University of Miami Department of Biomedical Engineering

At the first USTAAR pitch competition and demonstration day, $500,000 was awarded to seven student teams to fund for their startup projects!

The USTAAR program is directed by Dr. Suhrud Rajguru, one of our Biomedical Engineering professors: "USTAAR will ensure that our students have the resources, education, mentoring, and, most importantly, capital they need to bring their ideas forward and create a socioeconomic impact in South Florida and beyond."

To read more about this, please visit this article: https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/10/student-startups-are-propelled-by-ustaar-funding.html

🔬🧬🥼

Congratulations, Dr. Dumont! She received a 5-year grant from the NIH to develop and test new biomaterials to treat chronic inflammation in various conditions including brain and spinal cord injury.

This new funding was awarded just a few months after Dr. Dumont received the prestigious NSF Career Award. We are thrilled to see how our partnership with the Miami Project is continuing to produce strong research and educational synergies between our UM neuroscience and engineering programs. Great work, Dr. Dumont!

To read more about this, please visit this article: https://news.med.miami.edu/nih-funds-multidisciplinary-development-of-nanotherapeutic-for-tissue-healing/

🔬🧬🥼

Dr. Alice Tomei will participate in a Webinar Presentation, hosted by the Cell Transplant and Regenerative Medicine Society, on May 30, 2024. Tune in to learn more about regenerative and transplant immunology.

Click here to Sign-Up:
https://www.tts.org/ctrms-education/ctrms-webinars?id=1451

Dr. Suhrud Rajguru was recently featured in a UM Medicine Magazine article, titled: "Avoiding the Valley of Death", where he discussed his efforts to help faculty entrepreneurs avoid missteps as they bring ideas to commercial life.

Keep up the great work!

To learn more about his experiences, click here: https://magazine.med.miami.edu/avoiding-the-valley-of-death/

🔬🧬🥼

Congratulations to Rothberg Catalyzer Pitch Competition second-place winners, seniors Ella Jacobs, Lucy Ho, Logan Beatty, and Dominic Pizzico!
Their pitch was featured in recent article titled "Student innovators on display" by News@TheU, a biomedical device created to measure and analyze blood, which would reduce the number of times that patients get their blood drawn in hospitals and offer health care providers faster updates on critical patients.
To read more, please visit news.miami.edu!
https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/05/student-innovators-on-display.html

BME graduating student, Juan Fernando Flechas, was highlighted in a recent article titled "One graduate’s journey" by News@TheU
To read more about Juan's college journey, click here:
https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/05/one-graduates-journey.html

🔬🧬🥼

Congratulations, Logan! After graduating this spring, he will pursue a Ph.D. in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics (MEMP) from the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

In a recent article titled "Engineering student Logan Beatty headed to Boston" by News@TheU, Logan discusses why he chose his career path, and how he was able to prepare himself for his future at the University of Miami. To read more about college journey, click here: https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/05/engineering-student-logan-beatty-headed-to-boston.html

🔬🧬🥼

Engineering Awards and Honors event going on now!

Congratulations to Ruby Taylor for winning second place at the Annual Graduate and Postdoctoral Research Symposium in Physical Science and Engineering! At the symposium, Ruby presented a poster on inflammasome biomarkers in aSAH patients.

🥼🧬🔬

Congratulations to Dr. Courtney Dumont for winning the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for her research on neural repair!

At The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, she leads the Neural Stem and Tissue Engineered Microenvironments (NeuSTEM) group. Her work spans a vast array of clinical scenarios, from acute emergency interventions in cases of neurotrauma to inflammatory conditions like Bell's palsy and rheumatoid arthritis.

To read more, please check out this article: https://news.miami.edu/coe/stories/2024/02/professor-wins-prestigious-nsf-award-for-cutting-edge-neural-repair-research.html

🔬🧬🥼

Maria Yepes, M.D. was invited to speak at Yale University’s Bouchet Conference! She is currently a third-year doctoral student working with BME professor Dr Suhrud Rajguru, seeking a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. In her research, she has been working on testing the safety and efficacy of a novel combination therapy for noise-induced hearing and balance loss. Congratulations, Maria!

🔬🧬🥼

Congratulations to Kaylie Cullison (shown on the left) for winning the People's Choice Award at the Eighth Annual Three Minute Thesis Competition!

Kaylie is currently a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering and an M.D. student at the Miller School of Medicine. At the competition, she presented her research on glioblastoma—by using artificial intelligence and a combined MRI and radiation therapy device, Kaylie developed a way to analyze brain tumors more efficiently.

To read more, please check out this article: https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/02/digestible-tidbits-of-research.html

🏆🔬🧬

The very first student-led podcast known as "The BME Breakdown" has released its first episode!

This podcast consists of three of our own biomedical engineers discussing their undergraduate experiences as juniors, as well as talking about advice they wish they knew early on in their undergraduate journey. They will also be interviewing faculty from the BME department.

Please support them on these various platforms and stay tuned for more episodes!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HNhRpuE6tTlc1Bo5Th1a8?si=pra8fwSyQoGXTiqfLkVsnA&nd=1&dlsi=3cdba7a837224c2a

Apple Music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bme-breakdown/id1728333433

Tomorrow (February 1st) is the last day to apply for the Kyoto and Florence study abroad programs!

If you're still interested in these opportunities, please apply with the links below:

Kyoto:
https://goabroad.miami.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgramAngular&id=10365

Florence: https://goabroad.miami.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgramAngular&id=10361

The Study Abroad Program to Kyoto, Japan is now open to any Independent Study for BME and MAE: BME495 and MAE490 (3 credits).

For more information about UM's Study Abroad Program, please visit:

https://studyabroad.miami.edu/

The deadline to apply is February 1, 2024 (2/1/2024)
—don't miss this amazing opportunity!

All undergrad BME students are invited to study abroad in Kyoto, Japan this summer! Check out this article for more info:

https://news.miami.edu/stories/2024/01/study-abroad-expands-global-offerings.html

Dr. Gianluca D'Ippolito will be leading this immersive experience at Kyoto University, where he will be teaching cellular engineering. The deadline to apply is February 1st—apply now!

🧬🦠🔬

Picnic with the Biomedical Crew- A day filled with snacks, sunshine, and the best kind of engineering talks.😊🧬

Our

Biomedical engineering lecturer Gianluca D’Ippolito led the inaugural College of Engineering study abroad program in Florence, Italy, and taught students about biomaterials, while also showing them a place where he and others thrived in science and engineering.

Study abroad fuses engineering with Italian history, culture

Dr. Dauer will be giving a lecture on Med School Applications to University of Miami, Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate students and Master Students in the Shalala Center, Grand Ballroom West, on Monday, September 18th at 8PM.

Great story highlighting the impactful work of one of our PhD students

Device may help protect firefighters from harmful chemicals A special sensor developed by two University of Miami graduate students could help protect firefighters from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, present in the warm zone at structural fires.

Having the most amazing time while studying, our students are really enjoying Sienna

The next generation of UM BME faculty were on campus today 😉

UM BME representing at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting.