter, and tutors fellow undergrads as an Academic Excellence Workshop Facilitator. He is also a member of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Ramos sees his current trajectory leading to graduate school to attain a Ph.D. in bioengineering with a concentration in tissue engineering and stem cells or entering industry to work for a biotechnology company as a research and development scientist. “Syracuse University has become so much more to me than my ‘college years.’ It has become a second home filled with a wealth of opportunities, people I love, and professors and students that push me to become someone better.”
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Tagbo Niepa ’09, G’14, Bioengineering & Chemical Engineering
Professor Katie Cadwell
“The mentorship that I received in the College made the school very special to me. The passion of the researchers and teachers made me love the function of a university professor. Their contributions helped define my interest in teaching and performing research in the areas of bioelectrochemistry, biointerfaces, and soft nanomaterials.”
Today, Tagbo Niepa, Ph.D is studying phenomena linked to bacterial films, relevant to understanding disease and bioremediation, at the University of Pennsylvania. His aim is to further explore his scientific curiosity as a professor at a research university.
“I expect my students to continuously learn and improve their engineering and communication skills, and I expect the same constant improvement from myself. Each time I teach a course, I aim to make conscientious and substantial changes to enhance student outcomes.” Professor Cadwell shares her enthusiasm for engineering education with students and colleagues alike by using innovative
teaching methodologies in her classes and introducing them to fellow faculty members in monthly forums. In recognition of her talents, Cadwell was given Syracuse University’s Teaching Recognition Award and the Chancellor’s Inspiration Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship.
A NICHE FOR BIOMASS espite growing interest in replacing fossil resources with renewable biobased alternatives, biomass refining industries, such as those producing biofuels, struggle to compete with the well-established machinery of petroleum refining. While biomass may not displace fossil fuels in transportation any time soon, there are places where biomass can compete. For example, crude oil is also used to synthesize reactive chemical intermediates that are used in production of solvents, plastics, and polymers. Sometimes, they are easier to synthesize from biomass.
TENSION AND FLOW Surfactants—chemical compounds that determine surface tension—are everywhere.
Professor Jesse Bond received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to further explore one such chemical intermediate’s applications. His work will support development of catalysts and cost-effective technologies to facilitate oxidation of levulinic acid to deliver value-added chemical products, such as maleic anhydride.
T
hey’re relevant to the form and function of the human body, soaps and toothpastes—even hydraulic fracturing fluids. When surfactants are dissolved in water, they come together as micelles in the form of spheres, cylinders, vesicles, and lamellae. Their shape and dynamics are of great fundamental and practical interest in all of their applications. For the first time, Professor Radhakrishna Sureshkumar and fellow researchers used molecular simulations to provide a quantitative description of the shear-induced movement, orientation, stretching, and scission of rodlike surfactant micelles. This methodology was further extended to solutions that contain multiple micelles and nanoparticles for studying emerging morphologies, flow-structure interactions, and rheological properties.
“My hope is that this research pushes a technology forward that has a positive net impact on sustainability,” says Bond. “Beyond that, my goal is to teach our students about major problems facing society and ways that chemical engineering and catalysis can address those problems by making use of natural resources.”
Paper: “Dynamics and Scission of Rodlike Cationic Surfactant Micelles in Shear Flow,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Physical Review Letters, 2015.
Paper: “Topology, length scales, and energetics of surfactant micelles,” Sureshkumar, The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2015.
Gifts from donors like you contribute to classroom upgrades like the Sandra and Avi Nash Collaborative Classroom used in Professor Cadwell’s teaching. They pay for state-of-the-art laboratory equipment needed to conduct groundbreaking research like Professor Gilbert’s in the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute. Gifts provide students like Ariel Ash-Shakoor with research endeavors and community outreach activities that simply could not exist without our donors’ steadfast commitment.
