Jay L. Alberts
Jay L. Alberts, staff, Lerner Research Institute, Department of Biomedical Engineering, was featured in a March article entitled, "How Augmented Reality is Advancing Brain and Mental Health Treatment” in The Scientist, a quarterly magazine for life science professionals. Alberts shared his team’s development of a digital avatar within an augmented reality platform, as well as a virtual reality assessment, to help clinicians provide simultaneous cognitive and motor task therapy to patients with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease.
Jeff Capadona
Jeff Capadona, Vice Provost for Innovation at Case Western Reserve University and a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, published an article in Nature Communications in February entitled, "Bacteria invade the brain following intracortical microelectrode implantation, inducing gut-brain axis disruption and contributing to reduced microelectrode performance.” The article examines the effects of antibiotic use on the recording performance of implanted brain-machine interface intracortical microelectrodes and on overall blood-brain barrier health post implantation. The work was funded by the APT Center Steven Garverick Innovation Incentive Program, which supports pilot studies that nurture new ideas and concepts that are not yet grant eligible.
Mark Griswold
Mark Griswold and Chaitra Badve represented one of five research teams selected for a Collaborative Science Pilot Award supported by Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and University Hospitals (UH). Griswold is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University and the Pavey Family Designated Professor of Innovative Imaging – Revolutionizing the Worlds of Education at the School of Medicine, and Badve is an associate professor of radiology in the School of Medicine and radiology physician and director of MRI at UH.
Griswold and Badve received the award, which is designed to encourage and advance team science between clinical and basic science faculty, for their work to organize and curate a magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) database for hypothesis-driven sub-projects in various neurological diseases. The team also plans to leverage its infrastructure and expertise toward a larger vision of a multi-institutional MRF consortium to accelerate development of generalizable, validated biomarkers in neurological disorders.
Juhwan Lee
Juhwan Lee, a research assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, obtained a 5-year, K01 award in medical imaging from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Lee will develop methods for the non-invasive, quantitative evaluation of coronary artery disease in computed tomography angiography images. "This research could lead to improved detection of coronary artery disease and evaluation of its severity, paving the way for personalized treatments,” says David Wilson, the Robert Herbold Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Case Western Reserve University and Lee’s primary mentor.
Shuo Li
Shuo Li was appointed to the Leonard Case Jr. Professorship in Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Li, who joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2021 as an associate professor, is a global leader in conducting multi-disciplinary research to enable artificial intelligence in clinical imaging-centered healthcare. "I am grateful for the support from my colleagues, mentors and the leadership at CWRU, especially Dean [of the Case School of Engineering] Ragu Balakrishnan for the nomination and Provost Joy Ward for the appointment,” said Li in a post on X.
Paul Marasco
Paul Marasco, associate staff, Lerner Research Institute, Department of Biomedical Engineering, received a $1.4 million grant from the Department of Defense, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) Peer Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP) for his research on intuitive ultrasound-based upper limb prosthetic control and feedback utilizing targeted reinnervation for neuroma pain. Marasco also published an article in January in Science entitled, "Navigating the complexity of touch." The article presents findings of a study showing that precise cortical microstimulation improves tactile experience in brain-machine interfaces, which could improve applications for more precise bionic hands.
Kunio Nakamura
Kunio Nakamura, research scientist, Lerner Research Institute, Department of Biomedical Engineering, published an article entitled, "Subject-based transfer learning in longitudinal multiple sclerosis lesion segmentation" in the Journal of Neuroimaging in February. The article discusses results of a study that proposes two new transfer learning-based pipelines to improve segmentation performance for subjects in longitudinal MS datasets.
Anirban Sen Gupta
The Air Force Research Laboratory awarded a $1.8 million collaborative grant to the laboratories of Anirban Sen Gupta, the Wallace R. Persons Endowed Professor of Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and Michael Goodman, MD, a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati. The award supports work by the two laboratories to develop novel nanotherapeutics for traumatic brain injury.
In addition, Sen Gupta was a speaker at the 2024 International Symposium on Blood Substitutes, where he co-chaired the Platelets and Hemostasis track. Dante Disharoon and Sonali Rohiwal, senior research associates in the Sen Gupta Lab, also presented at the conference.
CWRU Hosts Biomaterials Symposium
Case Western Reserve University hosted the 2024 Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Midwest Symposium last fall at the Tinkham Veale University Center. More than 140 faculty members and students from SFB chapters throughout the Midwest attended the event, which featured presentations and posters on topics including tissue engineering, nanomaterials, bio interfaces, drug delivery, cardiovascular biomaterials, engineering cells and their microenvironments, and more.
Shana Kelley, the Neena B. Schwartz Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University, delivered the keynote address. Her research group has pioneered new methods for tracking molecular and cellular analytes with unprecedented sensitivity. Since 2023, Kelley has also served as president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, a nonprofit organization developing technologies to understand inflammation and the immune system.
The SFB Midwest Symposium was organized by a program committee chaired by Anirban Sen Gupta, the Wallace R. Persons Endowed Professor of Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and Steven Eppell, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the university. In addition to speakers from Case and Northwestern, other represented universities included Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Ohio State University, Rice University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Michigan, the University of Kentucky, the University of Oregon and the University of Pittsburgh.