Category Archives: BioEngineering

3D Printer @ NTUA Systems Bioengineering Group Time Lapse Print 2 By: … Continue reading →

Advancing Science in Alternative Energy and Bioengineering with Many-Core Processors In this video from the 2014 HPC User forum in Seattle, Michael Brown from Intel presents: Advancing Science in Alternative Energy and Bioengineering with Man... By: RichReport … Continue reading →

Imagine going to the hospital with one disease and coming home with something much worse, or not coming home at all. With the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistance pathogens, healthcare-associated infections have become a serious threat. On any given day about one in 25 hospital patients has at least one such infection and as many as one in nine die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Consider Klebsiella pneumoniae, not typically a ferocious pathogen, but now armed with resistance to virtually all antibiotics in current clinical use. It is the most common species of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in the United States. As carbapenems are considered the antibiotic of last resort, CREs are a triple threat for their resistance to nearly all antibiotics, high mortality rates and ability to spread their resistance to other bacteria. But there is hope. A team of Sandia National Laboratories microbiologists for the first time recently sequenced the entire genome of a Klebsiella pneumoniae strain, encoding New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1). They presented their findings in a paper published in PLOS One, "Resistance Determinants and Mobile Genetic Elements of an NDM-1 Encoding Klebsiella pneumoniae Strain." The Sandia team of Corey Hudson, … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 23-Sep-2014 Contact: Paul Kovach pkovach@pitt.edu 412-624-0265 University of Pittsburgh PITTSBURGH When the body forms new tissues during the healing process, cells must be able to communicate with each other. For years, scientists believed this communication happened primarily through chemical signaling. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have found that another dimension mechanical communication is equally if not more crucial. The findings, published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could lead to advancements in treatments for birth defects and therapies for cancer patients. "It's like 19th century scientists discovering that electricity and magnetism were the same force," said Lance Davidson, associate professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, who co-led the study. "The key here is using mechanical engineering tools and frameworks to reverse-engineer how these biological systems work, thereby giving us a better chance to develop methods that affect this cellular communication process and potentially treat various diseases related to tissue growth." "We answered this very important biological question by building a new tool that enabled us to see these mechanical processes at the cellular level," said Philip LeDuc, professor of Mechanical Engineering at … Continue reading →

Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise LIVERMORE, Calif. Imagine going to the hospital with one disease and coming home with something much worse, or not coming home at all. With the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistance pathogens, healthcare-associated infections have become a serious threat. On any given day about one in 25 hospital patients has at least one such infection and as many as one in nine die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Consider Klebsiella pneumoniae, not typically a ferocious pathogen, but now armed with resistance to virtually all antibiotics in current clinical use. It is the most common species of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) in the United States. As carbapenems are considered the antibiotic of last resort, CREs are a triple threat for their resistance to nearly all antibiotics, high mortality rates and ability to spread their resistance to other bacteria. But there is hope. A team of Sandia National Laboratories microbiologists for the first time recently sequenced the entire genome of a Klebsiella pneumoniae strain, encoding New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1). They presented their findings in a paper published in PLOS One, Resistance Determinants and Mobile Genetic Elements of an NDM-1 … Continue reading →

By Tom Abate Jennifer Cochran and Amato Giaccia are members of a team of researchers who have developed an experimental therapy to treat metastatic cancer. A team of Stanford researchers has developed a protein therapy that disrupts the process that causes cancer cells to break away from original tumor sites, travel through the bloodstream and start aggressive new growths elsewhere in the body. This process, known as metastasis, can cause cancer to spread with deadly effect. "The majority of patients who succumb to cancer fall prey to metastatic forms of the disease," said Jennifer Cochran, an associate professor of bioengineering who describes a new therapeutic approach in Nature Chemical Biology. Today doctors try to slow or stop metastasis with chemotherapy, but these treatments are unfortunately not very effective and have severe side effects. The Stanford team seeks to stop metastasis, without side effects, by preventing two proteins Axl and Gas6 from interacting to initiate the spread of cancer. Axl proteins stand like bristles on the surface of cancer cells, poised to receive biochemical signals from Gas6 proteins. When two Gas6 proteins link with two Axls, the signals that are generated enable cancer cells to leave the original tumor site, migrate … Continue reading →

Campus Insights: Professor Rashid Bashir, Abel Bliss Professor and Head, Bioengineering On September 10, 2014, eight faculty members from the Urbana-Champaign campus gave brief presentations to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees on the... By: Illinois1867 … Continue reading →

Campus Insights: Professor Matthew Wheeler, Animal Sciences and Bioengineering On Sept. 10, 2014, eight faculty members from the Urbana-Champaign campus gave brief presentations to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees on their r... By: Illinois1867 … Continue reading →

A University of Pennsylvania bioengineering professor has won a MacArthur Fellowship genius grant to get a better read of how the brain makes connections. By studying connectivity changes in the brain and enlisting physics and math, Danielle Bassett and her team were able to develop insights on the ability (and inability) of the brain to learn. The brain research by Bassett, who is the Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation at the university, could have ramifications for disease diagnostics and therapeutics and recovery from brain injuries. Bassett tapped her mathematical know-how using complex networks to analyze interactions with neurons in different parts of the brain as someone learns something new or is trying to recall a face to understand how those connections are carried out by functions in the brain. As part of the grant award, Bassett will receive a stipend of $625,000, paid out over five years with no stipulations attached to it. She is one of 21 to receive the honor. Heres a summary of her research from the announcement: Using brain imaging data of people learning a motor task over three distinct time periods, Bassett and colleagues found that a persons ability to learn can be predicted based … Continue reading →

The winners generally have no inkling they are under consideration. The money, doled out over five years, comes with no strings attached. "I'm still processing that this is actually happening," said Bassett, the youngest of this year's fellows. Also among the winners are graphic memoirist and cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who grew up in Lock Haven; jazz composer and saxophonist Steve Coleman, of Allentown; and University of Pittsburgh writing professor and poet Terrance Hayes. Tara Zahra, a 1998 graduate of Swarthmore College, was honored for her work as a historian of modern Europe. In a group being honored for creative brains, it makes sense that one, Bassett, studies the very quality that makes brains flexible. An assistant professor of bioengineering at Penn, she applies a discipline called network science to the study of how we learn. She and colleagues indirectly measure the brain activity of research subjects with a type of MRI machine, monitoring how different regions of the brain interact as people learn. Those with flexible brains - meaning they are adept at trying various strategies and forging connections - seem to be the best at acquiring new knowledge, she said. This agility can be seen on brain scans as … Continue reading →