2010 Fall Newsletter.pub - Rice University Department of

Rice wins $3.7 million for cancer research
McDevitt lab developing innovative cancer diagnostics
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of
Texas (CPRIT) has granted $3.7 million to Rice
University researchers to fund an innovative cancer
diagnostics program.
The funds will help the BioScience Research
Collaborative lab overseen by John T. McDevitt, Rice's
Brown-Wiess Professor in Bioengineering and Chemistry, in its mission to make the Texas Medical Center
(TMC) the hub for diagnostics research into cancer
and other diseases.
The work is made possible by McDevitt's development of
a cost-effective Bio-Nano-Chip that can provide patients
with early warning of the onset of disease, cutting the
time and cost of treatment. McDevitt is principal investigator of a multi-investigator project that totals $6 million for cancer research, of which Rice's portion is $3.7
million. The remainder of the grant will be subcon-
By Mike Williams
tracted to investigators
at the University of
Texas M. D. Anderson
Cancer Center, Baylor
College of Medicine and
the University of Texas
Health Science Center
in San Antonio.
CPRIT is a state-funded In 2004, John T. McDevitt
agency charged by
co-founded LabNow in Austin, TX
Texas voters with issu- based on the CD4 microchip
ing $3 billion in bonds technology developed in his lab.
over 10 years to fund
Photo by Jeff Fitlow
grants for cancer research and prevention.
Last June, the agency announced $142 million in grants to
support innovative programs, including the funds to Rice.
Continued on p. 3
HHMI renews grant for Rice's global health program
10 percent of Rice undergrads have taken global health course
By Jade Boyd
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has
awarded a $1.2 million, four-year grant to continue
Rice University's successful undergraduate global
health technologies program Beyond Traditional
Borders (BTB).
BTB, which began with a $2.2 million HHMI grant in
2006, challenges students to come up with practical
solutions to real-world problems in the developing
world. The program has captured the imagination of
Rice’s students; more than 10 percent of the university's
undergraduates have taken a BTB class since 2006, and
several dozen students have interned in local clinics in
developing nations, implementing their designs and
gathering feedback from doctors and nurses.
"Our program aims to open students' eyes to the challenges of global health and to help them use the tools of
science and engineering to design solutions that are
affordable, effective and culturally appropriate," said
BTB founder Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Rice's Stanley
C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering. "HHMI's continued support will allow us to expand our undergraduate
and K-12 initiatives."
Continued on p. 3
Rice student Catherine Slater demonstrates a diagnostic
Lab-in-a-Backpack to doctors at a hospital outside Kigali,
Rwanda. The pack, designed by students in Rice's Beyond
Traditional Borders initiative, contains tools to allow
health care providers to perform basic diagnostic exams
in remote settings in the developing world.
Message from the Chair
Page 2
The Department of Bioengineering at Rice University
has had many recent developments in our collaborative
efforts to take enabling
technologies from the laboratory and into the hands of
medical professionals in the
U.S. and abroad.
As a result, these endeavors
are influencing our ability to
consistently offer recognized
undergraduate and graduate
programs in teaching and research. Our undergraduate
program is now ranked 6th in the nation by U.S. News &
World Report’s 2011 rankings, and our graduate program is
ranked 8th.
This summer the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute
of Texas (CPRIT) granted $6 million to launch the Texas
Cancer Diagnostics Pipeline Consortium, which is comprised of researchers and clinicians from Rice University,
the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center,
Baylor College of Medicine, and the University of Texas
Health Science Center in San Antonio. The consortium will
program bio-nano-chips based on microprocessor technology to find biomarkers for several forms of cancer as well as
HIV and heart disease. The chips were developed by John
McDevitt, who is overseeing Rice’s $3.7 million portion of
the grant.
Faculty Fellow Kurt Kasper is working on an investigatorinitiated research project with Professor Antonios Mikos
and Rice’s Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering to
explore ways to suitably replace or repair articular cartilage
using an injectable mix of polymers and adult stems cells.
The research is part of a new $1.7 million grant from the
National Institutes of Health.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute awarded a $1.2
million renewal grant to support the successful undergraduate global health technologies program Beyond
Traditional Borders (BTB). The education initiative, which
began with a $2.2 million HHMI grant in 2006, challenges
students to come up with practical solutions to real-world
problems in the developing world. Several dozen students
have interned in local clinics in developing nations as they
implemented their designs and gathered feedback from
doctors and nurses.
The department continues to expand its efforts to integrate
biological, physical and computational approaches to solve
complex biomedical and industrial problems. This fall, we
welcomed Assistant Professor Jeffrey Tabor.
Many faculty members have had notable successes and
have been honored for their teaching, research, and service. Professor Antonios Mikos is the recipient of three
prestigious awards: the Distinguished Scientist, Isaac
Schour Memorial Award of the International Association
for Dental Research; the Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award in Chemical Engineering of
the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE),
and the textbook he co-authored with Assistant Professor
Johnna Temenoff of the Georgia Institute of Technology
won the Meriam/Wiley Award by the American Society
for Engineering Education. Professor Michael Deem is
the recipient of the Professional Progress Award in
Chemical Engineering by AIChE; long-term collaborator
Professor Naomi Halas and I were named Inventors of
the Year by the State Bar of Texas; Associate Professor
Jane Grande-Allen was chosen for the A.J. Durelli Award
by the Society for Experimental Mechanics; Assistant
Professor Tomasz Tkaczyk was awarded the BectonDickinson Professional Achievement Award by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation;
and Associate Professor Robert Raphael was selected for
the Charles W. Duncan, Jr. Award by Rice University.
