2018 DEAN’S RESEARCH SYMPOSIA SERIES
Department of Biomedical Engineering Biomedical engineers: designing and creating innovative solutions for human health
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2018 \ 4 – 7 PM Biotech Place, Atrium 575 N. Patterson Avenue Winston Salem, NC 27101
We are pleased to establish an exciting new Dean’s Research Symposia Series. Our investigators will share bold thinking, latest discoveries and their passion to improve health. The series is modeled on TED Talks to showcase science at Wake Forest Baptist, highlighting current projects and data, strategic direction and future proposals. This is a great opportunity to learn about some of our newest research and even establish potential collaborations. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you’ll be able to attend many of these enriching events! All the best,
Julie Ann Freischlag, MD Chief Executive Officer, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Dean, Wake Forest School of Medicine
2018 DEAN’S RESEARCH SYMPOSIA SERIES All symposia are scheduled to start at 4 pm, last 2 to 3 hours, and include time for Q&A.
► May 2 – Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) ► May 14 – Department of Physiology and Pharmacology ► May 31 – Department of Pathology/Comparative Medicine ► June 11 – Center for Vaccines at the Extremes of Aging (CVEA) ► July 11 – HealthCare Innovation Center and Department of Implementation Science ► July 23 – Department of Orthopaedic Surgery ► August 9 – Integrative Medicine ► August 20 – Section on Molecular Medicine and Center for Precision Medicine ► August 30 – Department of Internal Medicine ► September 10 – Department of Pediatrics ► September 26 – Center for Redox Biology and Medicine ► October 8 – Division of Public Health Sciences ► October 29 – Department of Microbiology and Immunology ► November 15 – Department of Neurosurgery ► November 29 – Department of Dermatology ► December 10 – Department of Radiology
In the 1950’s, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei was performing cardiothoracic surgery on children with blue baby syndrome. The cardiac pacemakers his patients needed each required its own cart and wall power. A power failure resulted in the death of one of his patients. Earl Bakken, a friend of Lillehei developed a transistor based pacemaker triggered by a metronome the size of a deck of cards which went directly from bench to bedside at a speed that isn’t possible today. Earl Bakken and a partner founded Medtronic, and the rest is history. Today, biomedical engineers do the same translational work they did then, but operate in many and varied domains. The National Research Council defined representative domains are bioelectrical & neural engineering, bioimaging and biomedical optics, biomaterials, biomechanics and biotransport, devices and instrumentation, molecular, cellular and tissue engineering, and systems & integrative engineering. In Biomedical Engineering at WFU, our faculty work in all of these domains. We are part of a top biomedical engineering program in the country through our partnership with Virginia Tech. We have exciting potential to partner with the undergraduate engineering program on the Reynolda campus. Our graduate program approaches one third of the graduate school. Our primary and affiliate faculty span 16 departments in the School of Medicine. We are all here because of our desire to be close to patients, to work closely with the physicians who treat them and the scientists who work to improve human health. We hope you will appreciate some of the diversity and translational potential of what you will see today.
