“Plants and animals are dying off at an unprecedented rate on Earth. Some scientists are looking to outer space for a solution.
The idea is called a lunar biorepository, a facility that maintains and stores plant and animal cells. But instead of on Earth, this would be on the moon.
Why the moon? “ … READ MORE
Dr. Boris Rubinsky, our Thrust Area 2 Co-Lead and Professor at UC Berkeley, was named a 2023 fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for his new technology inventions in the field of medicine and biomaterials!
UC Berkeley engineering professors Ashok Gadgil and Boris Rubinsky are among 162 inventors named 2023 fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the organization announced today (Tuesday, Dec. 12). Election as a fellow in the academy is the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors.
Article by Kara Manke … READ MORE
Ashok Gadgil (left) is a distinguished professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering and Boris Rubinsky is a professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering. (Courtesy of Berkely Engineering)
Dr. Erik Finger is the recipient of the Eunice L. Dwan Chair for Diabetes Research Award and will be honored at a reception at the Campus Club on December 1, 2023. All are welcome.
University of Minnesota researchers reported this year that they had managed to preserve rat kidneys for 100 days at ultralow temperatures, rewarm them, and successfully transplant them into other rats. That’s fantastic news for rats, but also for people with failing kidneys.
The researchers infused the kidneys with protective fluids and iron oxide nanoparticles and then rapidly cooled them without forming ice crystals. The main advance was rewarming them from within, rapidly and uniformly, by placing them in an alternating magnetic field that caused the nanoparticles to oscillate and generate heat, as Science and Scientific American explained. The researchers hope to start trials on human-scale organs.
Rhonda Franklin, Ph.D.
McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Rhonda Franklin was one of only six African-Americans graduating with engineering PhDs in the U.S. in 1995! She then went on to be the first female to earn tenure in her department and the first African American female in the college
Read more about her inspiring story and research in microwave applications related to communications systems and biomedicine: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10271513
Published in: IEEE Journal of Microwaves ( Volume: 3, Issue: 4, October 2023)
Dr. Joseph Sushil Rao is the inaugural recipient of the David Sutherland Distinguished Award in Pancreas Transplantation, instituted by the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association (IPITA).
This biennial award is given to a single clinical/research fellow based upon demonstrated clinical/research merit and future potential for both scholarly academic/clinical excellence and a commitment to the training of clinicians/scientists in the field of pancreas transplantation.
The award honors the legacy of Dr. David Sutherland, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Surgery, University of Minnesota, whose long and illustrious career includes many firsts in the field of pancreas and islet transplantation. Dr. Sutherland directed the pancreas transplant program at the University of Minnesota for decades, a prestigious program in the country and the world that has performed over 2400 pancreas and nearly 1000 islet transplants.
Joseph Sushil Rao, MD
Surgical Lead
Pancreatic Islet Cryopreservation, Exogenic Organ Development & Transplant Immunology
Division of Transplantation & Schulze Diabetes Institute, Department of Surgery
University of Minnesota
In a groundbreaking new study, engineers and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have proven the life-saving potential of long-term organ preservation at ultra-low temperatures by successfully transplanting a rewarmed kidney in a rat and restoring full kidney function.
UMN News
UMN Medical School News
UMN College of Science & Engineering News
Read more in the Science article, the STAT article, and the Nature Communications article.
Photo Credit: CAROLINE YANG FOR STAT
Advances in using extreme cold to slow biological processes could touch everything from donated organs to fresh produce. The University of Minnesota team has developed one approach, dubbed "nanowarming," which thaws an organ evenly to avoid damage from ice.
Scientists at the University of Minnesota have successfully transplanted rat kidneys that were thawed after up to 100 days in ultracold storage — a milestone that could one day revolutionize how and when human organs are transplanted.
University of Minnesota mechanical engineering postdoctoral researcher Zonghu Han demonstrated how rat kidneys can be cryogenically stored for up to 100 days before they are warmed and transplanted. (Image: Rebecca Slater)
The rat kidney on the operating table in front of Joseph Sushil Rao looked like it had been through hell. Which it had—a very cold one.
Normally a deep pink, this thumbnail-size organ was blanched a corpselike gray. In the past 6 hours, it had been plucked from the abdomen of a white lab rat, pumped full of a black fluid, stuck in a freezer cooled to –150°C, and zapped by a powerful magnet.
Now, in a cramped, windowless room on the 11th floor of the University of Minnesota’s (UMN’s) Malcolm Moos Health Sciences Tower, Rao lifted the kidney from a small plastic box and gently laid it inside the open abdomen of another white rat. Peering through a microscope, the transplant surgeon–in–training deftly spliced the kidney’s artery and vein into the rat’s abdominal blood vessels using a thread half the thickness of a human hair.
It’s the first time scientists have shown it’s possible to successfully and repeatedly transplant a life-sustaining mammalian organ after it has been rewarmed from this icy metabolic arrest. Outside experts unequivocally called the results a seminal milestone for the field of organ preservation.