The strong reputation of our programs and faculty members has attracted some of the nation’s most talented students. Twenty graduate students joined our ranks this
fall, bringing enrollment in the Ph.D. program to 105.
Five of these students are NSF Graduate Research Fellows. Currently, we have 10 bioengineering students in
the Rice-Baylor Medical Scientist Training Program seeking dual M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Fourteen new students
have begun work toward their M.B.E. degree, which is a
79 percent increase over last year. Growth in our undergraduate program is steady with 116 students.
The following pages of this newsletter feature many more
exciting developments, as well as the results of some of
our discoveries that are being noted in high-caliber peer
reviewed publications. ●
Inside this issue…
Headline News…………………………………………...pages 1,3-5
Message from the Chair…………………………..………….page 2
Department Highlights…………………………….……pages 6-9
Department News……………………….……….....…pages 10-11
Student Highlights………………………............….pages 12-16
Rice BIOE NEWS is a biannual publication of the
Department of Bioengineering. Some content is courtesy
of Jade Boyd, Michael Williams, and Jessica Stark of the
university’s Office of Public Affairs. Send comments,
story ideas, and alumni news to [email protected].
Headline News
Page 3
Rice wins $3.7 million for cancer research (Cont.)
The Bio-Nano-Chip can test
for cancer, HIV and heart disease through a small sample
of a patient’s blood, saliva or
urine. The biofluids are
collected and transferred to a
disposable credit-card-sized
diagnostic microchip. The
microchip is then inserted into
an analyzer and within a few
minutes the sample is checked
and results delivered.
Photo by Jeff Fitlow
"The BioScience Research Collaborative and Rice have
provided the ideal setting to launch the Texas Cancer Diagnostics Pipeline Consortium," said McDevitt, a pioneer
in the creation of microfluidic devices for biomedical test-
By Mike Williams
ing. "This Rice-led cancer initiative brings together the
dream team of Texas clinicians for oral cancer, prostate
cancer and ovarian cancer."
"This is what CPRIT was created to do – to invest in the
people and projects that will find a cure for cancer,” said
the institute’s oversight committee chairman, Jimmy
Mansour. “The groundbreaking work singled out (by
the new round of grants) brings us one step closer to that
audacious goal."
Rice's Bio-Nano-Chips are based on state-of-the-art microprocessor technology and can be programmed to quickly
find specific biomarkers in blood, saliva and urine to diagnose cancers, HIV and heart disease. In a related area, a
human trial of the chip is currently testing patients' saliva
for signs of a heart attack at Houston's Michael E. DeBakey
VA Medical Center in collaboration with Baylor College of
Medicine. In addition, another large-scale trial of a chip to
detect signs of oral cancer also showed promising results. ●
HHMI renews grant for Rice's global health program (Cont.)
Student-designed technologies have included:
• A portable, battery-powered, low-cost fluorescence microscope that makes malaria and tuberculosis diagnosis
easier in areas with limited equipment/infrastructure.
• A "Lab-in-a-Backpack" full of diagnostic tools–including
a microscope, centrifuge and rapid tests – that nurses
and physicians in the developing world can use to diagnose patients at the point-of care in remote locations.
• A tiny clip that pharmacists can attach to an oral syringe
to help parents and other caregivers deliver the proper
dose of medicine to children.
• A hand-powered centrifuge made from a salad spinner
to test for anemia in settings that lack electricity (below).
Lauren Theis and
Lila Kerr have taken
their Sally Centrifuge, which was
made from a salad
spinner, abroad this
summer for testing
as part of Beyond
Traditional Borders.
Photo by Jeff Fitlow
BTB students take global health courses and work in teams
to solve challenging health problems. In their first BTB
class, students get an introduction to biomedical engineering and design a simple solution to a real-world global
health problem, provided by BTB’s partners delivering
health care in the developing world. From there, students
can enroll in the global health technologies minor — which
includes four additional BTB classes and two related
electives — and tackle progressively more difficult
design problems.
The new HHMI grant will allow Rice and the university’s
Institute for Global Health Technologies, Rice 360°, to
expand BTB to a national scale. BTB's annual outreach
workshop for high school teachers plans to recruit the best
science and engineering teachers from across the country.
Rice will also invite students from other universities and
from high schools whose teachers were trained in the K-12
workshop to participate in an international healthtechnologies design conference and competition.
"I'm excited about the opportunity for students nationwide
to be a vital part of the process of designing a new technology and seeing the impact that it has," Richards-Kortum
said. "I think we're creating a generation of students who
can design solutions to important global health problems."
Rice was one of 50 research universities in 30 states and
the District of Columbia that received a total of $70 million
from HHMI to strengthen undergraduate and precollege
science education nationwide. ●
Headline News
Page 4
NIH awards Rice $1.7M for cartilage-regeneration research
Bioengineers explore whether adult stem cells can help heal joints
Rice University bioengineers have
won a $1.7 million grant from the
NIH to develop an injectable mix of
polymers and adult stem cells that
can spur the growth of new cartilage
in injured knees and other joints.
“Millions of people live with pain,
limited mobility and arthritis that
often result from cartilage injuries,
particularly those to the knee," said
Kurt Kasper, a principal investigator
on the five-year investigatorinitiated research project grant.
Photo by Jeff Fitlow
"By combining just enough of a
patient's own stem cells with the
proper mix of growth factors and polymers, we hope to
allow the body to fill in small gaps with healthy, new
bone-protecting cartilage."
In joints like the knee, elbow and shoulder, a thin layer of
cartilage covers and protects the bones at the point where
they meet and rotate against one another. This "articular"
cartilage is one of many types of cartilage found in the
body, and it has wondrous material properties. For example, it's so impact-resistant and resilient that no currently
available synthetic materials can stand up to the punishment it endures.