Alexis Peña ’16 and Stephen Benn ’16 received Research Awards. Peña’s most recent work characterized the spatial and temporal bias of cortical progenitors in the mammalian cortex at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Benn’s research is in developing a dissolvable plastic sleeve that goes under the skin to surround and heal broken bones as an alternative to external casts.
h.D. student Ariel Ash-Shakoor received a Community Award recognizing her efforts as a leader in the STEM tutoring program at the Syracuse Northeast Community Center.
VISIT US ON FACEBOOK @ENGINEERINGSU @ENGINEERINGSU CONNECT WITH US
Biomedical and Chemical Engineering
n an example of a true collaboration between the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Physics, Professors Jay Henderson and Lisa Manning combine knowledge from their respective disciplines to study cell behavior as part of the Soft Interfaces Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship and a National Science Foundation Collaborative Award.
Three biomedical engineering students received Student Leadership Awards at the 30th Annual Black Engineer of the Year Award STEM Conference in February.
P
Department of
I
STUDENTS RECOGNIZED AT BEYA CONFERENCE
We share these accomplishments with you because you are a part of us. As an alumnus or a friend of this Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, you have contributed to our shared success by your very association. A great many of you have also generously helped fund the endeavors highlighted within this newsletter.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
As an engineering department set within a comprehensive University, faculty and students are provided with opportunities to work with a range of other disciplines.
Their current collaborations expand their research to automated analysis of cell polarization during wound healing and modeling cell cultures on 2D shape changing substrates. Their latest research will be published in 2016.
Paper: “Uniaxial Extension of Surfactant Micelles: Counterion Mediated Chain Stiffening and a Mechanism of Rupture by Flow-Induced Energy Redistribution,” Dhakal, Sureshkumar, ACS Macro Letters, 2016.
Your Department, Your College, Your Success
PAID
Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science Syracuse, NY 13244-1240
Together, their research groups developed an automated approach to accurately track the movement of cells—vital for understanding how cells and tissues work and helping to heal injured tissues or treat diseases such as cancer.
Paper: “Self-Assembly of Nanoparticle–Surfactant Complexes with Rodlike Micelles: A Molecular Dynamics Study,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Langmuir, 2016.
With your help, there is no limit what your Department can achieve. Please consider giving online at eng-cs.syr.edu/givenow.
JOINING FORCES IN CELL STUDIES
NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
R POLYMER PUTS NEW MEDICAL SOLUTIONS WITHIN REACH
esearchers in the medical field have been searching for a way to combine the properties of liquid crystallinity with those of hydrogels to develop things like artificial blood vessels that would be biocompatible. Liquid crystals have the fluidity of liquid with some of the order of a crystal so they can be oriented to have structure. They are not ideal for use inside the body because they are quite hydrophobic. On the other hand, hydrogels are hydrophilic and can survive in the body but lack the ordering (so-called “anisotropy”) inherent to biological tissues. Professor Pat Mather reveals a process to create a material that combines liquid crystals with hydrogel, introducing potential for new materials that have the same mechanical properties as soft tissues in the body. “It is a balancing act of not having too many water-loving groups in the polymer and incorporating components in the polymer that promote structure,” says Mather. Paper: Cover featured article “A hydrogel-forming liquid crystalline elastomer exhibiting soft shape memory,” Torbati, Mather, Polymer Physics, 2016.
Ariel Ash-Shakoor Ph.D. student
Stephen Benn ’16
Alexis Peña ’16
IMPLANTS UNDER BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
A
bout half a million people receive hip replacements worldwide every year. Of these, a small percentage will develop health complications due to their implant, such as inflammation and infection.
Gilbert inspected hip and knee implants that had been removed from patients. In examining them, his research team discovered telltale corrosive “footprints” of phagocytic cells on the metal surface of the implant.
For more than 40 years, total hip replacements have primarily been made from metal alloys and plastic. As the patient walks, the metal ball and plastic socket surfaces rub together and particles and corrosion-based ions are released into surrounding tissue. The assumption in the orthopedic research community has been that these particles and ions were causing biological reactions that may result in some health problems in some patients.