“It’s historic,” said Mehmet Toner, a biomedical engineer at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard Medical School professor working in organ cryopreservation. “This is the beginning of a very exciting journey.”
A rat kidney being prepared for transplantation as part of research by the University of Minnesota on a new technique for long-term organ cryopreservation. (Image: Caroline Yang for STAT)
The 2023 Fung Institute MEng Capstone Innovation Award is awarded to the MEng capstone team who has most effectively demonstrated: a) the relevance of the problem they are trying to solve; b) the originality of their proposed solution; c) and the potential of their project’s impact.
Students: Joseph Roux de Bézieux, Fiona Le Gaonac’h, Gakpe Mckenzie, Ania Boukhezna
Advisor: Boris Rubinsky
Professor Bethanie Stadler invented microscopic nanowires that can be rapidly heated for use in nanoelectronics and potentially help make cryogenically-preserved organs available for donation.
What do nanoelectronics and organ preservation have in common? Both technologies can be advanced by super small nanoheaters. Thanks to research on nanoelectronics by Beth Stadler and Rhonda Franklin, professors of electrical and computer engineering, and research on cryoengineering by John Bischof, director of the University’s Institute for Mechanical Engineering in Medicine, we may one day see both nanoelectronics and organ preservation become reality.
Stadler has invented magnetic nanowires that generate heat very quickly in an alternating magnetic field. One application of these nano-scopic particles will hopefully be realized due to an NSF Engineering Research Center (ATP-Bio) that is led by John Bischof. The center is investigating ways to quickly and uniformly thaw cryogenically preserved organs so that the organs won’t be damaged during warming. By flooding the organs with a solution filled with magnetic nanoparticles before they are frozen, technicians could use alternating magnetic fields to safely heat the nanoparticles, and therefore the organs. “This could really be society-changing,” says Stadler, whose nanowires are one of many magnetic nanoparticles under study.
Stadler is working on several projects, including integrating nanowires into high-frequency circuits with Franklin as well as using magnetoelectric oxides to protect lasers from their own reflected power by allowing for one-way transmission of light. “I would love to see things we do in the lab go somewhere and actually impact products,” says Stadler. That’s why she regularly works with Tech Comm to see if her work should be patented and help get it into the hands of companies or investors who can bring it to market.
“Tech Comm staff have deep technical knowledge as well as a sophisticated understanding of what businesses need. This combination makes all the difference.” She credits Tech Comm with keeping up with her most advanced technical work and communicating it clearly to companies who might be interested in licensing it. They’ve helped her overcome commercialization setbacks and successfully license multiple inventions with Boston Scientific.
By leaning on Tech Comm for help with the business side of things, Stadler has more time to focus on what she loves: teaching and innovating. “I love working with students,” she says. “I don’t mind teaching the same classes every year —even Circuits 101—because to me it’s like doing Sudoku puzzles, which I quite enjoy, and happily so do most engineering students.”
Visit University Inventors to learn more about working with the Tech Comm office and find commercialization resources to help you increase your research impact.
“This week, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) announced that the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the University of Minnesota Institute for Engineering in Medicine and three academic collaborators $25,999,491 to create an Engineering Research Center (ERC).
The goal of the ERC, called the Advanced Technologies for Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio), is to develop and deploy technology to “stop biological time” through temperature control. This will improve transplantation and other biological therapies by preserving organs, tissues and cells. It will also help drive down the cost of drug discovery and much more.
In addition, the center will provide educational programs to middle schoolers and high schoolers, fund research internships in ATP-Bio labs for undergraduate students, and work to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
“When we invest in education and innovation for our state, we invest in a brighter future for Minnesota and our country,” Klobuchar said. “This National Science Foundation funding will allow the University of Minnesota to expand biology programs that engage middle and high school students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.”
“Minnesota’s universities and colleges are innovation hubs full of possibility,” said Sen. Smith. “I’m delighted to see the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine receive this award. I look forward to following their impressive bioengineering work, which will create opportunity for our country. And I’m glad that the center will offer education opportunities to middle and high school students, as well as internships to undergraduates. It’s important that we keep creating more pathways to careers in STEM.”
The University of Minnesota will partner with Massachusetts General Hospital, University of California, Berkeley; and the University of California, Riverside on the ATP Bio center. The award is set for an initial five-year period and is renewable in 2025 for another five years.”
Learn more about the grant here.
The National Science Foundation is creating four new Engineering Research Centers [Image: GETTY]
The National Science Foundation has announced awards totaling $104 million to create four new Engineering Research Centers (ERCs). The new centers, each with several leading American research universities collaborating as partners, will receive $26 million apiece for an initial five-year period.
The goal of the ERC for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems is to stop biological time by designing methods to cryogenically cool, hold and re-warm living materials without harm, extending the ability for them to be banked and transported.
The University of Minnesota’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Engineering in Medicine and Surgery will be funded to create the ATP-Bio center, which will involve four core partners: University of Minnesota (lead); Massachusetts General Hospital (co-lead); University of California, Berkeley; and University of California, Riverside.
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