Kasper and other researchers are looking to develop ways
to suitably replace or repair articular cartilage. Rice's re-
search team on the project includes Kasper, a faculty
fellow, and Antonios G. Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor
of Bioengineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and director of Rice's Center for Excellence in
Tissue Engineering.
The team will use mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), a type
of stem cell that the body uses naturally to repair broken
bones, injured skin and other tissues. Researchers have
long known that MSCs can be coaxed into becoming cartilage-generating cells with the right combination of growth
factors.
"We aim to find the optimal formulation of MSCs and
growth factors for regenerating articular cartilage," Mikos
said. "We will deliver that mix in a nontoxic, biodegradable polymer system that can be injected as a liquid and
that gels quickly to form a temporary support matrix to
guide the growth of the new cartilage."
Kasper said a unique aspect of the study is its focus on
developing techniques that will allow the newly formed
cartilage to attach naturally to the underlying bone in the
joint. To do this, the team hopes to develop a two-layered
system where the upper layer of articular cartilage is
grown atop a segment of newly formed bone. A different
formulation of growth factors and MSCs will be needed in
each layer, and tests in animals will be used to determine
the optimal mix that might be needed for future clinical
translation to humans. ●
Off-the-shelf cancer detection
Consumer-grade camera detects cancer cells in real time
Using an off-the-shelf digital camera, Rice University bioengineers and researchers from the University of Texas
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have created an inexpensive device that is powerful enough to let doctors easily
distinguish cancerous cells from healthy cells simply by
viewing the LCD monitor on the back of the camera.
The results of the first tests of the camera were published
online in the June 23 journal PLoS ONE.
"Consumer-grade cameras can serve as powerful platforms
for diagnostic imaging," said Rebecca Richards-Kortum,
the study's lead author. "Based on portability, performance and cost, you could use them both to lower health
care costs in developed countries and to provide services
that simply aren't available in resource-poor countries."
Richards-Kortum is Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor of
Bioengineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering and the founder of Rice's global health initiative,
By Jade Boyd
Rice 360°. Her lab specializes in tools for the
early detection of cancer
and other diseases. Her
team has developed
fluorescent dyes and
targeted nanoparticles
for doctors to zero in on
the molecular hallmarks
of cancer.
In the study, the team
captured images of cells
with a small bundle
of fiber-optic cables
attached to a consumergrade camera.
Continued on p. 5
By Jade Boyd
Cancer cells can be easily distinguish from healthy ones using
this consumer-grade camera.
The images are captured with
a fiber-optic cable. The tip of
the cable, which is about as
wide as a pencil lead, can be
applied directly to the inside
of the cheek.
Headline News
Page 5
Startup company drives culture trend
3-D cell-culture system based on Rice-M. D. Anderson tech
One of the greatest trends in basic life-science research,
drug discovery, and regenerative medicine is identifying
ways to mimic the body’s natural 3-D environment.
Scientists from Rice University and the University of
Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a
technique for growing 3-D cell cultures using magnetic
levitation. It's a technological leap that uses magnetic
forces to lift cells as they interact, divide and grow.
The technology is being commercialized through the
Houston-based company Nano3D Biosciences.
Results from a recent highly collaborative proof-ofprincipal investigation were published online on March
14 in Nature Nanotechnology. Nano3D Biosciences will
present at the Biomedical Engineering Society’s annual
meeting in Austin, TX, October 6-9, 2010.
“The magnetic force of the culture system creates a type
of invisible scaffold and the suspended culture system
allows for natural cell-cell interactions to drive assembly
of 3-D microtissue structures,” said Robert Raphael, an
associate professor of bioengineering and one of three
co-founders of Nano3D Biosciences.
The technique, called a "Bio-Assembler TM”, uses hydrogels consisting of gold, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and a filamentous bacteriophage. When cells are
added to the gel, the phage causes the particles to be absorbed into cells over a few hours. The gel is then washed
away, and the nanoparticle-loaded cells are placed in a
petri dish filled with a liquid that promotes cell growth
and division. A coin
-sized magnet is
placed atop the
dish's lid and lifts
the cells off the bottom of the dish, concentrates them and
allows them to grow Pictured from the left are Nano3D
and divide while sus- Biosciences co-founders Glauco
pended in the liquid. Souza, Robert Raphael and Tom
Killian. Photo by Jeff Fitlow
Use of the technology has many applications from drug discovery to tissue
engineering and stem cell research, and is a result of what
happens when experts from multiple fields unite and
work together.
Tom Killian, associate professor of physics at Rice, studies
ultra-cold atoms and uses finely tuned magnetic fields to
manipulate them. He has worked with Raphael for several
years on methods to use magnetic fields to manipulate cells.
Killian introduced research by Glauco R. Souza, who is now
the chief technology officer of Nano3D Biosciences, and
investigators Wadih Arap and Renata Pasqualini of the
David H. Koch Center at The University of Texas M. D.
Anderson Cancer Center into the collaboration.
Other study co-authors include Daniel Stark and Jeyarama
Ananta, both of Rice; Carly Levin of Nano3D Biosciences;
and Jennifer R. Molina, Maria-Magdalena Georgescu,
Michael Ozawa, Lawrence Bronk, Jami Mandelin, James
Bankson and Juri Gelovani, all of M.D. Anderson. ●
Off-the-shelf cancer detection (Cont.)
When a common fluorescent dye is applied, cell nuclei in
the samples glow brightly when lighted with the tip of the
fiber-optic bundle. Three tissue types were tested: cancer
cell cultures that were grown in a lab, tissue samples from
newly resected tumors and healthy tissue viewed in the
mouths of patients.
