This semester we have a whopping SIX Abrams Scholar in the lab! 

Brooke, Josh, Katie, Claire, and Brian will all be helping with the BPBI project. Brooke, Josh, and Katie will be looking at the effect of BPBI on bone metabolism and muscle composition. Claire will be looking at BPBI’s effect on bone microstructure, and Brian will be looking at its effect on rotator cuff muscle architecture specifically.

Carter will be working with Sandra on the bone-on-chip project. His project is titled ‘Development of a bone-on-chip platform to examine effects of post-stroke inflammation on bone-vascular interactions’

We’re so proud of all of you!

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OML was again well-represented at the summer OUR symposium with five posters!! We had Brian, Carter, Josh, Katie, Nic and all present the projects that they’ve been working on over the summer, and all did a phenomenal job.

(click photo to enlarge)

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Our undergraduates have been very busy. Several of them travelled to Wisconsin for NCUR, presented at the NC State Undergraduate Research Symposium, and presented a talk at our year-end Abrams seminar, all in less than 2 weeks!

At the Undergraduate Research Symposium, we had:

• Kathryn: Characterization of Porous, Mineralized Collagen-Chitosan Scaffolds for use in a Bone-On Chip Platform (working with Sandra)
• Brooke: Effects of Brachial Plexus Birth Injury on Composition of Biceps, Supraspinatus, & Subscapularis Muscles (working with Kyla)
• Rose: Verifying Quality of Joint Reaction Forces Obtained from Musculoskeletal Models for Contact Finite Element Analysis of the Rat Shoulder Following BPBI  (working with Jason)
• Amanda: Characterizing Architecture of a Biomimetic Bone Scaffold (working with Sandra)
• Katie: Gait Impairment in a Rat Model of Brachial Plexus Birth Injury (working with Kyla)
• Steven: Understanding Paw Preference Associated with Brachial Plexus Birth Injury (working with Kyla)

Amanda, Kathryn, Katie, and Brooke also presented their research at the Abrams Scholars Final Presentations.

In addition to the four above, Carter and Deeqa also presented at the Abrams final presentations:

• Carter: Characterization of a 3D biomimetic bone scaffold for in vitro examination of bone microenvironments (working with Sandra)
• Deeqa: Finite Element Analysis of Trabecular Bone Microstructure with Passive Joint Loads Following Brachial Plexus Birth Injury (working with Jason)
  

We’re also very proud to share that Jacque won the Michael Dickey Outstanding Research Mentor Award, which is presented annually at the Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium. This award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated excellence in mentoring and supporting undergraduate researchers. Winners of this award show a commitment to serving as a guide for undergraduate students as they move from directed to more independent work, creating opportunities for them to develop advanced technical and soft skills, encouraging then to share their research publicly, supporting underrepresented students, and offering academic and career advice for their mentees. Jacque was nominated by our lab’s undergrads for everything that she does for them and for the lab.

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In 2023, the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) was held in Wisconsin at UW-Eau Claire. OML usually is well-represented at this event, but this year we practically took over! Brooke, Deeqa, Katie, Kathryn, Amanda, and Steven all represented OML and NC State this year. They had talks and posters and pretty much knocked it out of the park. We’re so proud!

 

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We had a whopping 6 undergrads present at the 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium! Or maybe only five, technically, since Christina is technically part of Kate Saul’s Lab. We’re so proud of all of them.

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We had two undergrads present posters at the Spring OUR (Office of Undergraduate Research) symposium. Kathryn presented her research with Sandra to optimize the Bone-On-Chip device, and Deeqa talked about her Finite Element Modeling work with Jason. Great job ladies!

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Jennifer, one of our long-time undergrads, was recently awarded the BME Excellence in Undergraduate Research Award for her outstanding work done in OML. We’re so proud of her, but also so sad that we’re going to lose her in the spring as she graduates and moves on to bigger and better things.

Per the announcement, “The goals of these awards include: giving students formal recognition to support their next steps (graduate school applications, job applications, etc.); and promoting a culture of BME undergraduate students thriving within research laboratories across both campuses. [These] students have gone “above and beyond” to make significant contributions to their research labs.”

Check out the announcement here: https://bme.unc.edu/bme-excellence-in-undergraduate-research-awardees/ 

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We had three students participate in the 2021 SNCURS (State of North Carolina Undergraduate Research Symposium) Event.

You can check out their talks/posters on the website, at least for now (we have no idea how long things will stay available, so we’ve included the link within the symposium and also a direct link to the YouTube video):

• Deeqa talked about her research using the Individual Trabecular Segmentation (ITS) software to analyze trabecular bone-like microstructures: YouTube video
• Kathryn spoke about her work developing a mechanism to study bone-vascular interactions: YouTube video
• Jennifer spoke about her research into the effects of BPBI on gait and grip strength: [no YouTube video, but poster is below]

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The 2021-2022 cohort of Abrams Scholars was recently announced. Four of our amazing undergrads were named as Abrams Scholars: Kathryn, who is working with Sandra on her Bone-On-Chip project; Jennifer, who is working with Kyla on the BPBI project; and Vince and Deeqa, who are both working with Jason on Finite Element Modeling.

Here are their project titles:

• Kathryn: Development of a bone-on-chip platform to examine effects of post-
  stroke inflammation on bone-vascular interactions
• Jennifer: Effect of Brachial Plexus Birth Injury on Limb Use and Muscle Strength
• Deeqa: Analyzing the effect of heterogeneity on trabecular bone tissue
  microdamage in finite element models of varying resolution
• Vince: Optimizing nonlinear finite element analyses of vertebral trabecular bone

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Two of our undergraduates presented their work at the Summer Office of Undergraduate Research Symposium.

 

Marina presented her research with Kyla and Jason on Finite Element Modeling for the BPBI project

 

Deeqa presented her work with Jason on using Individual Trabecular Segmentation (ITS) to analyze trabecular bone-like microstructures.

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