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Recent Award to Advance Research in Diabetes Treatment

Elliot Botvinick, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, was awarded more than $200,000 by the Iacocca Foundation to tissue engineer an implant for people with type 1 diabetes.

The current primary treatment of type 1 diabetes is the delivery of artificial insulin via injection or pump combined with careful monitoring of blood glucose levels. Botvinick and Jonathan Lakey, associate professor of surgery in UCI’s School of Medicine, are researching methods of improving the encapsulation of islet tissue. Encapsulation of islet tissue prevents direct contact between implanted cells and the host’s immune system and holds great promise as an alternative to pancreatic transplantation that does not require pharmaceutical immune suppression.

Steven C. George Receives NIH Funds for Development of Tissue Chips to Help Predict Drug Safety

DARPA and FDA to collaborate on groundbreaking therapeutic development initiative

Professor Steven C. George, M.D., Ph.D., Director of The Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering has received one of 10 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aimed at creating 3-D chips with living cells and tissues that accurately model the structure and function of human organs such as the lung, liver and heart. George’s grant is entitled “An integrated in vitro model of perfused tumor and cardiac tissue.”

“We will be developing microtissues that mimic cardiac and cancer tissue, and these microtissues will be receiving nutrients like oxygen through real human blood vessels,” said George.

Arash Kheradvar Receives a Transatlantic Career Development Award from Leducq Foundation

Award is in cardiovascular and neurovascular research

Assistant Professor Arash Kheradvar, M.D., Ph.D. in Department of Biomedical Engineering has been named as a recipient of the 2011-2012 Career Development Award from Leducq Foundation as a senior investigator. Kheradvar received the award based on his research entitled “Flow through the Right Heart after Repair of Tetralogy of Fallot: anImage-Based Modeling Approach.”

Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is a common form of cyanotic congenital heart disease (CHD), which accounts for approximately 7 to 10 percent of live-born patients with CHD. “Our central hypothesis is that the abnormal patterns of flow through the RV in TOF hearts contributes to dissipation of the kinetic energy of flow and reduces the efficiency of RV function, promoting its failure,” Kheradvar states.

New Hopes for Patient-Specific Heart Valves: UCI Researchers Engineered a Novel Hybrid Tissue

UC Irvine research featured on the cover of Tissue Engineering Journal

UC Irvine researchers are working on a new technology to develop the first patient-specific heart valve with self-regenerative capabilities. A recently published article entitled “Metal Mesh Scaffold for Tissue Engineering of Membranes” has been featured on the cover of the April 2012 issue of the journal of Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods. In this article, UC Irvine scientists revealed a novel engineered tissue made of an extra thin layer of metal mesh tightly enclosed by biological cell layers analogous to a heart valve leaflet.

Using Optical Tweezers, UCI and UCLA Researchers Uncover Key Mechanics in Cell-Cell Communication

Notch network study has implications for cancer and heart disease research

By using a laser microbeam technology called optical tweezers, UC Irvine and UCLA researchers have uncovered fundamental properties of a key molecular signaling system involved with development, cancer and cardiovascular disease.

In collaboration, UCI’s Elliot Botvinick and UCLA’s Gerry Weinmaster published complimentary studies in the journal Developmental Cell, in which they each used optical tweezers to detect and measure mechanical force produced by cells when bound to Notch, a cellular pathway that serves as a communication network to ensure the correct cell types form at a precise time and location in the body.

Arash Kheradvar Elected as a Fellow of the American Heart Association

Dr. Arash Kheradvar, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA). Kheradvar was elected to fellowship by the AHA Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and Intervention in recognition of his major contributions to cardiac imaging and image-based modeling of cardiovascular diseases.

“I am deeply humbled to have been elected for this honor,” says Kheradvar. “It could never have happened without the hard work and dedication of my research group over the past years. I look forward to furthering my efforts toward the AHA’s mission, which is to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.”

Tenacity pays off for tissue engineer

Public Impact Fellowship supports Seema Ehsan’s efforts to develop a better way of testing cancer drugs

The cost of bringing a new drug to the marketplace, from discovery to clinical trials, ranges from $55 million to more than $1 billion. Seema Ehsan aspires to change that, particularly for cancer drugs. A chemical engineering doctoral candidate, she spends eight to 10 hours a day in the laboratory growing tumors.

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