The annual Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) conference was pretty nearby this year in Baltimore. Our department had a whopping 46 presenters this year, including a few from OML. 

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We had three students present at this summer’s Symposium. They all presented on their research related to the BPBI project. Great job everyone!

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This year, six of our amazing undergrads were awarded funding through the Office of Undergraduate Research and presented at the annual symposium. Katie and Brooke gave talks about their work with BPBI. Josh, Brian, and Jason presented posters on their BPBI work and Carter presented a poster about his work with the Bone-on-Chip project. We love seeing the amazing work that they’re doing!

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Several of our lab’s undergrads were selected to present their research at this year’s National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) Symposium. The event was in sunny southern California, and it looks like they had a great time!

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2024 marked the 20th anniversary of the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering! We celebrated with a proper retreat at the Durham convention center.

Many of the undergrads had just returned from NCUR that morning, so they did not present at the retreat. But Claire presented a poster relating to her work with Kyla on the BPBI project.

Also there were huge standup letters that made for a great photo op!

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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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