Because the nuclei of cancerous and precancerous cells
are notably distorted from those of healthy cells, abnormal cells were easily identifiable, even on the camera's
small LCD screen.
"The dyes and visual techniques that we used are the
same sort that pathologists have used for years to distinguish healthy cells from cancerous cells in biopsied tissue," said co-author Mark Pierce, a Rice research scientist
in bioengineering. "But the tip of the imaging cable is
small and rests lightly against the inside the cheek, so the
procedure is considerably less painful than a biopsy and
the results are available in seconds instead of days."
Software can be written that would allow medical
professionals who are not pathologists to use the device to
distinguish healthy from nonhealthy cells. The device could
then be used for routine cancer screening and to help
oncologists track how well patients were responding
to treatment.
"A portable, battery-powered device like this could be
particularly useful for global health," she said. "This could
save many lives in countries where conventional diagnostic
technology is simply too expensive."
Co-authors of the paper include Dongsuk Shin and Mark
Pierce, both of Rice, and Ann Gillenwater and Michelle
Williams of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer
Center. The research was funded by the National Institutes
of Health. ●
Department Highlights
Page 6
Jeffrey J. Tabor joins Rice
Synthetic biologist broadens bioengineering program
Jeffrey J. Tabor joins the Rice University Department of Bioengineering faculty as an assistant professor.
The appointment broadens the
program’s aim to integrate biological, physical and computational approaches to solve complex biomedical and industrial problems. Tabor
specializes in reprogramming the
behaviors of living cells.
The approach uses genetic sensors
and circuits as modular parts to
reprogram how cells sense and respond to their environment. Because the biological programs are written using
these well-characterized parts, they can be easily measured and manipulated. This data can then be used to build
accurate mathematical models that close the design cycle
and increase predictability in biological engineering.
Projects in Tabor’s laboratory at Rice include programming cells to sense light, engineering cellular signaling
circuits and modes of cell-cell communication. These technologies are then combined to engineer complex multicellular behaviors such as pattern formation and synthetic
social interactions.
By Shawn Hutchins
This research builds upon his work as a postdoctoral fellow in Christopher Voigt’s laboratory at the University of
California, San Francisco, where Tabor programmed bacterial communities to function as a light-responsive photographic film and work as a parallel computer to perform
the image-processing task of edge detection. The research,
which was supported by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National
Research Service Award (NRSA) from the National Institutes of Health, demonstrated that complex multicellular
behaviors can be engineered by the stepwise assembly of
well-characterized genetic modules.
Tabor received his doctorate in Molecular Biology in 2006
from the University of Texas at Austin where he studied
how synthetic genetic circuits affect stochasticity, or noise,
in gene expression in Professor Andrew Ellington’s group.
Tabor has also had extensive involvement in the annual
International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM)
synthetic biology competition at MIT. His UT-Austin team
won the inaugural competition in 2004, submitting a
project that received international media acclaim and
became a staple project from which future teams built
their ideas. He is currently working with the Rice iGEM
team for the 2011 year. ●
Grande-Allen selected for A.J. Durelli Award by SEM
By Shawn Hutchins
Bioengineer recognized for research into structure-function relationship of heart valves
Jane Grande-Allen has been selected for the 2011 A.J.
Durelli Award by the Society for Experimental Mechanics,
Inc. (SEM) for her significant contributions of new techniques in experimental mechanics.
The award is given annually to recognize younger members of the society
in honor of A.J. Durelli, one of the
most outstanding experimental stress
analysts in the world during the second half of the 20th century. SEM will
present her with the award during the
society’s Annual Conference from
June 13-15, 2011 in Uncasville, CT.
Grande-Allen, an associate professor
of bioengineering, looks at valve disease from both material and mechanical perspectives. Her investigations integrate knowledge of heart valve physiology with precise
engineering analysis to examine how continuous mechanical movement and variations of pressure and blood flow
influence the biological function of heart valve tissue.
For the past decade, her experimental methods to test tissue function, strength, growth, and abnormalities have
ranged from nano to macro lengths of scale and have
sought new mechano-physico bases to forecast changes in
tissues over the course of a lifetime.
These studies have positioned her as a
leading expert in the study of the extracellular matrix that makes up cardiac valve tissue and how its components (collagen, elastin, glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans) assemble
into an intricate connective tissue network that influences normal cellmediated tissue growth.
The research has led to numerous
grants and awards, 60 peer-reviewed publications, two
book chapters, and 67 invited presentations. ●
Department Highlights
Page 7
Mikos wins Distinguished Scientist, Isaac Schour Memorial Award
Tissue engineering research recognized by IADR
By Shawn Hutchins
Antonios G. Mikos received the 2010 Distinguished Scientist Award, Isaac Schour Memorial Award of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR).
strategies to treat wounded military personnel and to accelerate the translation of regenerative medicine technologies from the laboratory to the clinic.
The award recognizes his outstanding contributions in the
anatomic sciences, including tissue engineering, tissue
regeneration, and stem cell research as it relates to the
oral, dental, and craniofacial complex. It confers the highest honor in
the field of dental and craniofacial
research and honors those scientists
who, through research in this field,
bring about significant advances in
oral health.
A key component of tissue engineering is the scaffold. Extensive investigations in the Mikos lab have pioneered the
development and testing of many polymeric, biodegradable implants that serve as 3-D architectures for
seeding cells and delivering different drugs that
influence cell behavior, stimulate growth and
differentiation, and prevent infection.
