Research funds for biomedical engineering department exceed $12.1 million

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at Binghamton University’s Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science has had an exceptional 2019 so far.

Research funding grows

Research funding for the department from internal and external sources exceeded $12.1 million, which includes a remarkable $1.2 million in federal grants awarded in September 2019 to Associate Professor Sha Jin for her research into a cure for diabetes.

Other key research:

• Associate Professor Guy German developed a new device that could help minimize scarring in cosmetic surgery.

• Seokheun “Sean” Choi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Ahyeon Koh, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, are attempting to generate a power source from human sweat. Koh is also researching skin-interface glucose sensors to aid diabetics with monitoring their blood sugar levels.
• An interdisciplinary team — Gretchen Mahler, BME associate professor; Peter Huang, associate professor of mechanical engineering; Bruce Murray, chair and professor of mechanical engineering; and Mei-Hsiu Chen, adjunct assistant professor of mathematical sciences — are researching the causes of calcific aortic valve disease.
• German and Zachary W. Lipsky, a biomedical engineering PhD candidate, investigated what kind of ultraviolet radiation is the worst for our skin and how the sun damages it.
• German and Christopher Maiorana, a biomedical engineering PhD candidate, researched the topography of human skin as a model for directing cracks in biomedical devices to avoid critical systems.

Two patents were filed in 2019:

• Genome edited cancer vaccines (Kaiming Ye, Sha Jin and Subhadra Jayaraman Rukmini)
• Microenvironments for self-assembly of islet organoids from stem cell differentiation (Jin, Ye and Huanjing Bi)

Graduate program expands

The BME graduate program expanded to include 87 students, with 45 of them pursuing PhDs. Our faculty also grew, with the addition of Ying Wang as an assistant professor starting in fall 2019. She joins us from Cornell University, with research interests that include multi-organ microphysiological systems, tissue engineering, microfluidic tissue culture platforms and integrated on-chip biosensing.

Jessica Funnel, a BME alumna, won a 2019 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award and Matthew Brown won GRFP Honorable Mention. Also, Natalie Weiss won a SUNY Chancellor Fellowship.

The department is working with Binghamton University’s School of Management to develop a BME MS/MBA degree program.

Department chair honored

BME Department Chair Kaiming Ye received two honors from the Biomedical Engineering Society. In August, he was elected to the 2019 BMES Class of Fellows, which is awarded to BMES members who demonstrate exceptional achievements and experience in the field of biomedical engineering.

Then in October, Ye was voted the chair-elect of the BMES’s Council of Chairs (CoC), effective Jan. 1, 2020. The CoC includes all biomedical engineering department heads, chairs and program directors from throughout the U.S.

ECUST agreement signed

An agreement signed this spring by leaders from Binghamton University and East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) is already inspiring closer collaborations between the two schools. April’s memorandum of agreement is fostering advancement in teaching, research, academic collaboration and cultural understanding, while combining complementary resources and strengths. A faculty delegation visited ECUST to attend the first Binghamton-ECUST Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering Workshop.

Labs get new equipment

As part of her research into pancreatic islets, Jin received a $346,502 award from the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation grant program to purchase a high-performance, high-throughput, multicolor fluorescence cell analyzer that can better differentiate among types of cells. In 2015, Ye received an NSF MRI award ($610, 868) to acquire a multi-photon confocal laser scanning microscope for deep tissue imaging. These new research facilities brought BME’s research infrastructure to a different level.

Senior Design projects

Julia Wilcox, Emily Szabo, Merenda Ruff and William McInerney created a device to prevent veins from rolling during venipuncture. The NSF’s I-Corps short course helped them to identify a target market for their device through 20 interviews with potential customers.

Also, the NSF awarded a grant of $50,000 to “I-Corps: Pressure Ulcer Prevention Pad,” under German’s direction. Recent Binghamton grads Bar Stern, Nate Fisher and Dom Pirozzi are the biomedical engineers behind PUPP Seating, which addresses a key concern among elderly patients.

Ye and his student won another NSF I-Corps award to conduct market discovery in cancer vaccines.