These findings reveal that the relationship between implants and the body are more complicated than previously thought and expand the scope of potential research and medical advances in the area of orthopedics.
Professor Jeremy Gilbert’s research shows that wear is not the only way implants can corrode. Our biology may also wage an attack on the foreign implant directly. “Our research finds that our bodies’ own biological reactions may cause the corrosion directly, and that’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about these interactions,“ explains Gilbert.
ENG-CS.SYR.EDU
SPRING 2016
“The idea that inflammatory cells in the body can directly corrode the surface of an implant opens up the possibility that it is not just that wear and corrosion that causes adverse local tissue reactions, but that adverse local tissue reactions can cause corrosion,” explains Gilbert. “A small fundamental advance like this can uncover countless new paths and questions that can lead to many technical advances to help deal with an issue that is significant in orthopedics today.” Paper: “Direct in vivo inflammatory cell-induced corrosion of CoCrMo alloy orthopedic implant surfaces,” Gilbert, Sivan, Liu, Kocagöz, Arnholt, Kurtz, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2015.
TEARING THE BRAIN’S “VELCRO” TO TREAT DISEASE
AN ACHILLES HEEL OF DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS
NEW FACULTY
There are more than five million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease. One million are living with Parkinson’s. Unfortunately, treatments for these diseases often hit a wall— literally and figuratively.
T
his wall is known as the blood-brain barrier — a selectively permeable wall that prevents harmful chemicals in the bloodstream from entering the brain. This defense mechanism also blocks drug molecules. Currently, the most effective way medicine can be administered directly to the brain is by opening the patient’s skull. Funded by her National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, Professor Shikha Nangia’s research seeks to identify ways to open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to allow disease-fighting medicines to reach the brain in noninvasive ways. “On one side you have blood and on the other you have the brain. There is a tightly packed layer of cells between them that forms the barrier. We need to open up the spaces between this layer of cells. We want to understand the structure of proteins in this barrier and find strategies to open and close them like Velcro.”
Nangia’s research seeks to open specialized physical barriers called tight junctions that act as intercellular gatekeepers in regulating passive diffusion molecules and ions into the brain.
Mandy B. Esch Assistant Professor Ph.D. Würzburg University
Ian D. Hosein Assistant Professor Ph.D. Cornell University
Research focus: Microphysiological systems, in vitro models of the liver and the GI tract epithelium, modeling of barrier tissues using microfluidic systems, and development and use of body-on-a-chip systems.
Research focus: Advanced materials for energy conversion and storage, spontaneous patterning formation in polymers for microfabrication, and 3D printing using sunlight.
The addition of these new faculty members expands our department’s course offerings and expertise in tissue engineering, microfabrication, sustainable energy, and materials synthesis and processing.
M
ost bacterial infections can be solved by a trip to the doctor and a prescription for an antibiotic. But bacterial persister cells are able to survive the attack of antibiotics—leading to chronic infections.
FACTS AND STATS
RESEARCH AREAS
18 300 # of Faculty
# of Undergraduate Students
70 50
In his published research, Professor Dacheng Ren uncovered findings that suggest a particular immune system factor may play an important role in how well antibiotics clear infections caused by persisters.
# of Master’s Students
His team found that an important immune factor, known as the human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor, can sensitize persister cells of the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the effects of certain antibiotics. In doing so, the persisters are affected in a way to be effectively killed by these antibiotics. Discoveries like this could help combat drug resistant infections that the medical community struggles to battle with antibiotics alone.
# of Ph.D. Students
Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering
Catalysis & Reaction Engineering
Complex Fluids, Soft Condensed Matter & Rheology
Molecular Biotechnology
Multiple Phase Systems
Multiscale Modeling & Simulation
Nanotechnology
Rehabilitative & Regenerative Engineering
Sustainable Energy Production
Degrees Awarded May 2014–2015
73
Undergraduate
28 Graduate
7
Ph.D.