IADR presented Mikos with the
award at its General Session & Exhibition in Barcelona, Spain on July 14, 2010. The meeting
was attended by over 6,800 participants.
Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, director of the
John W. Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering, and
director of the Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering, is one of the nation’s top experts on the development
of biomaterial strategies for tissue regeneration.
Currently, his lab is involved in highly collaborative projects with the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative
Medicine (AFIRM) to develop novel tissue engineering
Over the past 20 years, Mikos’ work has led to
25 patents; many of which have been translated
to commercial successes. He has won several
prestigious awards, and is one of the toppublished U.S. scientists in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering with more than 400 publications and 16,000 citations in his name.
Mikos is a founding editor and editor-in-chief of the journals Tissue Engineering Part A, Tissue Engineering Part B:
Reviews, and Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods, and a
member of the editorial boards of the journals Advanced
Drug Delivery Reviews, Cell Transplantation, Journal of
Biomaterials Science Polymer Edition, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research (Part A and B), and Journal of
Controlled Release. He is the editor of 14 books and the
author of the award-winning textbook Biomaterials: The
Intersection of Biology and Materials Science. ●
Biomedical engineering authors Mikos, Temenoff
win ASEE Meriam/Wiley award
Antonios G. Mikos of Rice University
and Johnna S. Temenoff of the Georgia
Institute of Technology are recipients of
the 2010 Meriam/Wiley Distinguished
Author Award by the American Society
for Engineering Education (ASEE) for
the textbook Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science.
The award is offered biannually and is very competitive
with nominated books from engineering schools from
across the U.S. that contribute greatly to the advancement
of engineering technology and education. Mikos' and
Temenoff's book fills a niche in bioengineering education
and has been adopted by more than 40 U.S. universities.
Published by Pearson Prentice-Hall, the book was written
for second and third-year undergraduate bioengineering
students. Its comprehensive and fundamental text covers
basic principles of biomaterials science and engineering,
addresses complex issues associated with the structure
By Shawn Hutchins
and biocompatibility of synthetic materials, and cites indepth applications for new medical devices.
Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and director of
Rice's Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering, specializes in the synthesis, processing, and evaluation of new
biomaterials for use as scaffolds for tissue engineering, as
carriers for controlled drug delivery, and as non-viral vectors for gene therapy.
Temenoff, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter
Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech,
specializes in the development of model systems and novel
tissue engineering scaffolds to regenerate interfaces in
orthopaedic tissues. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2005,
she was a postdoctoral fellow in Mikos’ group. She earned
her Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 2003 at Rice under Mikos’
supervision. Her undergraduate degree is in biomedical
engineering from Case Western Reserve University. ●
Department Highlights
Page 8
Halas, West are State Bar Inventors of the Year
By Rice Staff Reports
Award recognizes nanotechnology-based invention
Rice University researchers Naomi Halas and Jennifer West
have been named Inventors of the Year by the State Bar of
Texas for their patented process to use light-activated gold
nanoparticles in cancer therapy.
The process uses near-infrared lasers to
heat gold nanoshells at the tumor site,
which destroys the tumor while leaving
healthy tissue unaffected.
The technique is in human trials
through Houston-based Nanospectra
Biosciences Inc., a company Halas and
West co-founded on the basis of the
technology patented by Rice.
West and Halas are the first women to win the award,
which has been presented since 1983. Theirs is also the
first nanotechnology-based invention to win. According
to a State Bar official, it is unusual for a
winning invention to come from outside
the electronics and petrochemical fields.
The professors were honored during the
State Bar of Texas Intellectual Property
Section luncheon during the organization's
June 11 meeting in Fort Worth. The award
consists of a commendation by Gov. Rick
Perry and a commemorative clock.
Nanospectra Biosciences, Inc., a privately
held, emerging life science company, was
Researchers Naomi Halas (left)
Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor
recently awarded a three-year $1.3 million
and Jennifer West (right) have
in Electrical and Computer Engineering
been named Inventors of the Year grant from the National Cancer Institute of
and professor of physics, chemistry and
the National Institutes of Health to develop
by the State Bar of Texas.
biomedical engineering, and West is the
its nanoparticle-directed therapy for the
Isabel C. Cameron Professor, department chair for
ablation of primary brain tumors. The University of Texas
bioengineering and professor in chemical and
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center is a research partner in
biomolecular engineering.
the award. ●
Tomasz Tkaczyk wins AAMI Professional Achievement Award
Tomasz Tkaczyk has been awarded
the 2010 Becton-Dickinson Professional Achievement Award by the
Association for the Advancement of
Medical Instrumentation for his
development of miniature and highperformance optical-imaging systems that have broad use in basic
research and clinical applications.
The award recognizes outstanding
achievements in the development of
medical devices, instruments or systems. Tkaczyk, an assistant professor
in both bioengineering and in electrical and computer engineering, is the third Rice bioengineer to receive this competitive award.
The bioimaging tools developed in his lab use advanced
technologies in optics, opto-mechanics, electronics and
software, and biochemical materials to produce quality images and quantitative data at various lengths of scale. The
devices and imaging systems, which are robust, portable,
inexpensive, and adaptable to mass production, have tremendous potential for point-of-care diagnostics in various
clinical settings around the world.
By Shawn Hutchins
The most recent technology to emerge from his lab is a
compact camera called the Image Mapping Spectrometer
(IMS) that couples with any high-resolution microscope
system to see a biological sample’s chemical and physical
composition. Recent tests have proven its potential as a
fundamental research tool for microscopy; however, the
IMS can also be used in a variety of industries, such as
security, oil exploration, quality control and research.