Best Wishes, Joel D. Stitzel, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Biomedical Engineering
2018 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
MARCH 21, 2018 \ 4 – 7 PM Biotech Place, Atrium 575 N. Patterson Avenue Winston Salem, NC 27101
AGENDA 4 pm
Opening remarks Joel Stitzel, PhD Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering
4:40 pm Applying Nanotechnology and Imaging to Treat Cancer and Other Diseases
Image-guided nanotherapeutics against brain tumors Dawen Zhao, MD, PhD Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
4:05 pm Civilian & Military Trauma: How to Keep People Safe and Treat them Effectively
Human modeling / protecting occupants in the era of autonomous vehicles Scott Gayzik, PhD Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering A comparison of the response of female and male PMHS to blast-Induced vertical accelerative loading Kerry Danelson, PhD, Assistant Professor, Orthopedic Surgery
A personalized approach to studying trauma Ellie Rahbar, PhD Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
4:25 pm Sports head injury: Concussion & Clinical Sequelae
Sports head impact biomechanics Jillian Urban, PhD Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Effects of sports related head impact exposure on brain structure and function Chris Whitlow, MD, PhD Associate Professor, Radiology
Mathematical modeling of cancer to enable therapeutic intervention Jared Weis, PhD Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Break
Nanotechnology for translational molecular sensing Adam Hall, PhD Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Thermal medicine using nanotechnology Nicole Levi-Polyachenko, PhD Associate Professor, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 5:20 pm Keeping our Bones Healthy: Lessons from Aging, Space and Beyond
Quantifying bone density, thickness, and strength for fracture prediction Ashley Weaver, PhD Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Preventing radiation-induced bone loss: from bench to bedside to mars and beyond. Jeff Willey, PhD Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology
2018 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
MARCH 21, 2018 \ 4 – 7 PM Biotech Place, Atrium 575 N. Patterson Avenue Winston Salem, NC 27101 AGENDA
(CONT)
Strategies to preserve bone during weight loss in older adults Kristen Beavers, PhD, MPH, RD Assistant Professor, Health and Exercise Science, WFU
5:40 pm Building and Designing Innovative Biomedical Devices and Platforms
Bioinspired 3D biofabrication applications Aleks Skardal, PhD Assistant Professor, WFIRM
Medicine, Engineering, Business: A recipe for medical device innovation Philip Brown, PhD Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, WF Innovations 6:00 pm Closing remarks Julie Freischlag, MD CEO and Dean 6:05 pm Reception and Poster Viewing
2018 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
F. Scott Gayzik, PhD Dr. Scott Gayzik is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and faculty in the Center for Injury Biomechanics. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech, and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Virginia Tech – Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (SBES). He has leveraged this training to advance the field of computational human body modeling. Exposure to the clinical aspects of trauma and accidental injury at Wake Forest has been instrumental to his research. Dr. Gayzik is currently PI of the Full Body Models Center of Expertise of the Global Human Body Models Consortium. The focus of this international collaboration is the development of a family of standard computerized human models for studying the interface of man and machine, for the purposes of trauma mitigation. The GHBMC models developed by Dr. Gayzik and his team are in use by over 30 government, industry, and academic labs around the world. Dr. Gayzik’s specific graduate training at WFU revolved around the biomechanics of injury, taking a medical imaging and modeling based approach to developing a predictor for pulmonary contusion. He currently leads Phase III of the GHBMC project focusing on modeling active muscle response of humans, capturing the biomechanical effects of aging, and improving biofidelity of the models in general. Dr. Gayzik is currently serving a similar role as PI of a number DOD-funded studies focused on the biomechanics of injury. While his strongest area is in computational biomechanics, his research experience has led to a broad number of collaborations throughout within WFUSM from biostatistics (injury metric development and risk analysis) to neurology and plastic surgery (bioheat transfer). Dr. Gayzik currently serves on the Scientific Program Committees of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine and the International Research Council on the Biomechanics of Injury. He has been recognized for his work by numerous organizations, most recently receiving the 2017 Skalak award for outstanding paper in the ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.
Kerry A. Danelson, PhD Dr. Kerry Danelson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics. Currently, her research is focused on orthopaedic biomechanics and military safety. These projects include the biomechanical assessment of different surgical techniques, computational modeling of orthopaedic procedures, and biomechanical outcome measures for animal models in basic science research. Her military safety research involves investigating real world military vehicle attacks to determine the incidence and mechanism of injury. Finally, she has recently completed a series of experimental tests, in conjunction with Virginia Tech and the Ohio State University, to evaluate blast induced vertical loading to determine if there is a sex difference in occupant response.
2018 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
Elaheh (Ellie) Rahbar, PhD Dr. Ellie Rahbar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest and VT-WF School of Biomedical Engineering and Science. She leads a translational trauma research lab that is focused on studying the dynamic pathophysiologic response to traumatic injuries. With a background in biofluid mechanics, cardiovascular and lymphatic biology and strong computational/statistical modeling skills, her lab conducts a wide array of experiments including in vitro, in vivo, animal and human sample collection studies. Most notably, Dr. Rahbar’s lab has a biobank of prospectively collected blood and DNA samples from critically injured Level-1 trauma patients at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center at the time of hospital admission and 24 hours post-admission. This bio-repository serves as a rich resource to identify key biomarkers and molecular signatures, including genomic factors, that are associated with poor patient prognosis and outcomes. In addition, Dr. Rahbar manages other biobanks for trauma-related studies, including concussions. The goal is to identify more precision based therapeutic targets for critically injured patients. As a result, her lab intersects with the Departments of Surgery, Emergency Medicine, Precision Medicine, Statistical Genomics and Health Informatics and works closely with these departments to develop new algorithms and protocols for improved trauma care.
