Our lab, along with other labs in the Biomedical Engineering department and other labs within the College of Engineering recently hosted the fourth annual National Biomechanics Day! We brought about 150 students from local high schools to Centennial Campus to learn more about biomechanics, engineering, and why they should come to NC State for college! We took tons of pictures, and NC State’s Bulletin came to talk to people and take pictures. We’ll share their article and photos once we have it, but here are some photos to hold you over in the meantime! You can see more on Jacque’s Twitter Feed. 

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Emily and Hannah represented OML at the recent Human Movement Science Research Symposium, held at UNC. Great job ladies!

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Stephanie presented some of our Biomechanics Day data at the American Society for Engineering Education (Southeast section) conference in early March. She gave a talk as well as had a paper in progress published as part of the conference proceedings, which you can see here: https://www.asee-se.org/proceedings/ASEE2019/papers2019/112.pdf

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Our lab was well-represented at this year’s Orthopaedic Research Society annual conference in Austin, Texas. Emily somehow managed to present two posters relating to the BPBI project: “Detriments in scapular trabecular bone following brachial plexus birth injury despite injury location” and “Effect of postganglionic and preganglionic brachial plexus birth injury on muscle fibrosis”. Nicholas also had a poster about the stroke project, titled “Ischemic stroke alters blood vessel branching and size distribution in the distal femur”.

Great job guys!

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2018 was another exciting year in the Orthopaedic Mechanobiology Lab:

• Jacque was named a World Changer and spearheaded efforts to get a nano-CT system for NC State!
• We had our first AND second doctoral student finish up. Hui defended in February and officially graduated in May, then Jon defended in October (on Halloween!) and graduated in December. Congratulations Drs. Cong and Doering!
• We had National Biomechanics Day and won some awards
• We went to the World Congress of Biomechanics in Dublin

Our undergrads were amazing, as usual:

• Five of them were named Abrams Scholars!
• Sophie won BME Undergrad of the month
• Hannah, Sophie, and Maggie presented at the National Conference on Undergrad research in April
• Maggie’s presentation at the Undergrad Research Symposium in April was named as one of the most outstanding presentations
• Maggie and Carly presented at the summer Undergrad Research Symposium in July
• Josh and Carly presented at SNCURS in November

Lab Photo: (Technically from April 2019, oops!)

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Sophie received the BME Department’s Undergraduate Researcher of the Month award. It was “In recognition of her outstanding research on unloading contributions to brachial plexus birth injury in the Orthopaedic Mechanobiology Laboratory”.

Congratulations Sophie!

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Josh and Carly recently presented their work at the State of North Carolina Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium (SNCURS, for short). The symposium is open to all undergraduate students enrolled in North Carolina colleges, universities and community colleges. The symposium is intended to showcase multidisciplinary undergraduate research scholarship. More info and photos can be found here: https://projects.ncsu.edu/sncurcs/

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Congratulations to Dr. Jonathan Doering, who defended today. That’s now two PhDs to come out of our lab!

Congrats to the newest #OML PhD, Dr. Jonathan Doering, who defended today, only a couple of weeks after his first child was born! #GradPack ⁦@NCStateGrad⁩ ⁦@BMEGrads⁩ ⁦@UNCNCSUBME⁩ pic.twitter.com/TIoNbqNLXR

— Jacque Cole (@JacqueColeLab) October 31, 2018

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Congratulations to our MANY amazing undergrads, several of whom were awarded Abrams Scholars Awards:

• Carly: Designing a hind-limb unloading apparatus to mimic disuse following stroke
• Marci: Effect of ischemic stroke on skeletal muscle structure and muscle-bone cellular crosstalk
• Josh: Effects of tissue heterogeneity on vertebral bone mechanical properties
• Maggie: Effect of Brachial Plexus Birth Injury on muscle structure and muscle-bone cellular crosstalk

And we got a new student!

• Sara Chopra: Characterizing bone vascular environment post-stroke

**UPDATE, MAY 2019** We got a great photo of the group after doing their final presentations. Great job guys!

 

About the Abrams Scholars Program:

Abrams Scholars are outstanding BME undergraduate students who are selected to receive a stipend to conduct hands-on laboratory research projects. These projects are conceived and designed by the students with the guidance of a faculty mentor. The Abrams Scholar program honors C. Frank Abrams, Jr., a BME and BAE emeritus faculty member. Dr. Abrams led the development of the first courses in Biomedical Engineering at NC State and was instrumental in the founding of NC State’s BME Department, the creation of the joint UNC-CH/NC State graduate program, and ultimately the launch of the UNC-CH/NC State Joint BME Department. He was the Joint Department’s first senior design instructor as well as the first Director of Graduate Studies.

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Congratulations to Maggie, who was awarded an OUR (Office of Undergraduate Research) grant. This grant contributes $1000 toward supplies for her project. Her proposal title is “The Effect of Brachial Plexus Birth Injury on Muscle Structure and Muscle-Bone Cellular Crosstalk”.

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