The Tkaczyk lab is also testing and implementing an advanced dual-functioning medical instrument called the Bi
-FOV Endoscope that identifies suspicious cancer lesions
in an area of several square centimeters; and then with
the help of contrast agents, the high-resolution component hones in on subcellular and molecular features.
Working with physicians at the University of Texas M. D.
Anderson Cancer Center and researchers at the BioScience Research Collaborative, Tkaczyk is developing ultraslim optical imaging systems that pinpoint the cellular
and molecular hallmarks of cancer in hard-to-reach tissue locations. One of the components, called the Integrated Optical Needle (ION), features a miniature microscope objective that when inserted into a small-gage hypodermic needle about 1.3 mm across it delicately advances through deep tissue to capture images through the
distal tip with sub-cellular resolution and in real time. ●
Department Highlights
Page 9
Deem receives AIChE Professional Progress Award
Rice University’s Michael Deem
is the 2010 recipient of the Professional Progress Award in Chemical
Engineering, one of the highest
achievements bestowed by the
American Institute of Chemical
Engineers (AIChE).
Deem, the John W. Cox Professor in
Biochemical and Genetic Engineering, and professor of physics and astronomy, is recognized for his pioneering theoretical work that brought
visionary ideas and new tools to vaccine design, mathematical biology, and nanoporous materials structure.
By receiving the Professional Progress Award along with
the Allan P. Colburn Award in 2004, Deem joins a select
group of only eight nationally who have received both of
what are considered two of the highest academic recognitions of AIChE in the last 25 years.
Deem has discovered new methods to quantify vaccine effectiveness and antigenic distance for influenza. His pepitope
measure of antigenic distance explains how the influenza
vaccine can have both positive and negative efficacy, and
has shown to be more predictive in characterizing the immune response to vaccine and virus than the gold-standard
animal model studies. The work has positioned him as a
noted authority on the early detection of new viral
strains. Deem has additionally designed methods to help
sculpt the immune system and mitigate immunodominance in cancer and dengue fever via multi-site vaccination, where different components of the vaccine are strategically injected to drain into lymph system.
Other seminal contributions to the field include Deem’s
exact solution of a quasispecies theory of evolution that
accounts for cross-species genetic exchange. The theory
quantifies how DNA from one species is introduced into
another through horizontal gene transfer and recombination. The work has led to ongoing studies in Deem lab to
discover new physical theories of competition that show
how HIV escapes the immune system.
In the materials field, Deem’s investigations into the
nanostructure, nucleation, and function of zeolites has
changed the way synthetic chemists think about zeolites
and led to widely-used DiFFaX and ZEFSA methods. He
provided the first atomistic simulations of silica nucleation under zeolite synthesis conditions, and developed a
database of hypothetical zeolite frameworks that contains
greater than four million structures. The availability of
such a database of designer catalysts is of significant scientific and industrial value in the oil and gas, and petroleum, and petrochemicals industries.
Deem has more than a dozen patents to his name. He
has presented his research at more than 200 invited
talks worldwide, and he is the author of over 100 peerreviewed publications and six book chapters. His work
has been cited over 2,000 times and honored by a
number of prestigious grants and awards. ●
Raphael selected for Rice’s Charles W. Duncan, Jr. Award
Robert Raphael was selected for
the 2010 Charles W. Duncan, Jr.
Award for Outstanding Faculty by
Rice University for his accomplishments in scholarship and teaching.
Raphael, an associate professor of
bioengineering, specializes in
membrane mechanics, auditory
physiology, cochlear biophysics,
and molecular/cellular engineering. His interdisciplinary, basic and
translational research has contributed greatly toward the
understanding of how biological membranes and the intricate workings of the inner ear produce sound. He has successfully applied this knowledge to shed light into the
causes of hearing loss and deafness.
By Shawn Hutchins
By Shawn Hutchins
His investigations have inspired new ideas into the design
of biosensors and microscale biomedical devices, have
been published in more than 40 peer-reviewed papers,
and have led to two patents/patent applications.
In 2008, Raphael co-founded the Houston-based
company Nano3D Biosciences (www.n3dbio.com), which
develops three-dimensional, in vitro cell-culturing platform technologies with applications in research, drug
discovery and regenerative medicine.
Raphael is also known as an inspiring teacher and
mentor. Since joining Rice in 2001, he has advised 10
graduate and 24 undergraduate students. Several of his
graduate students have received prestigious fellowships
and have obtained postdoctoral and medical residency
positions at institutions across the U.S. ●
Department News
Page 10
A gem of an idea
Optical imaging device instantly captures the brilliance of living cells in action
Just as a gemologist looks at carat, color, cut, and clarity
to maximize the brilliance of a diamond, Tomasz
Tkaczyk works to manipulate light when building highperformance optical imaging systems that display an
array of cellular and sub-cellular profiles.
The most recent platform technology to emerge from
his laboratory uses hyperspectral fluorescence microscopy
to instantly capture the brilliance of living cells in action.
The technique called Image Mapping Spectrometry (IMS)
uses a specialized compact camera that couples with any
high-resolution microscope, endoscope, or camera system
to see a biological sample’s chemical and physical composition. Details were reported in the July 5 Optics Express.
"IMS technology is designed to preserve the most light possible and specify a range of cellular dynamics from the
lightest to the darkest parts of the image,” explains Tkaczyk, an assistant professor in both bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering. “When cells are illuminated they fluoresce and are imaged under a microscope.
The hyperspectral component then instantly reveals biochemical composition, chromosome dynamics, and gene
expression in an array of color.”