Jillian Urban, PhD Dr. Jill Urban is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest and Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Dr. Urban is also a Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) KL2 Scholar and will be completing a Masters of Public Health with a focus in Field Epidemiology from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in May. She currently serves as a CoInvestigator on 3 NIH-funded grants, leading the collection, analysis, and interpretation of on-field data from head impact sensors in youth sports. She has strong experience working on multi-disciplinary teams to address problems focused on human injury using cross-disciplinary approaches. Her current research is focused on combining injury biomechanics and public health to inform evidence-based recommendations to reduce head impact exposure and improve sport safety in youth populations. Her long term goal is to use expertise in injury biomechanics and public health sciences to develop and test sustainable interventions in sports.
Christopher Whitlow, MD, PhD Dr. Christopher Whitlow is an Associate Professor of the Diagnostic RadiologyNeuroradiology Department at Wake Forest Baptist Health Sciences, Director of the Translational Imaging Program of the CTSI, and the Founder/Director of the Radiology Informatics and Image Processing Laboratory (RIIPL) in the Department of Radiology. Dr. Whitlow has cross-disciplinary appointments in the Department of Radiology, Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Clinical Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI). As a physician-scientist, he has specific doctoral training in brain neurophysiology and neuropharmacology with respect to brain development and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Whitlow has extensive training in epidemiology and public health research methodologies as a graduate of the Gillings School of Global Public Health at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, which has provided the critical training necessary to lead important large-scale studies of disease at the population level, including several focused on traumatic brain injury. Dr. Whitlow’s clinical and research experience has resulted in appointments at the national level, including the Research Committees of the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR), American Society of Functional Neuroradiology, and American College of Radiology (ACR). He is also co-director of the Traumatic Brain InjuryReporting/Data System Committee of the ACR. As co-chair of the international multidisciplinary ASNR Study Group for the Clinical Translation of Advanced Diffusion and Functional MRI, he is working to develop new neuroimaging biomarkers for the identification and prognostication of diseases affecting the brain, including traumatic brain injury.
Dawen Zhao, MD, PhD Dr. Dawen Zhao is an Associate Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Wake Forest Baptist Health Sciences. His research is focused on development of brain tumor-targeted nanoplatform to facilitate molecular imaging diagnosis and image-guided drug delivery. Dr. Zhao’s research team has recently discovered that tumor vascular luminal surface-exposed phosphatidylserine (PS) is a highly specific biomarker of malignant brain tumors. Thus, PS-targeted nanoprobes are able to specifically bind to tumor vascular endothelial cells of brain tumors, but not to normal brain blood vessels, and subsequently become internalized into tumor cells. Utilizing this nanoplatform, his team has demonstrated that bimodal MRI/optical imaging provided sensitive and specific detection of glioma and brain metastasis at their early stage. More recently, the team has developed a novel drug delivery system that enables MRI monitoring of the delivery and release of chemotherapeutic agents against temozolomide-resistant glioma, which is currently funded by NIH/NCI R01. The targeted liposomal chemotherapeutics is shown to specifically target tumor lesions while spare the normal brain. Dr. Zhao has extensive experience in in vivo non-invasive imaging approaches such as MRI and optical imaging and nanotechnology in studying tumor biomarkers. He is an active member of several study sections of NIH and DoD.
