By Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D.
I am very pleased to announce Dr. Jorge Luis Escobar Ivirico, a postdoctoral fellow in our lab, has been appointed Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, School of Engineering at UConn Storrs and also as a faculty member in the Institute for Regenerative Engineering. After earning his BS in Chemistry, and MSc in Materials Science from the University of Havana, Jorge earned his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Valencia (Spain). He was a postdoctoral fellow in both Spain and Germany. In Fall 2015, he joined the IRE under my supervision. He has a multidisciplinary technical background focused in biomimetic materials and biomaterials, drug delivery, cell-material interaction, nano/micro technology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Speaking for the IRE faculty, we are very excited to have Jorge assume this new role.
The Institute for Regenerative Engineering welcomes Assistant Professor Thanh Nguyen. Dr. Nguyen joined the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at UConn at the beginning of 2016. His research is highly interdisciplinary and at the interface of biomedicine, materials and nano/micro technology. He did his postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Robert Langer at MIT. His postdoctoral research involved developing a platform technology which can create 3-dimensional microstructures of biomaterials, such as biodegradable and FDA-approved polymers for applications in vaccine/drug delivery and medical implants. In 2013, Dr. Nguyen obtained his PhD from Princeton University in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. There he worked with Dr. Michael McAlpine to develop the field of Biointerfaced Nanopiezoelectrics, which aims to create advanced electromechanical materials/devices at nanoscales that can interface with biological cells/tissues for applications in harvesting, sensing and engineering cellular mechanics. His work has been published in prestigious journals and highlighted in major media such as The New York Times and Nature.