Last month, I was attending the 111th meeting of the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. This was my last ACD meeting since I was elected as a member of ACD in 2013. In an effort to ensure that NIH senior management is getting the most rigorous and experienced guidance, the NIH director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., created the ACD made up of academic and health care industry leaders. As a committee member, my duty was to make recommendations concerning program development, resource allocation, NIH administrative regulation and policy, and other specific or general aspects of NIH policy. The committee members also review and make recommendations on applications for grants and cooperative agreements for research and training for projects that show promise of making valuable contributions to human knowledge. It was truly an honor to serve as a member of the ACD. It has been a great pleasure working with Dr. Collins and all members of ACD.
Congratulations 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.”
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.
The 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.
On 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.
On March 6th, UConn Health hosted the second Women in Surgery Lectureship with guest lecturer Dr. Andrea Hayes-Jordan, Director of Pediatric Surgical Oncology and Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology and Pediatrics at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The lectureship, co-sponsored by CICATS and the Department of Surgery, was moderated by Dr. Linda Barry, CICATS COO and Assistant Director.