By Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D.

The UConn Partnership for Excellence in Structural Biology held “Structural Biology Meets Drug Discovery” on September 11 at the Nathan Hale Inn on the UConn Storrs campus. The keynote speaker was Dr. Jonathan Moore, senior research fellow and vice president of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston. Dr. Moore’s insightful remarks on the intersection of structural biology and drug discovery also touched on targeting disordered proteins as a new mode of action. Dr. Dennis Wright of UConn Pharmacy briefed attendees on the PITCH and NPDD academic drug-discovery initiatives at UConn. The Science Café attracted a broad cross section of interested faculty and administrators who engaged in a lively discussion of challenges and opportunities.

By Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D.

On Friday, July 22, the Institute for Regenerative Engineering held our 29th Annual Laurencin Labs dinner at the Hartford Golf Club in West Hartford. Over 60 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members attended. Also attending were the local high-school and college students who are spending part of their summers in the lab. The evening celebrated the outstanding research conducted in our laboratory during 2016 and included a discussion of the work planned for 2017.

Thank you to those who helped make this the dinner meeting so successful.

I am very honored to have been featured in “Grow Your Own” in the December 2015 issue of Prism magazine. I had the pleasure of discussing the HEAL Project with Prism’s team. Please check out the article at http://www.asee-prism.org/up-close-dec-3/.

Prism is the American Society for Engineering Education’s award-winning publication. The popular magazine covers engineering in higher education throughout the United States. The magazine is read reaches engineering faculty members, administrators, and students in all disciplines of engineering. Thank you to Mary Lord, the deputy editor of Prism as well as Prism’s editorial team for featuring me.

I am one of a select group of engineers from around the world to have been elected a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), one of the most prestigious academic institutions in China. A CAE academician title is the highest Chinese academic achievement in Engineering and Technology and a lifelong honor. The induction ceremony will be held in Beijing in June 2016. I am extremely honored to join these distinguished scholars. It will inspire me to make more contributions in science and engineering in the years to come.

On November 7, Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway PT, visited UConn for the first time. He delivered the Lawrence G. Raisz, M.D. Lectureship, an event hosted by the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (CICATS) and UConn School of Engineering in the Student Union of the Storrs campus. Over 300 people, including students, faculty, researchers, public officials and community-based organizations attended. In his keynote entitled “Innovation: Past, Present and Future”, Dean urged the young people present to keep following their dreams and shared an overview of projects he and his engineers at DEKA Research have been working on. He also discussed FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a program for students to get them interested in science, technology, and engineering he and his partners started in 1989 and continue supporting today.

In addition to the Segway, Dean invented the iBOT all-terrain wheelchair as well as several biomedical devices. He has also developed a water purification system he hopes will help improve living standards in developing countries He has received the U.S. Medal of Technology and the ASME Medal, the American Society of Mechanical Engineer’s highest honor. Dean holds more than 440 U.S. and foreign patents.

As the CEO of CICATS, I thank everyone at CICATS for their hard work organizing Dean’s visit over the past months. I also thank the School of Engineering at UConn Storrs for co-hosting this event.