Research & Innovation

Rutgers–New Brunswick engineer and students create patch that combines sensors and bacteria to interact with the body

Professors Valerie Tutwiler, Li Cai, and Martin Yarmush have been awarded a New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Research (NJCSCR) grant for their project entitled “Mechanisms of thrombotic risk following spinal cord injury”. This award is for $600,000 over 3 years.

Professor Li Cai has been awarded a HealthAdvance award for $150,000 for his project, entitled “Gsx1 gene therapy for spinal cord injury.”

Professors Mark Pierce and Prabhas Moghe were awarded a 1-year, $154,769 grant to advance a novel imaging contrast agent developed at Rutgers toward commercial adoption. The award, from the NIH’s C3i program, will allow the team to develop methods to synthesize infrared light-emitting nanocomposites at commercial scales. The nanocomposites can be used to highlight specific tissues within the body and are expected to find applications in preclinical imaging for drug discovery and in image-guided surgical resection of tumors.

BME graduate student Denise Robles was awarded a two-year pre-doctoral fellowship from the NJ Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism (NJGCA) for her proposal entitled "Modeling Long-Range Connectivity Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorders using Cerebral Organoids." Denise is co-advised by graduate program faculty Dr. Jeffrey Zahn and Dr. Zhiping Pang.

Since it launched in 2019, the Biomedical Engineering Co-operative Education program has been meeting the experiential learning needs of students wishing to pursue careers in industry. This unique program allows BME undergraduates to complete a six-month, paid co-op during their junior year with world-class industry partners.