2018 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
Jared Weis, PhD Dr. Jared Weis is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Science, and a member of the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. His expertise is concentrated in developing and deploying computational modeling and non-invasive imaging methodologies to explore the nature of soft-tissue mechanics in cancer, with an emphasis on driving clinical therapeutic interventions. Dr. Weis’s work focuses on the multi-disciplinary study of the multi-scale influences of mechanics in cancer progression and response to therapy, involving the development and validation of imaging-based mathematical modeling approaches that evaluate quantitative parameterization of cancer growth and therapy response properties based on observational imaging measurement data (optical, computed tomography, molecular imaging, and magnetic resonance imaging). Utilizing a mathematical biophysical modeling framework that incorporates mechanical signaling from the surrounding tissue microenvironment, predictions of the eventual response of cancer to therapy can be made with an overall goal of directing therapeutic intervention. His research laboratory employs a mixed experimental/computational approach towards modeling and parameterization, and spans the length scale of cancer from preclinical in vitro cancer cell and in vivo cancer model systems to translational clinicalbased investigations. With a rich history in developing novel imaging-based biophysical modeling technologies, Dr. Weis has worked extensively in tissue biomechanics, computational modeling, and medical imaging having developed novel inverse mathematical modeling approaches that: assess tissue-level mechanical properties, perform image-to-physical registration using biomechanical soft-tissue models, and predict the patient specific response of cancer to therapy using medical imaging data.
Adam R. Hall, PhD Dr. Adam Hall is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Science, member of the Molecular Genetics Program, the Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and adjunct faculty in the Physics Department. Dr. Hall has worked in the field of nano- and microtechnology for sixteen years and for the past nine years he has specifically applied his expertise to the study of biology at the smallest scale. His background in physics, materials, biophysics, and engineering have driven his research in developing biomedical applications for nano- and microtechnologies. His central interests are in two main directions. First, his lab is advancing solid-state nanopore technology as a translational tool, examining a range of molecular biomarkers that are challenging to probe through conventional means, including DNA epigenetic modifications, nucleic acid sequence motifs, and glycans. These have applicability to the assessment of diverse diseases, ranging from osteoarthritis to cancer. Second, his lab is developing new technologies for regenerative medicine that allow 3D cell cultures to be treated in parallel
and measured with high precision. These systems are currently enabling patient tumors to be screened for drug effectiveness, helping to take the guesswork out of cancer therapy design.
Nicole Levi-Polyachenko, PhD Nicole Levi-Polyachenko, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and the Director of Materials Research Innovation and Development in the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. She has training in Physics and Biomedical Engineering, with specific expertise in the field of nanotechnology. The primary focus of her research is on the development of heat-generating materials and the use of heat in treating disease. One facet of her research involves the synthesis of nanoparticles composed of donor-acceptor conjugated polymers that can both fluoresce, and be optically-stimulated to generate heat. She is the PI of a DOD-supported study to evaluate these nanoparticles in models of intraperitoneal perfusion for precise detection, ablation and chemosensitization of micro-metastatic colorectal cancer. She is also investigating how conjugated polymer nanoparticles can be utilized to distinguish healthy versus infected tissue, and discovering how focal heat treatments can outright kill bacteria, or make them more susceptible to antibiotics. Dr. Levi-Polyachenko has extended the use of heat-generating nanoparticles into the development of nanocomposite materials that can be utilized for disrupting bacterial biofilms, including those associated with implanted medical devices and endoscopes. This work has further led to the development of new types of resorbable polymer sponges for use with negative pressure wound therapy systems. Dr. Levi-Polyachenko’s research strength is the development of innovative materials to solve medical problems, and she has eleven patents on her work to date.
Ashley Weaver, PhD Drr. Ashley Weaver is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering conducting research in the Center for Injury Biomechanics. She has 10 years of experience in the injury biomechanics field developing medical imaging and human body finite element modeling approaches to study automotive, military, and aerospace trauma. Her scientific focus includes characterization of bone mineral density (BMD), cortical thickness, bone marrow adiposity, bone strength, and fracture risk to evaluate osteoprotective strategies in at-risk populations. She is PI of a NASA flight study to measure spine degradation and assess fracture risk in astronauts on 6-month missions to the International Space Station. She collaborates with researchers in the Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention to evaluate the influence of nutrition, weight loss, and exercise interventions on osteoporosis and fracture risk in older adult clinical trials. She is currently the Co-PI of a NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates site, the DoD-funded WIAMan project, and a NASA study evaluating injury risk in spacecraft landings. Additionally, she has led imaging and computational analyses as PI or Co-PI for two DOT-, three NSF-, and three industry-sponsored studies.