Paper: “Human granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor enhances antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa persister cells,” Choudhary, Yao, Wang, Peng, Bader, Ren, Scientific Reports, 2015.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT FACILITY SPOTLIGHT
Andrew Ramos ’17
Syracuse Biomaterials Institute The Syracuse Biomaterials Institute (SBI) is a cohesive group of highly collaborative faculty and students engaged in research that focuses on biological materials — from the properties of individual cells, to their organization into tissues and organs, to the development of smart medical devices.
space with state-of-the-art labs for polymer synthesis and molecular/solution characterization, thermal analysis, materials physical characterization, optics, microstructures, material morphology, tissue culture, microbiology, molecular biology, nanomanufacturing, and 3D printing.
Located on the Syracuse University campus, its central research facilities encompass approximately 15,000 square feet of multiuser
To learn more, please visit biomaterials.syr.edu.
Andrew Ramos came to Syracuse as a self-described “shy freshman” who was unsure about who he was or where he was headed. By taking advantage of the opportunities available to him on campus, he has become an extremely active, outgoing scholar and student leader. Today, he contributes to Professor Pranav Soman’s bone engineering research, serves as president of Engineering World Health’s Syracuse chapter, and tutors fellow undergrads as an Academic Excellence Workshop Facilitator. He is also a member of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Ramos sees his current trajectory leading to graduate school to attain a Ph.D. in bioengineering with a concentration in tissue engineering and stem cells or entering industry to work for a biotechnology company as a research and development scientist. “Syracuse University has become so much more to me than my ‘college years.’ It has become a second home filled with a wealth of opportunities, people I love, and professors and students that push me to become someone better.”
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Tagbo Niepa ’09, G’14, Bioengineering & Chemical Engineering
Professor Katie Cadwell
“The mentorship that I received in the College made the school very special to me. The passion of the researchers and teachers made me love the function of a university professor. Their contributions helped define my interest in teaching and performing research in the areas of bioelectrochemistry, biointerfaces, and soft nanomaterials.”
Today, Tagbo Niepa, Ph.D is studying phenomena linked to bacterial films, relevant to understanding disease and bioremediation, at the University of Pennsylvania. His aim is to further explore his scientific curiosity as a professor at a research university.
“I expect my students to continuously learn and improve their engineering and communication skills, and I expect the same constant improvement from myself. Each time I teach a course, I aim to make conscientious and substantial changes to enhance student outcomes.” Professor Cadwell shares her enthusiasm for engineering education with students and colleagues alike by using innovative
teaching methodologies in her classes and introducing them to fellow faculty members in monthly forums. In recognition of her talents, Cadwell was given Syracuse University’s Teaching Recognition Award and the Chancellor’s Inspiration Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship.
TEARING THE BRAIN’S “VELCRO” TO TREAT DISEASE
AN ACHILLES HEEL OF DRUG-RESISTANT INFECTIONS
NEW FACULTY
There are more than five million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease. One million are living with Parkinson’s. Unfortunately, treatments for these diseases often hit a wall— literally and figuratively.
T
his wall is known as the blood-brain barrier — a selectively permeable wall that prevents harmful chemicals in the bloodstream from entering the brain. This defense mechanism also blocks drug molecules. Currently, the most effective way medicine can be administered directly to the brain is by opening the patient’s skull. Funded by her National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, Professor Shikha Nangia’s research seeks to identify ways to open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to allow disease-fighting medicines to reach the brain in noninvasive ways. “On one side you have blood and on the other you have the brain. There is a tightly packed layer of cells between them that forms the barrier. We need to open up the spaces between this layer of cells. We want to understand the structure of proteins in this barrier and find strategies to open and close them like Velcro.”
Nangia’s research seeks to open specialized physical barriers called tight junctions that act as intercellular gatekeepers in regulating passive diffusion molecules and ions into the brain.
Mandy B. Esch Assistant Professor Ph.D. Würzburg University
Ian D. Hosein Assistant Professor Ph.D. Cornell University
Research focus: Microphysiological systems, in vitro models of the liver and the GI tract epithelium, modeling of barrier tissues using microfluidic systems, and development and use of body-on-a-chip systems.
