News

Mohammad YousefHussien was awarded the Best Student Paper for the SPIE-IS&T International Conference on Visualization and Data Analysis. The award was in recognition for his work titled Three-dimensional analysis of vasculature in engineered tissues. Mohammad is a graduate student in the Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and is supervised by RCBU Member Professor Maria Helguera. This work is the result of a multidisciplinary collaboration between Professor Helguera and Professor Diane Dalecki (BME) and Professor Denise Hocking (Pharmacology and Physiology).

Karla Mercado was awarded Third Place in the Best Student Paper in Biomedical Acoustics Competition at the 164^th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America held in Kansas City, MO. Karla presented her work titled Parametric imaging of three-dimensional engineered tissue constructs using high frequency ultrasound. Karla is a Ph.D. student in BME, and student member of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound. Karla's Ph.D. research is supervised by Professor Diane Dalecki.

Eric Comeau has been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Med-into-Grad Fellowship. Eric is a Ph.D. student co-supervised by Professor Diane Dalecki (BME) and Professor Denise Hocking (Pharmacology and Physiology). This prestigious fellowship is sponsored by the Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) and augments traditional Ph.D. training with clinical rotations, a clinical co-mentor, journal club, seminar series, and translational cardiovascular coursework.

Karla Mercado applied to and was selected to attend the Physical Acoustics Summer School (PASS) at the University of Mississippi National Center for Physical Acoustics from May 23-29. The purpose of PASS is to bring intermediate and advanced graduate students, distinguished lecturers, and discussion leaders together to discuss a wide variety of subjects in Physical Acoustics. Participation is limited to 50 attendees and it is a very selective process. Karla Mercado is a Ph.D. candidate in BME working with Professor Diane Dalecki on a project to develop high-frequency ultrasound techniques to noninvasively characterize the material, structural, and biological properties of engineered tissues. Karla is also a student member of the RCBU.

John Nicosia (BME class of 2013) was awarded the Professors' Choice Award for Undergraduate Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Rochester Undergraduate Research Expo held on April 20, 2012. John was recognized for the research he presented in his poster titled Techniques to Quantify Cell Proliferation in Three-Dimensional Hydrogels. His mentors for this research and co-authors on the poster are Professor Diane Dalecki and Professor Denise Hocking. John has been involved in research in biomedical ultrasound in the Dalecki Lab since his freshman year. John will be continuing his research to advance new applications of ultrasound in cell and tissue engineering though the summer and senior year as a Xerox Fellow in the Dalecki Lab.

BME undergraduate students John Nicosia and Laura Hobbs have been awarded UR/Xerox Undergraduate Research Fellowships. Both students will be working in the laboratory of Diane Dalecki, RCBU Director and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. Research projects will focus on developing ultrasound technologies for cell and tissue engineering applications. The SEAS Xerox Fellowship Program is a highly competitive program that provides engineering students with research experience. The program begins during the summer preceding the senior year, and continues as an independent research course in the fall and spring semesters of the senior year.

BME seniors help real-life customers solve biomedical engineering problems through the two-semester Senior Design course taught by RCBU member Amy Lerner and Scott Seidman. In the 2014-2015 academic year, one team of BME seniors is embarking on a project to develop an ultrasound-based technique to detect dentinal cracks in teeth. The team will focus on detection of cracks in mandibular molars, as these are the teeth that exhibit cracks often. The senior design team consists of BME students Alexa Kuenstler, Jonathan Macoskey, Jacob Hyatt, Tek Gautum, and Jenny Won. Long-standing RCBU member Robert Lerner, MD who serves as the customer for this project brought the problem to the team. Diane Dalecki, Ph.D. is the senior design team supervisor for this project.

Dr. Diane Dalecki (Director, RCBU) has been elected to serve as a member of the AIUM Bioeffects Committee. The official term of service begins at the completion of the 2012 Annual Convention in Phoenix, AZ and expires at the end of the 2015 Annual Convention. Dr. Dalecki has previously served as Chair and member of the AIUM Bioeffects Committee.