2018 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
Jeff Willey, PhD Jeff Willey is an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Dr. Willey received his PhD in Bioengineering at Clemson University in 2008. He completed a National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) postdoctoral fellowship that focused on the cause, progression, and prevention of the radiation-induced bone loss that is observed both clinically and from spaceflight conditions. His second postdoctoral fellowship in the Translational Radiation Oncology (TRADONC) program at Wake Forest School of Medicine focused on prevention of joint damage and arthropathy in cancer survivors. His current preclinical and clinical research program focuses on preventing musculoskeletal toxicity from cancer therapy and during spaceflight. Dr. Willey has extensive experience performing both NASA- and NSBRI-funded research and educational outreach for over 15 years, including serving as a PI for the Rodent Research-9 Science Mission to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2017, and a primary science team member for two space shuttle missions. He is currently Director of the Red Risk School through the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, which educates investigators from academia, healthcare & companies on the human health concerns in space to develop projects & deliverables useful to NASA.
Kristen M. Beavers, PhD, MPH, RD Dr. Kristen Beavers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Wake Forest University where she teaches Nutrition in Health and Disease (HES 351) and Epidemiology (HES 360). Dr. Beavers received her BS from Cornell University in Human Biology, Health and Society; MPH from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Nutrition; and PhD from Baylor University in Exercise, Nutrition, and Preventive Health. She is a Registered Dietitian and certified by the American College of Sports Medicine as a personal trainer. Dr. Beavers’ academic and professional interests lie in the study of nutrition and exercise as interdisciplinary sciences, specifically as they relate to prevention and etiology of chronic disease and disability. Her research focuses on the identification of optimal weight loss therapies for overweight and obese, older adults.
Aleksander Skardal, PhD Dr. Skardal is an Assistant Professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, with cross-appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Cancer Biology, and is a member of the Tumor Progression and Recurrence Program and Brain Tumor Center of Excellence at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Dr. Skardal’s research employs biomaterial technologies and biofabrication methods to create tissue constructs for a variety of applications. His work originated in the early days of
bioprinting, where he published the first three publications focused on novel bioinks for 3D bioprinting. These biomaterials technologies are primarily based on natural human extracellular matrix-derived proteins and polymers that are further modified in the laboratory, and imbued with novel chemical, mechanical, and bioactive properties for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. These biomaterials have subsequently progressed to being deployed in applications in wound healing, cell therapies, next generation bioinks for bioprinting, and creation of tissue and tumor organoids and on-achip platforms for diagnostics, disease modeling, drug and toxicology testing, and personalized medicine. This work led to publication of manuscripts in a variety of high-ranking journals, a number of patents and patent applications, and several currently commercially available biomedical products. Current efforts in Dr. Skardal’s lab include 1) development of universal bioinks for accelerating biomanufacturing of tissue products, 2) commercializing biomaterial-based wound healing technology, 3) integrated multi-tissue “bodyon-a-chip” systems for drug and toxicology screening, and 4) generation of patient tumor biospecimen-derived tumor organoids and tumor-on-a-chip systems for patient-specific drug screening and therapy optimization.
Philip J. Brown, PhD Dr. Philip Brown is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and a Senior Design Engineer with Wake Forest Innovations. Dr. Brown’s primary activities revolve around the ideation, design, prototyping, protection, and commercialization of medical devices in collaboration with clinicians, faculty, students, and staff within the Wake Health system. Philip and his team of design engineering fellows have developed a large suite of products small to large, simple to complex, from syringes and stents to smart surgical instruments and novel surgical platforms. His research experience and focus are in the area of experimental surgical biomechanics in both orthopedic and neurosurgery areas exploring novel surgical techniques and their effectiveness on human tissues and joints. Dr. Brown employs a motion tracking and robotic motion control system to evaluate complex physiological biomechanics of joints such as the spine. Dr. Brown also conducts research in clinical 3d printing and heads the Wake Health Additive Manufacturing core lab. He has expertise in complex computational modeling and design and is certified as a computer aided design professional and techniques and technologies of additive manufacturing in plastics, ceramics, and metals. The core serves to provide rapid design and manufacturing of models, parts, and prototypes to researchers and clinicians. The core has access to professional design, medical image segmentation, and simulation tools as well as industry grade 3D printing systems. These skills and tools are used to produce clinical anatomical models to aid in surgical planning and custom tools for research allowing quick and economic solutions to advance science and medicine.
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