July 12-13, 2007
The very successful CEM’s 2nd annual Methods in Bioengineering Conference was held on July 12 and 13 at MIT, with more than 300 attendees representing over 60 institutes, and over 70 posters. The Methods in Bioengineering Conference was a unique integrative effort of six NIH-funded Resource Centers to present leading methodology used in the fields of BioMEMS, Regenerative Medicine, Functional Imaging, Opto-Electronics, and Cellular Modeling.

There were a total of three sessions over two days with a keynote speaker beginning each day's program, and an extensive poster session. The participating NIH Resource Centers were: the Tissue Engineering Resource Center at Tufts University, Columbia University, and MIT; the Brain Functional Imaging Regional Resource Center at MGH; the Developmental Resource for Biophysical Imaging Opto-Electronics at Cornell; the Resource Center for Studies of Complex Physiologic and Biomedical Signals at MIT; and the National Resource for Cell Analysis and Modeling at the University of Connecticut.

Other sponsors were the Artech House Publishers, Annual Reviews of Biomedical Engineering, BOSE Corporation, the journal Tissue Engineering, the Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing and the IGERT program in Nanomedicine at Northeastern University, and the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center. Among the highlights of the conference events were the keynote lectures from prominent investigators at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Harvard Medical School, and a one-day intensive hands-on microtechnology and microfluidics workshop prior to the conference.

For more information click here or on the above link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7012371.stm

Latest News

October 19, 2007
CEM Microfluidics Work Spotlighted
The CEM’s work on “A microfluidic bioreactor for increased active retrovirus output” will be spotlighted in a future issue of the Chemical Biology supplement of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In this study, a team led by Professor Martin Yarmush describes a novel microdevice for the continuous production of retroviral vectors in a commonly available packaging cell line. The microdevice platform for virus production enables a high degree of control over the culturing and environmental conditions, and such devices will be useful for optimizing and evaluating retroviruses and other viral vectors for gene therapy applications. Authors of the study include Halong Vu, Yawen Li, Monica Casali, Daniel Irimia, and Zak Megeed. The full article describing this work will be published in Lab on a Chip.

September 25, 2007
Parekkadan’s Research Work Carried by Major News Sources
Biju Parekkadan and other researchers in Professor Yarmush’s lab have developed a new way to treat liver failure by dampening the immune response using stem cells taken from the bone marrow. Major news wires including Medical News Today and BBC News have featured the work. The full article was published in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

July 30, 2007
Parekkadan Receives BMES Award
Biju Parekkadan, a graduate student supervised by Professor Martin Yarmush, was selected as the recipient of the BMES 2007 Graduate Research Award for his paper “Bone Marrow Stromal-Derived Molecules as Immunotherapeutics”. Biju, one of 5 such awardees, will receive complimentary registration for the 2007 BMES Meeting, stipend and travel expenses.

June 4, 2007
Tolboom awarded poster prize
Dr. Herman Tolboom’s poster entitled, “Recovery of Warm Ischemic Liver Grafts with Normothermic Extracorporeal Perfusion” was selected for a cash award in the Second Annual MGH Research Fellows Poster Celebration held on Friday June 1, 2007. Dr. Tolboom is supervised by Professors Martin Yarmush and Francois Berthiaume.

April 14, 2007
CEM Genomics and Metabolomics Work Spotlighted
The CEM’s work on genomics and metabolomics is spotlighted in the May 1 issue of Biotechnology and Bioengineering. In this issue, a team led by Professor Martin Yarmush and François Berthiaume report the use of DNA microarray analysis (genomics) coupled with metabolic flux analysis (MFA) of isolated perfused livers in order to shed light on the hypermetabolic state that occurs in the rat liver following severe systemic trauma. In the most severe injury model, the two ‘omics’ techniques produced relatively similar snapshots of hepatic hypermetabolism. But, comparisons of the more benign models showed marked differences in the interpretations drawn from genomics and fluxomics approaches. These results highlight the importance of taking
precaution when interpreting the results from single ‘omics’ experiments. Authors of the study include Scott Banta, Murali Vemula, Tadaaki Yokoyama, and Arul Jayaraman.

April 10, 2007
Di Carlo awarded ACS fellowship
Dr. Dino Di Carlo was awarded a 2 year postdoctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society for his proposal "Point-of-care Microfluidic Cell Sorting System for Circulating Tumor Cells." The aims of the project include development of an improved microfluidic system for isolation of tumor cells from blood with increased sensitivity, efficiency, and throughput. One of the long-term outcomes of this work may be a simple blood-based screening system for detecting cancer in high-risk individuals before symptoms become readily apparent. Dr. Di Carlo is supervised by Professor Mehmet Toner.