Tkaczyk and bioengineering graduate students Robert Kester and Liang Gao built the camera through an exploratory
research grant by the NIH. Recent tests have proven its potential as a fundamental research tool for microscopy; however, IMS technology can also be used in a variety of industries, such as security, oil exploration, quality control and
research.
In a single snapshot and without the use of scanning techniques, the camera captures a specimen and separates it
into zones using an image mapper, which is a series of long,
thin, multi-angled mirror facets.
A sequence of components that include specialized lenses
By Shawn Hutchins
and a prism then works
to spread the image into
multiple spectral wavelengths and acquire a
250nm visible-light
range. A high-resolution
digital camera acquires
this array of information and correlates each
active pixel with the
encoded spatial and
spectral information.
IMS images of fluorescent labeled
This volume of informa- cells. A total of 19 images and one
tion, called a voxel, is
merged image (top left) are
assembled like a jigsaw shown out of 60 available spectral
puzzle by a laptop com- channels. The different colors
puter to instantaneously reveal cellular dynamics and
produce a 3-D data cube components such as actin,
that can be used at the mitochondria, and nuclei.
cellular level for the
discrimination of fluorophores, or at the tissue level for
in vivo clinical diagnostics.
“The non-scanning, snapshot nature of the system allows
us to image for extended periods of time without photo
bleaching,” added Tkaczyk.
IMS technology has the potential to become an indispensable tool. When combined with the use of multiple dyes, or
molecular-specific optically-active contrast agents, and the
expertise and resources of the Texas Medical Center, the
process can improve diagnostic decisions and the monitoring of diseases.
A patent application has been submitted, and earlier this
spring Tkaczyk and Kester co-founded Rebellion Photonics
based on the IMS technology. They are investigating avenues to commercialize the technology with the company’s
CEO and Rice alumna Allison Lami. ●
Stem cells: in search of a master controller
Rice bioengineers define relationship between key regulatory proteins
With thousands of scientists across the globe searching for
ways to use adult stem cells to fight disease, there's a
growing emphasis on finding the "master regulators" that
guide the differentiation of stem cells.
New research from Rice University and the University of
Cambridge suggests that a closely connected trio of regulatory proteins fulfills that role in hematopoietic stem cells
(HSCs), the self-renewing cells the body uses to make new
blood cells.
By Jade Boyd
The results appeared in the May 6 online journal PLoS
Computational Biology. Working with experimentalists at
Cambridge, Rice’s Oleg Igoshin and Jatin Narula created a
computer model that accurately describes the observed
behavior of the three regulatory proteins collectively
known as the "Scl-Gata2-Fli1 triad."
"We don't yet have the experimental verification that this
is the master-level regulator for HSCs, but based on our
model, we can say that it has all the properties that we
Continued on p. 11
Department News
Page 11
Rice program takes on protein puzzle
New strategy boosts speed, accuracy in simulation of protein folding
Rice University researchers have come up with a computer
program to accurately simulate protein folding dramatically faster than previous methods. It will allow scientists
to peer deeper into the roots of diseases, including Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, emphysema and various cancers
that are caused by proteins that fold incorrectly.
Cheng Zhang and Jianpeng Ma describe their simulation
of three short proteins with the new technique in the cover
story of the June 22 Journal of Chemical Physics. Ma is a
professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice
University and the Lodwick T. Bolin Professor of Biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine. Zhang is an applied
physics graduate student at Rice.
"Protein folding is regarded as one of the biggest unsolved
problems in biophysics," Ma said. "This is a technically
challenging task, and many groups around the world have
been competing for years to make the process faster and
more accurate."
By Mike Williams
Though the proteins assemble themselves in nature almost
instantly, their algorithm took weeks to run the simulation. Still, that was far faster than others have achieved.
"And for trpzip and villin, nobody has reached this level of
accuracy in the native state under similar simulation conditions -- that is, in the presence of water, which is the
most stringent condition," Ma said.
The researchers employed two novel strategies, continuously variable temperature and single-copy simulation.
"In the process of simulation, the computer has to search
through many, many possible structures of the protein
chain to find the lowest-energy solution," Ma said. "For
example, a polypeptide chain en route to its native state
encounters many energy barriers, much like when one
navigates through a rugged mountain landscape.
Understanding the intricacies of protein folding is a crucial
step in deciphering the genetic code that serves as the operating system of all living things.
"Speeding up the process of crossing those barriers is the
key to finding the true global minimum (energy state)," he
said. "In our simulation, temperature is a variable that
goes continuously up and down. When the temperature is
higher, proteins can overcome energy barriers faster. It's
equivalent to speeding up the motion of atoms."
Zhang and Ma reached unprecedented accuracy and
speed in simulating the folding of three relatively short
but well-understood proteins -- trpzip2, trp-cage and
the villin headpiece -- in the presence of water molecules,
which Ma described as the best way to simulate
physiological conditions.
Ma said the muscle to simulate a biological task that the
body's cells accomplish was possible through Rice's supercomputer cluster, the Shared University Grid at Rice, aka
SUG@R. His group is continuing its work on Rice's newest
supercomputer cluster, BlueBioU, for longer polypeptide
sequences. ●
Stem cells: in search of a master controller (Cont.)
Igoshin and Narula, a graduate student, worked with experimentalists Aileen Smith and Berthold Gottgens at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research to create a
All plants and animals have stem
mathematical model that accurately
cells, a constantly replenished feeddescribes the complex interplay among
stock of unspecialized progenitor cells
the three HSC regulatory proteins in
that have the ability to become any of
the Scl-Gata2-Fli1 triad. Based on preseveral specialized types of cell. An
vious studies at Cambridge, it was obviHSC is a type of adult stem cell that
ous that the triad plays an essential role
forms new blood cells. In a healthy
in HSC development. In creating their
human adult, HSCs are used to form
computer model, Igoshin and Narula
about 100 billion new white and red Pictured left to right are Assistant
were able to quantify the way the three
blood cells each day.
interact and thus shed light on their
Professor Oleg Igoshin and graduate
student Jatin Narula. Photo by Jeff Fitlow combined role in regulating HSCs.
