On February 7th and 8th, I participated in the 2015 Musculoskeletal Development and Regeneration Conference in Cancun, Mexico. My speech, “Regenerative Engineering: The Theory and Practice of a Next Generation Field,” highlighted the future of regenerative engineering in musculoskeletal repair and regeneration. I discussed the challenge of musculoskeletal tissue engineering and several of the latest inventions developed by the Institute for Regenerative Engineering here at UConn Health including a bioengineered matrix for the regeneration of torn anterior cruciate ligaments. I want to thank the organizers for including me as part of this for those working on the frontiers of science in both academia and corporate industry.

I am very happy to announce the launch of a new journal entitled Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine. It will be published quarterly beginning in later 2015.

Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine is an international journal covering the convergence of tissue engineering, advanced materials science, stem cell research, the physical sciences, and areas of developmental biology. This convergence brings exciting opportunities to translate bench-top research into bedside methods, allowing the possibility of moving beyond maintaining or repairing tissues to regenerating them. The journal also features sections on instructive biomaterials, stimuli-responsive biomaterials, micro- and nano-patterning for regenerative engineering, elastomeric biomaterials, hydrogels for tissue engineering, and rapid prototyping and bioprinting approaches.

We are fortunate to be developing an editorial board of recognized experts in their fields to help with the peer-review process. As editor-in-chief, I want to thank everyone involved for their efforts during the past months in ensuring the journal’s successful launch.

On September 8th and 9th last year, I served as an invited speaker at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Frontiers in Bioengineering Symposium. This year, the symposium drew more than 200 participants and 30 top scientists/engineers from across the country who presented their forward-looking research in bioengineering. In my talk, “Regenerative Engineering: Theory and Practice,” I discussed the new research direction in the regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues through the regenerative engineering approach. I am grateful to both the organizing committee and the university for inviting me to speak.

This month, we are celebrating the first anniversary of the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, an online health science journal dedicated to examining and eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities.

Since the official launch in July 2013, we have received an impressive number of high quality submissions from scholars all over the world. We hoped to have 40 publications the first year. Currently we have over 80 manuscripts for publication of extremely high quality. We have published articles on important areas such as HIV-related mortality among adults of various minority groups; cancer risk among African-Americans; and obesity and related chronic health conditions among ethnic minorities.

The Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities will continue to update the community on new research findings, commentaries, insights, and discussions that are relevant to the health disparities. I would like to thank our associate editors, editorial board members, and editorial staff for all of their excellent work.

The Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (CICATS) at UConn has been selected to take part in a new NIH initiative, Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD), designed to enhance diversity in the biomedical research field. The initiative’s goal is attracting minority students to the STEM workforce and encouraging them to become future contributors to the NIH-funded research enterprise.

Part of a multi-institution consortium led by the University of Texas at El Paso tasked with developing these new opportunities, CICATS was invited to contribute to the grant because of its successful track record in creating pipeline programs such as the Young Innovative Investigator Program (YIIP) and the M1 Mentorship Program. As a major contributor and recipient of a BUILD award, CICATS will oversee the execution of the program here at UConn.

Correcting the imbalance of STEM workforce requires advances in research, engineering, and medicine, community outreach and changes to public policy. CICATS’ goal is bringing the necessary change makers together through the BUILD award to help facilitate the exchange of ideas and collaborations across multiple disciplines.

In early September, I was honored to be named one of ten scientists chosen to receive a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Pioneer Award. The Pioneer Award funds innovative research proposals which attack challenging biomedical problems. Established ten years ago, this award encourages the kind of forward-looking research scientists once complained was difficult to find funding for under the traditional NIH grant structure. It is designed to support “a small number of investigators of exceptional creativity who propose bold and highly innovative new research approaches that have the potential to produce a major impact” in the fields of biomedicine and behavioral research, according to the NIH. I am grateful to receive this award from among such a competitive group. It will allow us the intellectual freedom and resources to develop a brand new technology. If successfully implemented, the technology will impact many disciplines of biomedical research, including biomaterials development, regenerative engineering, developmental biology, drug delivery, and stem cell biology.