Research focus: Advanced materials for energy conversion and storage, spontaneous patterning formation in polymers for microfabrication, and 3D printing using sunlight.
The addition of these new faculty members expands our department’s course offerings and expertise in tissue engineering, microfabrication, sustainable energy, and materials synthesis and processing.
M
ost bacterial infections can be solved by a trip to the doctor and a prescription for an antibiotic. But bacterial persister cells are able to survive the attack of antibiotics—leading to chronic infections.
FACTS AND STATS
RESEARCH AREAS
18 300 # of Faculty
# of Undergraduate Students
70 50
In his published research, Professor Dacheng Ren uncovered findings that suggest a particular immune system factor may play an important role in how well antibiotics clear infections caused by persisters.
# of Master’s Students
His team found that an important immune factor, known as the human granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor, can sensitize persister cells of the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the effects of certain antibiotics. In doing so, the persisters are affected in a way to be effectively killed by these antibiotics. Discoveries like this could help combat drug resistant infections that the medical community struggles to battle with antibiotics alone.
# of Ph.D. Students
Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering
Catalysis & Reaction Engineering
Complex Fluids, Soft Condensed Matter & Rheology
Molecular Biotechnology
Multiple Phase Systems
Multiscale Modeling & Simulation
Nanotechnology
Rehabilitative & Regenerative Engineering
Sustainable Energy Production
Degrees Awarded May 2014–2015
73
Undergraduate
28 Graduate
7
Ph.D.
Paper: “Human granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor enhances antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa persister cells,” Choudhary, Yao, Wang, Peng, Bader, Ren, Scientific Reports, 2015.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT FACILITY SPOTLIGHT
Andrew Ramos ’17
Syracuse Biomaterials Institute The Syracuse Biomaterials Institute (SBI) is a cohesive group of highly collaborative faculty and students engaged in research that focuses on biological materials — from the properties of individual cells, to their organization into tissues and organs, to the development of smart medical devices.
space with state-of-the-art labs for polymer synthesis and molecular/solution characterization, thermal analysis, materials physical characterization, optics, microstructures, material morphology, tissue culture, microbiology, molecular biology, nanomanufacturing, and 3D printing.
Located on the Syracuse University campus, its central research facilities encompass approximately 15,000 square feet of multiuser
To learn more, please visit biomaterials.syr.edu.
Andrew Ramos came to Syracuse as a self-described “shy freshman” who was unsure about who he was or where he was headed. By taking advantage of the opportunities available to him on campus, he has become an extremely active, outgoing scholar and student leader. Today, he contributes to Professor Pranav Soman’s bone engineering research, serves as president of Engineering World Health’s Syracuse chapter, and tutors fellow undergrads as an Academic Excellence Workshop Facilitator. He is also a member of the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Ramos sees his current trajectory leading to graduate school to attain a Ph.D. in bioengineering with a concentration in tissue engineering and stem cells or entering industry to work for a biotechnology company as a research and development scientist. “Syracuse University has become so much more to me than my ‘college years.’ It has become a second home filled with a wealth of opportunities, people I love, and professors and students that push me to become someone better.”
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Tagbo Niepa ’09, G’14, Bioengineering & Chemical Engineering
Professor Katie Cadwell
“The mentorship that I received in the College made the school very special to me. The passion of the researchers and teachers made me love the function of a university professor. Their contributions helped define my interest in teaching and performing research in the areas of bioelectrochemistry, biointerfaces, and soft nanomaterials.”
Today, Tagbo Niepa, Ph.D is studying phenomena linked to bacterial films, relevant to understanding disease and bioremediation, at the University of Pennsylvania. His aim is to further explore his scientific curiosity as a professor at a research university.
