Events for November
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Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Fri, Nov 01, 2024 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Remo Rohs, Ph.D., Professor of Quantitative and Computational Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy and Computer Science, University of Southern California
Talk Title: Engineering+: AI-driven discovery in biology
Abstract: In recent years, research in biology has become increasingly quantitative. This trend is due to two major drivers: Biology now generates large amounts of data in every experiment, and the power of computers has grown exponentially. The combination of data and computing is the basis of biological discovery in the 21st century. This talk will introduce AI-based and other computational methods developed in the Rohs lab with the goal to answer important biological questions related to gene regulation, nucleic acid structure, protein-nucleic acid binding, and drug design. These computational approaches combine biophysics, mathematics, and statistical machine learning. They enable, for instance, the probing a protein for its preference to bind either DNA or RNA or allow for the design of novel drug-like molecules that are not available in current drug libraries. Feature engineering is a crucial factor for the interpretability of these models. The talk will provide a vision for the crucial role of computational biology at the interface of engineering, medicine, and science.
Biography: Biography:Remo Rohs is the founding chair of the Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology. He received his undergraduate and master’s degree in physics at Humboldt University Berlin. His Ph.D. in chemistry is from Free University Berlin and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany. Remo Rohs did his postdoctoral training in structural biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He received further training in computational biology and bioinformatics as research scientist at Columbia University in New York. Remo Rohs started his independent faculty career at the University of Southern California in 2010. He received tenure and was promoted to associated professor in 2016 and to full professor in the same year. He became head of the computational biology and bioinformatics faculty in 2016, founded a section of quantitative and computational biology in 2018, and his current department in 2021. He also designed the quantitative biology undergraduate major. His research is primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Host: Stecey Finley
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
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Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Fri, Nov 08, 2024 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: John Rogers, Ph.D., Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Mterials Science and Engineering, Biomedical and Neurological Surgery
Talk Title: Soft, Skin-Interfaced Electronic and Microfluidic Systems for Health Monitoring
Abstract: Over the last decade, a convergence of new concepts in materials science, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and advanced manufacturing has led to the emergence of diverse, classes of 'biocompatible' electronic and microfluidic systems with skin-like physical properties and wireless operational capabilities. A broad range of clinical-grade sensors of physiological health can be deployed into these platforms. The resulting technologies address health care challenges from the earliest to the latest stages of life, with demonstrated uses in both high and low resource settings, at the hospital and in the home. This talk presents an overview of the most recent fundamental and translational activities in this area, currently in progress at the Querrey-Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics at Northwestern University and at several associated companies.
Biography: Professor John A. Rogers began his career at Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department in 1997 and served as Director from the end of 2000 to 2002. He then spent thirteen years at the University of Illinois, as the Swanlund Chair Professor and Director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. In 2016, he joined Northwestern University as the Simpson/Querrey Professor, where he is also Director of the Institute for Bioelectronics. He has co-authored more than 900 papers and he is co-inventor on more than 100 patents. His research has been recognized by many awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the Lemelson-MIT Prize (2011), the Smithsonian Award for American Ingenuity in the Physical Sciences (2013), the Benjamin Franklin Medal (2019), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2021), the NAS James Prize for Science and Technology Integration (2022) and the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Medal (2024). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Host: Maral Mousavi
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard
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Alfred E.Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering - Seminar series
Fri, Nov 15, 2024 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Lidan You, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering/Queen's University
Talk Title: Bone Mechanobiology On-a-Chip
Abstract: Bone has the remarkable ability to adapt its composition and structure to suit its mechanical environment. Osteocytes, bone cells embedded in the calcified matrix, are believed to be the mechanosensors and are responsible for orchestrating the bone remodeling process. However, the detailed cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying osteocyte mechanobiology are not well understood. Furthermore, how osteocytes communicate with other cell populations under mechanical loading remains unclear. Recently, several microfluidic platforms were developed to address these questions. In this talk, we will discuss intercellular communication between cell populations under mechanical loading and its implications in managing bone disorders such as bone metastasis prevention. Specifically, we studied the effects of vibration on breast cancer extravasation using our novel microfluidic co-culture platform. Our findings showed that vibration could reduce breast cancer migration by directly co-culturing osteocytes with cancer cells. Vibration also reduced trans-endothelial breast cancer migration (extravasation), suggesting that it may inhibit the early stages of bone metastasis. Additionally, we demonstrated that ZA, the standard treatment for osteolytic bone metastasis, could decrease breast cancer extravasation, and the effect was further enhanced under vibration. This is the first research that targets osteocyte-cancer interactions under vibration using an organ-on-chip system, which is an essential step toward developing a safe treatment for the high-risk population
Biography: Dr. You is a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair in Cell Mechanics and Mechanobiology, and a Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) at Queen’s University. She earned her Ph.D. from the City University of New York and completed her postdoctoral training at Stanford University. Dr. You joined the MME at Queen’s University in 2024. Prior to joining MME, she held cross-appointed positions at the University of Toronto as the Erwin Edward Hart Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and as a Professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. You has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the Duggan Medal from the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering, and has been elected a Fellow of both the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (CSME) and the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). She has been serving on grant review panels, including those for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (SBSR), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) (BME, CIB), and Arthritis Society Canada (Innovation, Strategic Operating). Additionally, Dr. You have been a faculty mentor for the Young Investigator Initiative (YII) Workshop, organized by the United States Bone and Joint Initiative (USBJI), since 2017, where she supports and guides early-career investigators in musculoskeletal research.Her research focuses on solving biomechanical questions in the musculoskeletal system at the cellular level. Specifically, her team is working on understanding the anti-resorptive effect of mechanical loading on bone tissue, investigating breast cancer bone metastasis and prostate cancer bone metastasis, studying osteocyte mechanosensitivity in diabetic conditions, and developing advanced microfluidic systems for bone cell mechanotransduction studies.
Host: Peter Wang
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 109
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Carla Stanard