November 28, 2006
Megeed Awarded Ovarian Cancer Research Grant
Dr. Zak Megeed has been awarded a one-year Concept Award through the Ovarian Cancer Research Program at the Department of Defense. This grant, totaling $131250, will fund the development of targeted nanoparticles for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

November 15, 2006
CEM Genomics Work Featured
The CEM’s work on a “Living Cell Array”, a microfluidic device that allows the study of real-time gene expression in living cells, was featured in Chemical Biology. Chemical Biology is a news magazine that draws together coverage from all Royal Society of Chemistry publications, providing a snapshot of the latest developments in chemical biology. The full paper describing this innovative work was published in Lab on a Chip.

October 12, 2006
Kaushal Rege and Suraj Patel Win Prostate Cancer Trainingwards
CEM Research Fellow Kaushal Rege and Graduate Student Suraj Patel have been awarded postdoctoral and predoctoral fellowships, respectively, from the Prostate Cancer Training Program at the Department of Defense. The awards, supervised by Professor Martin Yarmush, will focus on the development of targeted protein and viral therapeutics for the treatment of prostate cancer.

September 25, 2006
Yarmush Wins NIH Stem Cell Award
Professor Martin Yarmush has been awarded a one-year NIH Career Enhancement Award for Stem Cell Research. This award, totaling $186,780, is meant to provide investigators with the necessary resources to enable them to take full advantage of stem cells in their research.

June 19, 2006
Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering Ranked No. 1 by ISI
For the fourth year in a row, articles in the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering (ARBME) were cited more often than papers in any of its peer journals, according to ISI’s 2005 Journal Citation Report, giving it the highest “impact factor” in its peer group. Professor Martin Yarmush serves as the editor-in-chief and Professor Mehmet Toner as associate editor of the ARBME which published its first volume in 1999.

June 06, 2006
Yarmush to Speak at Joint NIH-NSF Conference
Professor Martin Yarmush is an invited plenary speaker at a joint NSF-NIH workshop on “Engineering Approaches to Energy Balance and Obesity: Opportunities for Novel Collaborations and Research”. Professor Yarmush’s presentation is entitled Systems Approaches for Characterization of Metabolism: Metabolic Flux Analysis and the Living Cell Array.

May 16, 2006
Toner to Speak at “California: Prosperity Through Technology” Symposium
Dr. Mehmet Toner was an invited speaker at the fifth annual “California: Prosperity Through Technology” industry research symposium held at UC Irvine on May 15 -17, 2006.  The symposium focused on engineering in medicine and LifeChip Technologies, with special emphasis on engineering in neuroscience and rehabilitation, nano- and micro-technologies for cancer, bioMEMS for implantable medical devices, and array technologies for genomic, proteomic and cellular screening and diagnostics.

April 27, 2006
Stem Cell Research Receives Commercialization Award
Dr. Martin Yarmush received a $20,000 award from the Rutgers Technology Commercialization Fund. The award will support translation of patented research involving the use of alginate encapsulation as a means to control hepatic differentiation of stem cells.

March 14, 2006
Yarmush Receives New Jersey High Tech Hall of Fame Award
Dr. Martin Yarmush was recently selected to be inducted into the New Jersey High-Tech Hall of Fame. The New Jersey High-Tech Hall of Fame was created to spotlight the high-tech achievements of business leaders, researchers, educators, and government officials, who, through their leadership and accomplishments, have made New Jersey one of the premier high-tech states in the nation.

October 15, 2005
Yarmush is Plenary Speaker at Annual AIChE Meeting
Dr. Martin Yarmush has been chosen to give a plenary presentation representing the Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering division at the Annual AIChE Meeting in Cincinnati. Professor Yarmush’s talk is entitled, “Tissue Engineering: Microsystems and Macrosystems for Functional Genomics, Metabolic Engineering, Stem Cell Differentiation, and the Treatment of Liver Disease.”

October 3, 2005
Toner and Toth's Work Featured in the Boston Globe
Drs. Mehmet Toner and Tom Toth’s research on freezing human oocytes was featured in a Boston Globe article entitled “A Baby Step Closer to Freezing Eggs”. The team has made considerable progress in pioneering the use of intracellular trehalose to protect eggs during their freeze-thaw cycle.

June 15 2005
Tilles Speaks at ASME Conference
Dr. Arno Tilles was an invited speaker at the Third International Conference on Microchannels and Minichannels held in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Tilles' presentation was entitled “Engineering a Bioartificial Liver Device”.

March 7, 2005
Tompkins' Genomics Work Featured in PNAS
Dr. Ronald Tompkins and co-workers published a milestone paper showing patterns of different gene expression in trauma patients from multiple clinical centers versus healthy individuals. This work is a first step toward discriminating between patients who recover after injury versus those who develop complications that lead to organ failure and death, and customizing the treatment to the individual genome.