“I expect my students to continuously learn and improve their engineering and communication skills, and I expect the same constant improvement from myself. Each time I teach a course, I aim to make conscientious and substantial changes to enhance student outcomes.” Professor Cadwell shares her enthusiasm for engineering education with students and colleagues alike by using innovative
teaching methodologies in her classes and introducing them to fellow faculty members in monthly forums. In recognition of her talents, Cadwell was given Syracuse University’s Teaching Recognition Award and the Chancellor’s Inspiration Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship.
A NICHE FOR BIOMASS espite growing interest in replacing fossil resources with renewable biobased alternatives, biomass refining industries, such as those producing biofuels, struggle to compete with the well-established machinery of petroleum refining. While biomass may not displace fossil fuels in transportation any time soon, there are places where biomass can compete. For example, crude oil is also used to synthesize reactive chemical intermediates that are used in production of solvents, plastics, and polymers. Sometimes, they are easier to synthesize from biomass.
TENSION AND FLOW Surfactants—chemical compounds that determine surface tension—are everywhere.
Professor Jesse Bond received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to further explore one such chemical intermediate’s applications. His work will support development of catalysts and cost-effective technologies to facilitate oxidation of levulinic acid to deliver value-added chemical products, such as maleic anhydride.
T
hey’re relevant to the form and function of the human body, soaps and toothpastes—even hydraulic fracturing fluids. When surfactants are dissolved in water, they come together as micelles in the form of spheres, cylinders, vesicles, and lamellae. Their shape and dynamics are of great fundamental and practical interest in all of their applications. For the first time, Professor Radhakrishna Sureshkumar and fellow researchers used molecular simulations to provide a quantitative description of the shear-induced movement, orientation, stretching, and scission of rodlike surfactant micelles. This methodology was further extended to solutions that contain multiple micelles and nanoparticles for studying emerging morphologies, flow-structure interactions, and rheological properties.
“My hope is that this research pushes a technology forward that has a positive net impact on sustainability,” says Bond. “Beyond that, my goal is to teach our students about major problems facing society and ways that chemical engineering and catalysis can address those problems by making use of natural resources.”
Paper: “Dynamics and Scission of Rodlike Cationic Surfactant Micelles in Shear Flow,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Physical Review Letters, 2015.
Paper: “Topology, length scales, and energetics of surfactant micelles,” Sureshkumar, The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2015.
Gifts from donors like you contribute to classroom upgrades like the Sandra and Avi Nash Collaborative Classroom used in Professor Cadwell’s teaching. They pay for state-of-the-art laboratory equipment needed to conduct groundbreaking research like Professor Gilbert’s in the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute. Gifts provide students like Ariel Ash-Shakoor with research endeavors and community outreach activities that simply could not exist without our donors’ steadfast commitment.
Alexis Peña ’16 and Stephen Benn ’16 received Research Awards. Peña’s most recent work characterized the spatial and temporal bias of cortical progenitors in the mammalian cortex at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Benn’s research is in developing a dissolvable plastic sleeve that goes under the skin to surround and heal broken bones as an alternative to external casts.
h.D. student Ariel Ash-Shakoor received a Community Award recognizing her efforts as a leader in the STEM tutoring program at the Syracuse Northeast Community Center.
VISIT US ON FACEBOOK @ENGINEERINGSU @ENGINEERINGSU CONNECT WITH US
Biomedical and Chemical Engineering
n an example of a true collaboration between the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and the Department of Physics, Professors Jay Henderson and Lisa Manning combine knowledge from their respective disciplines to study cell behavior as part of the Soft Interfaces Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship and a National Science Foundation Collaborative Award.
Three biomedical engineering students received Student Leadership Awards at the 30th Annual Black Engineer of the Year Award STEM Conference in February.
P
Department of
I
STUDENTS RECOGNIZED AT BEYA CONFERENCE
We share these accomplishments with you because you are a part of us. As an alumnus or a friend of this Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, you have contributed to our shared success by your very association. A great many of you have also generously helped fund the endeavors highlighted within this newsletter.
