End of Year Lab Celebration

Before the start of Thanksgiving break, the lab decided to have a fun lunch at Looneys to celebrate all the hard work that has been accomplish this semester. This also gave our new rotational grad student a chance to get to know other members of the lab. Overall, it was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with one another and commemorate the closing of an amazing year in lab.

John P. Fisher Elected Chair of the Council of Chairs

Announced on October 11, 2023 at the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA, John P. Fisher, Chair of the Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE) at the University of Maryland, has been named Chair of the Council of Chairs for 2025.

The Council of Chairs (CoC) is a national assembly of more than 150 bioengineering and biomedical engineering department chairs. Supported by BMES, the Council meets throughout the year to help guide bioengineering and biomedical engineering academic units across the country as well as the biomedical engineering field as a whole.

Recently elected to the BMES Board of Directors, Fisher has been a long-time, active member of the Society since 2003. He has served in various roles, including abstract reviewer, session chair, and track chair in numerous Annual BMES Meetings. In 2016, Fisher was named a Fellow of BMES, and in 2018, he was Co-Chair of the BMES Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, spearheading the large celebration of the BMES 50th Anniversary.

Established in 1968, BMES is the world’s leading professional society for students, faculty, researchers, and industry professionals in biomedical engineering. With over 6,800 members, the society is committed to fostering an inclusive community to advance human health through education, discovery, and translation.

Now serving both on the BMES Board of Directors and as a leader among the Council of Chairs, Fisher is looking forward to guiding positive impact among the biomedical engineering community.

Key initiatives I would like to bring with me to the CoC include reducing financial barriers to education and research; encouraging mentorship; and expanding opportunities for positively impacting our broader communities.

John P. Fisher

“With the Council of Chairs, I aim to address the health, equity, and economic challenges experienced in our communities today,” says Fisher, who is MPower Professor, Distinguished-Scholar Teacher, and Fischell Family Distinguished Professor at UMD. He is also Director of the Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials Lab at UMD, where he leads his research team in investigating biomaterials, stem cells, bioprinting, and bioreactors for the regeneration of lost tissues.

“Historically, I have advocated for enhanced support for students and young investigators in biomedical engineering. Key initiatives I would like to bring with me to the CoC include reducing financial barriers to education and research; encouraging mentorship; and expanding opportunities for positively impacting our broader communities.”

Fisher currently serves as Past-President of the Americas Chapter of TERMIS and was the Co-Chair of the 2014 TERMIS-Americas Annual Meeting. In his TERMIS leadership roles, Fisher led efforts to broaden the TERMIS-Americas Chapter from North America to the entire Americas, established the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee within the chapter, and participated in a delegation to South Africa to launch Africa’s first tissue engineering society.

In addition, Dr. Fisher currently serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Tissue Engineering while serving on the editorial boards of key biomedical engineering journals such as the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part ABioprintingBiofabrication; and the Journal of Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine.

Fisher will serve as Chair-Elect on the CoC during 2024 before beginning his term as Chair in 2025.

Story Provided by the Fischell Department of Bioengineering.

Extrusion-based Bioink Printability Paper Receives Top Cited Award

As a part of the Center for Engineering Complex Tissues (CECT) partnership with Wake Forest and Rice University, the paper Assessment methodologies for extrusion-based bioink printability, published in Biofabrication, has earned an IOP Publishing Top Cited Paper Award!

This noteworthy achievement signifies that this research is featured in the top 1% of the most cited papers in the subject category. It is also one of the most cited articles from North America, published across the entire IOP Publishing journal portfolio within the past three years.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Courtney Johnson Aces Defense and Earns PhD

Courtney

On November 2nd, Courtney Johnson successfully presented his dissertation defense and was awarded his PhD! Coming from his Undergrad at Northeastern University, Courtney’s research focused on diabetes. Courtney earned the Clark fellowship and commenced on research exploring the effects of glucose on the mechanobiology of immune cells, in specific macrophages. His work was published in a review paper in Tissue Engineering B and a research paper in Tissue Engineering A, for which he won the Outstanding Student Award in 2022 TERMIS-AM Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Courtney’s research has been presented at BMES and TERMIS. Besides his academic work, Courtney is also involved with the scientific community at broad through the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). From 2018-2020 he was the National Programs Chair for NSBE, responsible for the society’s programmatic vision. Because of his determination and work in this organization, he was awarded the Mike Shinn Distinguished Member of the Year Award. Now that he has successfully defended, Courtney plans to submit two more research papers before his departure to a regulatory position at the FDA. Courtney was advised by Helim Aranda-Espinoza and John Fisher. Congrats, Courtney!

Visiting Materic Manufacturing

On September 29th, a few of the graduate and undergraduate students from the lab had the chance to visit Materic in Balitmore, MD. The lab is collaborating with Materic to work towards the development of GMP grade nipple-areolar complexs (NACs) for Amal’s project. During the visit, the group was able to tour the site, look at some of the 3D printers and other fabrication devices, and visit the GMP facility where sterile prints are produced. Materic’s facility houses a full suite of SLS, SLA, FDM, and DLP 3D printing technologies.

From left to right: Winston Frazier from Materic, Lauren Gomes, Allison Moses, Ryan Felix, Pieper Holeman, Shannon McLoughlin, and Amal Shabazz
Stereolithography (SLA) uses resin 3D printing for highly detailed prototypes requiring tight tolerances and smooth surfaces, such as scaffolds for the NAC.

For some context on Amal’s project – the nipple-areolar complex (NAC) is the structure on the chest that is composed of the nipple and areola. Breast tissue is lost when breast cancer patients undergo a mastectomy to remove cancerous tissue from the breast. Restoration of this tissue is meant to improve patient satisfaction and boost the long term psychological health of these patients. Materic is using stereolithography to fabricate the more rigid part of the scaffold that is meant to provide the mechanical strength needed to maintain the NAC scaffold long term. Extrusion bioprinting will be used to fabricate the softer part of the tissue that is meant to integrate with the body.