Principal Investigator
Honors & News
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May 16, 2013
Richard Waugh Appointed Associate Vice President for Research
Richard Waugh, Ph.D.
Richard Waugh, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been appointed to the newly-created position of associate vice president for research.
Rick has been collaborating with researchers on both the River Campus and the School of Medicine and Dentistry for more than three decades,
said Robert Clark, senior vice president for research.His great institutional knowledge and familiarity with a cross-section of departments make him a bridge among all research faculty. He was a natural choice for the job.
One of Waugh's initial responsibilities will be to help develop a strategic plan that identifies specific research goals, as well as opportunities for bringing together faculty members from different departments. He will also be involved in building a stronger research community on campus and fostering relations with the corporate sector.
I have a good understanding of why research is done so well at the University of Rochester,
said Waugh.I look forward to using that knowledge to help faculty work together in some new ways.
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February 15, 2012
Richard Waugh Honored as AAAS Fellow
Richard E. Waugh, professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and James M. Farrar, professor of chemistry, have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science.
The AAAS recognized Waugh for his
distinguished contributions to the study of cell and membrane mechanics and for leadership in biomedical engineering.
Waugh received a Ph.D. in bioengineering from Duke in 1977 and came to Rochester in 1980. His laboratory has historically been one of the leading facilities for investigating red blood cell mechanical properties and the stability of biological membranes. -
October 15, 2011
UR BME Well Represented at BMES Meeting
(Left to right): Kris Billiar, BMES Chair of the Student Affairs Committee, Cassie Gorman, UR BMES chapter member, and Dr. Richard Waugh, BMES President.
The UR Biomedical Engineering department was well represented at this year's Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting in Hartford, Connecticut. In attendance were 5 faculty members, including Dr. Richard Waugh (BME Department Chair and BMES President), 5 graduate students, 2 staff members, and 24 undergraduate students, who presented posters and spoke about their research.
The event was highlighted with the UR BME Student Chapter being awarded the Student Chapter Mentoring Program Award. This award recognized the UR BME mentoring program, established in 2010 by Ben Freedman BME '11. The program pairs upperclassmen and graduate students with freshmen and sophomores and encourages communication between class years and the passing of knowledge about classes, workloads and in the future, networking opportunities.
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May 19, 2011
Dr. Richard Waugh Delivers Sigma Kappa Tau Lecture at CCNY
Professor Richard Waugh, Ph.D., BME Department Chair, delivered the Sigma Kappa Tau endowed lecture at the City College of New York on May 18. The engineering social fraternity was established at CCNY during the post-Depression years to help students deal with some of the stress and pressure of the times. The Waugh Lab's research centers on the deformability of blood cells and how blood cell deformability plays a role in health and disease.
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January 6, 2011
Researchers Investigate Why a Limited Number of White Blood Cells Are Attracted to Injured Tissue
As any weekend warrior knows, an errant elbow or a missed ball can put a crimp in an afternoon of fun. The bruising and swelling are painfully obvious, but the processes occurring under the skin remain full of mystery. What is known is that leukocytes, or white blood cells, mobilize to protect injured body tissue from infection. What is not understood is why some leukocytes - but not others - are attracted to damaged tissue.
Dynamic response to chemokine stimulus
The response begins when leukocytes travel through blood vessels near the site of the injury and stop. Eight out of ten white blood cells will eventually continue traveling through the blood vessel, while the other two cells will actually enter the tissue to begin fighting against infection. Thanks to a $9.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, a research team led by Richard Waugh (Waugh Lab), Chairman of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Rochester, is trying to find the reasons.
The project team includes: Minsoo Kim (Kim Lab) and Ingrid Sarelius of the University of Rochester; Michael King and Moonsoo Jin of Cornell University; Daniel Hammer of the University of Pennsylvania; and Micah Dembo of Boston University.
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October 8, 2010
BME Student Chapter wins Commendable Achievement Award
At the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas this week, our student BMES chapter received a Commendable Achievement Award. Last year, the chapter received the Meritorious Achievement Award, which recognizes the best student chapter in the nation for achievements during the academic year.
This is the first time in the history of the awards that a chapter from the same school has been recognized for excellence in two consecutive years,
says Rick Waugh, BME department chair, and newly elected president of BMES. -
July 26, 2010
BME Students Participate in the David T. Kearns Symposium
Six current BME students participated in the summer session of the David T. Kearns Research Symposium for Leadership and Diversity in the Arts, Sciences, and Engineering by presenting posters about their research. The symposium was held on Thursday July 29, 2010 in the Sloan Auditorium at Goergen Hall, and was sponsored by the David T. Kearns Center for Leadership and Diversity in Arts, Sciences, and Engineering.
- Threshold of Non-Eye Movement Vestibular Cells in Alert Monkeys
- Daniel Barbash, mentored by Laurel Carney
- Analysis of SHG (Second Harmonic Generation) Microscopy Sensitivity to Experimental Parameters
- Jacy Bulaon, mentored by Edward Brown III
- Investigating Acoustic Parameters that Optimize Ultrasound Standing Wave Fields for Cell Banding
- Jasmine Carvalho, mentored by Diane Dalecki
- Strategies for Erythrocyte Maturation In Vitro
- Eric Lam, mentored by Richard Waugh
- Identifying Potential Transcription Factors Regulating Cellulose Degradation in Ethanol Production in Clostridium Thermocellum
- Kathleen Maloney, mentored by J.H. David Wu
- Novel Parthenolide Delivery System for Leukemia Treatment
- Hannah Watkins, mentored by Danielle Benoit
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March 4, 2010
BME Senior Design Class Students Tackle Radiation Research Project
Students in the BME Senior Design class are participating in a project inspired by a radiation research contract recently awarded to URMC by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. BARDA would like a quick, easy blood test that accurately measures radiation exposure. A team of students for the Senior Design Class is developing an early prototype for the project as a
proof-of-concept
. BME seniors Katie Litts, Camile Enriques, Jonathon Kung, and Sean Virgile are working to developRAD Radiation Analysis Dosimetry,
a high throughput device to measure radiation in blood samples. Thecustomer
is Walter O'Dell, Ph.D., from the departments of Radiation Oncology and Biomedical Engineering, and one of the co-investigators on the contract. The team is supervised by Richard Waugh, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. -
October 11, 2009
Dr. Rick Waugh elected BMES President
Dr. Rick Waugh, professor and Biomedical Engineering Department Chair, has been elected to a two-year term as president of the Biomedical Engineering Society (a national organization of biomedical researchers from universities and industry).
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March 18, 2009
URMC Scientists Awarded $6.8 Million in Stem Cell Research Grants
Stem Cells
Ten scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) have been awarded more than $6.8 million by the Empire State Stem Cell Board. The grants are for a wide range of research programs in the fields of neurological disorders, cancer, musculoskeletal diseases, the blood system, and efforts to understand the fundamental mechanics of stem cell biology.
Stem cell research for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine is a rapidly evolving field that holds great promise for the 21st century. Drs. Hani Awad, Laura Calvi, Edward Puzas, Edward Schwarz, Xinping Zhang, Dirk Bohmann, James Palis, Richard Waugh and others have obtained funding for stem cell research to further their efforts in this area that include: understanding the molecular genetic characteristic of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), how to expand MSCs in vitro and in vivo, methods to impregnate matrices with MSCs to tissue engineer bone and cartilage, and how to image labeled MSCs.