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
As an engineering department set within a comprehensive University, faculty and students are provided with opportunities to work with a range of other disciplines.
Their current collaborations expand their research to automated analysis of cell polarization during wound healing and modeling cell cultures on 2D shape changing substrates. Their latest research will be published in 2016.
Paper: “Uniaxial Extension of Surfactant Micelles: Counterion Mediated Chain Stiffening and a Mechanism of Rupture by Flow-Induced Energy Redistribution,” Dhakal, Sureshkumar, ACS Macro Letters, 2016.
Your Department, Your College, Your Success
PAID
Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science Syracuse, NY 13244-1240
Together, their research groups developed an automated approach to accurately track the movement of cells—vital for understanding how cells and tissues work and helping to heal injured tissues or treat diseases such as cancer.
Paper: “Self-Assembly of Nanoparticle–Surfactant Complexes with Rodlike Micelles: A Molecular Dynamics Study,” Sambasivam, Sangwai, Sureshkumar, Langmuir, 2016.
With your help, there is no limit what your Department can achieve. Please consider giving online at eng-cs.syr.edu/givenow.
JOINING FORCES IN CELL STUDIES
NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
R POLYMER PUTS NEW MEDICAL SOLUTIONS WITHIN REACH
esearchers in the medical field have been searching for a way to combine the properties of liquid crystallinity with those of hydrogels to develop things like artificial blood vessels that would be biocompatible. Liquid crystals have the fluidity of liquid with some of the order of a crystal so they can be oriented to have structure. They are not ideal for use inside the body because they are quite hydrophobic. On the other hand, hydrogels are hydrophilic and can survive in the body but lack the ordering (so-called “anisotropy”) inherent to biological tissues. Professor Pat Mather reveals a process to create a material that combines liquid crystals with hydrogel, introducing potential for new materials that have the same mechanical properties as soft tissues in the body. “It is a balancing act of not having too many water-loving groups in the polymer and incorporating components in the polymer that promote structure,” says Mather. Paper: Cover featured article “A hydrogel-forming liquid crystalline elastomer exhibiting soft shape memory,” Torbati, Mather, Polymer Physics, 2016.
Ariel Ash-Shakoor Ph.D. student
Stephen Benn ’16
Alexis Peña ’16
IMPLANTS UNDER BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
A
bout half a million people receive hip replacements worldwide every year. Of these, a small percentage will develop health complications due to their implant, such as inflammation and infection.
Gilbert inspected hip and knee implants that had been removed from patients. In examining them, his research team discovered telltale corrosive “footprints” of phagocytic cells on the metal surface of the implant.
For more than 40 years, total hip replacements have primarily been made from metal alloys and plastic. As the patient walks, the metal ball and plastic socket surfaces rub together and particles and corrosion-based ions are released into surrounding tissue. The assumption in the orthopedic research community has been that these particles and ions were causing biological reactions that may result in some health problems in some patients.
These findings reveal that the relationship between implants and the body are more complicated than previously thought and expand the scope of potential research and medical advances in the area of orthopedics.
Professor Jeremy Gilbert’s research shows that wear is not the only way implants can corrode. Our biology may also wage an attack on the foreign implant directly. “Our research finds that our bodies’ own biological reactions may cause the corrosion directly, and that’s a fundamentally different way of thinking about these interactions,“ explains Gilbert.
ENG-CS.SYR.EDU
SPRING 2016
“The idea that inflammatory cells in the body can directly corrode the surface of an implant opens up the possibility that it is not just that wear and corrosion that causes adverse local tissue reactions, but that adverse local tissue reactions can cause corrosion,” explains Gilbert. “A small fundamental advance like this can uncover countless new paths and questions that can lead to many technical advances to help deal with an issue that is significant in orthopedics today.” Paper: “Direct in vivo inflammatory cell-induced corrosion of CoCrMo alloy orthopedic implant surfaces,” Gilbert, Sivan, Liu, Kocagöz, Arnholt, Kurtz, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 2015.