Wayne State University President Receives Laurencin Lifetime Research Award

August 20, 2015

M. Roy Wilson, president of Wayne State UniversityI am pleased to announce M. Roy Wilson, president of Wayne State University, is the recipient of the 2015 Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., Lifetime Research Award. Dr. Wilson received his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School and his Master of Science in epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health. Dr. Wilson is an accomplished researcher focused on glaucoma and blindness in West Africa, the Caribbean, and urban communities in the United States. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Ophthalmological Society, and the Glaucoma Research Society.

Dr. Wilson received the award during the opening ceremonies of the National Medical Association’s 113th Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly, held at Detroit’s Cobo Center. The Laurencin Lifetime Research Award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated more than 20 years of consistent, long-lasting contributions to benefit African-Americans, reducing health disparities through recognized research and inquiry. Dr. Wilson’s extraordinary career has been dedicated to improving the health status of minority populations in his role as a master physician and surgeon.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the W. Montague Cobb/NMA Health Institute, I thank Dr. Wilson for his many efforts and resulting accomplishments.

Congratulating Ms. Aiswaria Padmanabhan on Completing a Master’s Degree

AiswariaCongratulations to IRE student Aiswaria, who successfully defended her master’s thesis on August 6, 2015. Her work was titled “Evaluation of biodegradability and cell functionality of injectable glycol chitosan hydrogel.”

Aiswaria wrote her thesis under the supervision of Dr. Lakshmi S. Nair as part of the Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program at UConn.

2015 Gordon Research Conference

I had the honor to be invited to Girona, Spain where I gave the opening keynote speech for the 2015 Gordon Research Conference. This year’s theme was “Regenerative Engineering and Functional Materials Integration,” a new area our institute has pioneered. It featured multidisciplinary presentations by bioengineers, chemists, and clinical scientists on emerging topics in immunology and stem cells, as well as basic and translational aspects of biomaterials science. It was great seeing the extraordinary research being performed by researchers around the world. The conference was chaired by Professor Edward Botchwey of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Ed was one of my graduate students at Drexel who moved with me to be a professor at the University of Virginia. It’s always great seeing my students who are now noted professors in academia all over the world.

Health Disparities Elimination Summit at UConn Health

August 14, 2015

National Health Disparities Elimination SummitOn June 13, the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (CICATS) at UConn, in partnership with the Connecticut Legislative Black and Puerto Rican Caucus and the W. Montague Cobb/NMA Health Institute, hosted the National Health Disparities Elimination Summit here at UConn Health. The summit’s theme was “Keeping It Real: Real Solutions, Real Change.” Our aim was spearheading an important dialogue and generate actionable solutions to eliminate health disparities. The summit provided an opportunity for stakeholders to learn from and engage with national champions in the fight to eliminate health disparities. One of the summit’s major goals was building on the collective knowledge of our speakers and presenters to foster a lasting network of collaborative partnerships among the researchers, physicians, students, and community leaders who attended.

As the CEO of CICATS, I thank everyone involved in the summit for their phenomenal work organizing this event over the past months. I appreciated all the distinguished speakers who shared their expertise and insights on the causations of health disparities and the avenues for change. I also thank the Connecticut Legislative Black and Puerto Rican Caucus for their long-term support on our CICATS programs.

National Health Disparities Elimination Summit

Eric James Successfully Defends Thesis

Eric James and Dr. Lakshmi S. Nair On August 5, Eric N. James, a member of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering, successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, “Post-Transcriptional Regulation in Osteoblast Using Localized Delivery of microRNAs from Nanofibers.” Eric wrote his thesis under the supervision of Dr. Lakshmi S. Nair as part of Skeletal, Craniofacial and Oral Biology Graduate Program. Members of his committee also included Drs. Anne Delany and Yusuf Khan.

Congratulations on your accomplishment, Eric!

Health Disparities Discussion on “The Stan Simpson Show”

Dr. Cato T. Laurencin with Stan Simpson
Dr. Cato T. Laurencin with Stan Simpson

On May 13, Stan Simpson, host of “The Stan Simpson Show” on Fox CT, invited me to be a guest on his show. The program is an entertaining and insightful talk show which focuses on current affairs. It airs Saturdays at 5:30 a.m. and can also be seen on the web, www.foxct.com/stan.

During the interview, we discussed raising awareness about racial inequities in health care and how to eliminate health care disparities in minority communities. Thank you to the wonderful team at Fox CT and to Stan Simpson for conducting the interview.

IRE Faculty Member Edits Textbook on Regenerative Engineering

June 25, 2015

A new textbook entitled Injectable Hydrogels for Regenerative Engineering edited by UConn’s Lakshmi Nair, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, focuses on synthetic approaches towards developing injectable hydrogels, and the clinical implications and applications of injectable hydrogels for engineering various tissues. The chapters of the book are contributed by the leading researchers in academia, surgeons, and industry leaders. In this book, readers can find detailed information on applications of the hydrogels to regenerate many issues, such as neural tissue, articular cartilage, and cardiac tissue.

New Regenerative Engineering Textbook

June 3, 2015

Regenerative Engineering of Musculoskeletal Tissues and InterfacesThe Institute for Regenerative Engineering recently published a new textbook, Regenerative Engineering of Musculoskeletal Tissues and Interfaces. Published by Woodhead Publishing Ltd, this comprehensive book looks at individual musculoskeletal tissues as well as tissue interfaces. Early chapters cover various fundamentals of biomaterials and scaffolds, types of cells, growth factors, and mechanical forces, moving on to discuss tissue-engineering strategies for bone, tendon, ligament, cartilage, meniscus, and muscle, as well as progress and advances in tissue vascularization and nerve innervation of the individual tissues. Late chapters present information on musculoskeletal tissue interfaces. As the chief editor, I want to express my gratitude first and foremost to all our contributors and especially, my co-editors, Drs. Joseph Freeman and Syam Nukavarapu, for their tireless efforts and time to edit this book.

New Journal Features Convergence of Fields

June 2, 2015

Meet-the-Editors event at the 2015 Society for Biomaterials MeetingI am happy to announce that Springer Publishing has officially launched the international journal, Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine in partnership with the newly formed Regenerative Engineering Society. The new journal will cover the convergence of multiple fields including tissue generation, advanced materials science, stem cell research, the physical sciences, and developmental biology. The senior editorial team includes managing editor, Lakshmi S. Nair, MPhil, PhD, and assistant managing editor, Tao Jiang, PhD, MBA, both of the University of Connecticut; and news and views editor, Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, of Harvard University. Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine is currently seeking submissions. For information and online submission instructions, please visit the submissions page.

On April 16th, the journal hosted a Meet-the-Editors event at the 2015 Society for Biomaterials Meeting and Exhibition in Charlotte, NC. I am excited to be working with Springer and the editorial team on this new journal.

Congratulations to Dr. Paiyz Mikael

May 29, 2015

Dr. Paiyz Mikael presentingOn April 10th, Paiyz Mikael successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis and completed her work with the Institute for Regenerative Engineering. Paiyz joined the Institute under the guidance of Dr. Syam Nukavarapu as part of UConn’s Biomedical Engineering Program. Her thesis focused on developing mechanically superior polymeric-carbon nanotube composite scaffolds for the regeneration of segmental bone defects.

Congratulations Paiyz!