Leila Daneshmandi, a Graduate Student member of the CT Convergence Institute, is pictured here with her peer from Biomedical Engineering, Armin Tahmasbi Rad. Leila and Armin have partnered together to use the concepts of tissue engineering to help cancer patients.

The duo has developed an innovative “tumor-on-a-chip system that takes a patient’s tumor cells and grows them outside of the body to test different cancer treatments”.

This development could help prevent cancer patients from having to endure several different trial and error treatments that are not effective for their particular tumor.  Leila acknowledged that “[t]his process of determining which drug a patient responds to best, is lengthy and is one of the major reasons why many lives are lost.”

The two students are putting their entrepreneurial skills to work in order to launch their innovative system and hopefully begin clinical trials soon.

For more detail on their new technology, read the entire UConn Today article.

While visiting the Society for Biomaterials Annual meeting, Dr. Cato Laurencin was honored by the Chinese Association of Biomaterials with their Global Biomaterials Leadership Award.

He is seen below hosting a workshop entitled “Biomaterials Science Excellence and Technology Translation.”

Kenneth Ogueri is a member of the CT Convergence Institute at UCHC and a Graduate Student in Materials Science and Engineering at UConn. 

He was recently invited to join Phi Kappa Phi, the prestigious honor society which is a global network of scholars from all academic disciplines.

An Induction Ceremony was held on Monday, April 15^th .

Congratulations Kenneth!

 

 

 

A group of Laurencin Fellows, and Lab Members of Dr. Laurencin’s CT Convergence Institute at UConn Health Center, gather for a photo at the 2019 Society for Biomaterials Meeting in Seattle.

 

Pictured, clockwise from left to right:

• Faye Assanah, member of the CT Convergence Institute
• Sydney Wimberley, 2019 Laurencin Fellow awardee
• Nicole Friend, former Laurencin Fellowship winner
• Anupama Prabhath, member of the CT Convergence Institute
• Timothy Mason, former Laurencin Fellowship winner
• Dr. Edward Botchwey, a mentee of Dr. Laurencin, and current Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech
• Dr. Cato Laurencin
• Leila Daneshmandi, member of the CT Convergence Institute
• Xiaoyan Tang, former student of Dr. Laurencin at UConn
• Dr. Yusuf Khan, member of the CT Convergence Institute
• (center) Kai Clarke, 2019 Laurencin Fellow awardee

The Convergence Institute recently sponsored a Science Cafe on the topic of Pain Management in Connecticut: Challenges, Innovations & Research on Friday, March 22. With this topic being at the forefront of the news lately, the event was well attended and included a lot of interaction and engagement from the audience, which consisted of pain sufferers, health care providers, social workers, and more.

The Institute welcomed three guest speakers at the event: Dr. Jonathan Kost from Hartford Hospital, Dr. William Shaw from UConn Health, and Dr. William Zempsky from CT Children’s Medical Center. Dr. Reinhard Laubenbacher, Director of the Connecticut Pain Consortium at UConn Health, also spoke about how the Consortium is working with these and other pain experts around the state to bring together data, research, education and pain management in Connecticut.

                                                                             

Congratulations to Dr. Cato Laurencin for being named to the list of America’s Top Doctors once again in 2019!

Dr. Cato Laurencin recently spoke at the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) annual event, which is a conference that combines scientific lectures with public policy discussion. His talk highlighted the importance of black representation in the fields of Medicine, Engineering and Science. Dr. Laurencin has spent a large portion of his career in addressing issues on diversity. He served as Rapporteur for the historic Workshop Proceedings entitled “An American Crisis: The Growing Absence of Black Men in Medicine and Science” and is founding Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Dr. Laurencin is also dedicated to mentoring underrepresented students in the fields of Medicine, Engineering and Science as well. Learn more about Dr. Cato Laurencin, and AIMBE.

The fellowship, presented through the Society for Biomaterials, supports under-represented minority students in the field of biomaterials.

The winners of the Cato T. Laurencin Travel Fellowships will be recognized at the Annual Society for Biomaterials (SFB) meeting in April. Awardees are Kai Clarke of the Florida Institute of Technology and Sydney Wimberley, a Chemical Engineering major here at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Cato Laurencin, for whom the Fellowship is named, is well known for his commitment to mentoring. Along with membership in the SFB, Kai Clarke and Sydney Wimberley will receive a grant for participation in the SFB Annual Meeting which covers all travel costs. Attending allows students to meet with distinguished and seasoned scientists in the field, hear from state-of-the-art speakers, learn about industry advancements, and also offers networking opportunities for students to discuss potential internships.

These Travel Fellowships are made possible by grants from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, National Institute of Health, and SFB member donations. For more information, visit the Society for Biomaterials website. Read more about the UConn awardee in UConn Today.

The CT Convergence Center for Translation in Regenerative Engineering is pleased to announce that a member of our Institute, Leila Daneshmandi (a Ph.D Student from Biomedical Engineering) has earned a 1st place award in the 5th Annual UConn School of Engineering Poster Competition.

The competition, which was open to graduate students from all engineering departments, included two rounds of judging.

In the first round, participants presented to faculty members within their own department and were judged among peers in that department. Leila won first place for the Biomedical Engineering Department based on feedback from judges Dr. Ki Chon (department head) and Dr. Kristin Morgan. For the next round, advancing participants presented to a team of industrial professionals with broad technology entrepreneurship experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leila’s project “PLGA-Graphene Oxide Matrices for Bone Regenerative Engineering” won the first place prize of $1,000 in the final round. Leila Daneshmandi is pictured below with her award presented by Kevin Arpin, Forensic Specialist from Travelers Institute, Kathy Rocha, Managing Director of UConn’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Consortium, and Kevin Bouley, President and CEO of Nerac.

 

Congratulations to Leila Daneshmandi!

Earlier this week, Dr. Cato Laurencin gave opening words at the 2019 Helen I. Moorehead-Laurencin, MD, Sex & Gender Research Forum at Drexel University. The forum is named after Dr. Laurencin’s mother, Dr. Helen I. Moorehead-Laurencin, who practiced medicine in the ground floor of her home in North Philadelphia for almost 45 years, and was one of the few women to receive a medical degree during her time. The forum is an interactive program that highlights Drexel’s multidisciplinary research focused on sex and gender in a local, national, and global context. The forum included prominent keynote speakers who addressed current sex and gender issues, including Lynn Paltrow, JD, who is the founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and is pictured below with Dr. Laurencin.