But HSCs also need to be able to
The research was supported by Rice University, the Namake the additional stem cells needed to replenish the
tional Science Foundation and Leukemia and Lymphoma
body's supply. This self-renewal process becomes particuResearch UK. ●
larly important after significant blood loss through injury
or when patients receive bone marrow transplants.
would expect to find in a master-level regulator," said
Igoshin, an assistant professor
in bioengineering.
Student Highlights
Page 12
Seven Rice bioengineering students, alum named NSF Fellows
Of the 128 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate
Research Fellowships awarded to students the Biomedical
Engineering/Bioengineering disciplines, seven belong to
students and alumni from Rice’s Bioengineering program.
Awarded to top graduate students, NSF fellowships are
substantial and provide three years of support. Current
Rice bioengineering students to receive the award include
Allen Chen, Benjamin Grant, Anne Hellebust, Meaghan
McNeill, and Jennifer Petsche.
Allen Chen is a student in Professor Rebekah Drezek's
Optical Molecular Imaging and Nanobiotechnology
Laboratory. He is developing optically based minimally
invasive approaches for high accuracy, rapid point-of-care
cancer detection, and tumor margin delineation.
Benjamin Grant is a graduate student in Professor John
McDevitt’s Lab-on-a-Chip Sensor Technologies group and
student in the Med Into Grad program run by Rice and UT
M. D. Anderson. He is developing a point-of-care colorimetric liver function test for patients with HIV/AIDS that
monitors potential side effects from antiretroviral drugs.
Anne Hellebust conducts research in Professor Rebecca
Richards-Kortum’s Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory. She is designing optical contrast agent
“cocktails” to discriminate between normal tissue,
inflammation and neoplastic tissue. The agents are
being developed for topical delivery and aim to
minimize false-positive results in visual examinations of
suspicious lesions.
Meaghan McNeill, a first-year graduate student, is
interested in point-of-care diagnostics. Her honors thesis
research at Baylor University focused on the mechanics
of hippotherapy. In 2008, she participated in an NSF
summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
program at Rice where she analyzed data from the mechanical testing of heart valve leaflets in Associate Professor Grande-Allen’s research group.
Jennifer Petsche, a student in Assistant Professor Jeff
Jacot’s Pediatric Cardiovascular Bioengineering Laboratory at Texas Children’s Hospital, is investigating the use
of amniotic fluid-derived stem cells to regenerate cardiac
tissue and repair congenital heart defects.
Former Rice bioengineering undergraduate students
to receive the fellowship include Joseph Rosenthal and
Frank Ko who are both at Cornell University.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
supports top students in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing researchbased master’s and doctoral degrees. Fellows benefit from
a stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost-ofeducation allowance for tuition and fees, a one-time
$1,000 international travel allowance, and the freedom
to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. or
foreign institution of graduate education. ●
Rice student played role in creation of synthetic cell
Prior to graduating magna cum laude with B.S. degrees in
Bioengineering and in Biochemistry and Cell Biology this
past May, Thomas Segall-Shapiro got something else that was pretty great: co-authorship
of what may be the most significant scientific
paper of the 21st century so far.
Segall-Shapiro is one of 24 authors of the paper
published online by the journal Science that
announced the creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome.
The native of Chevy Chase, Md., spent his last
two summers in the Maryland lab of the J.
Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), founded by the
entrepreneurial scientist who in the 1990s challenged
the federal government in a race to decode the human
genome. (Their success was announced jointly in 2001.)
Venter's group assembled and implanted a synthesized
genome into a mycoplasma capricolum and replaced the
cell's original DNA. The new genome successfully
By Shawn Hutchins
By Mike Williams
"rebooted" the cell, took over its operation and reproduced
normally. Imbedded in the genome are "watermarks" that
contain the names of people, famous quotes and,
according to the authors, a website address.
The paper was widely discussed in the days after
its debut, with some scientists claiming the project
is a step toward discovering the origin of life itself.
President Barack Obama immediately ordered a
study of the research and its implications.
Segall-Shapiro was part of Rice's 2008 bio-beer
team that won a gold medal in the International
Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition and earned worldwide media attention for its
process to brew beer with resveratrol, a naturally occurring health supplement.
Segall-Shapiro is now a graduate student studying
synthetic biology at the University of California
at Berkeley. ●
Student Highlights
Page 13
Predoctoral Fellowship backs cardiovascular, stroke research
Two Rice bioengineering grad students win American Heart Association grant
The American Heart Association’s South Central Affiliate
has awarded competitive Predoctoral Fellowships to Rice
University bioengineering graduate students Dan Gould
and Hubert Tseng.
The fellowship, which includes a $25,000 stipend for one
to two years of research, is designed to initiate careers in
cardiovascular and stroke research. Gould and Tseng are
among 14 graduate students selected from across Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death and adult disability in the U.S., and the
condition affects over
700,000 Americans each
year. Patient recovery and
survival depends on where
the stroke occurs in the
brain and how much of the
brain is damaged due to lack
of nutrients and oxygen.
By Shawn Hutchins
Mechanics Laboratory at Rice. His efforts to reduce death
caused by cardiovascular disease take a close look at heart
valves from both material and mechanical perspectives.
Each year, about 5 million Americans are diagnosed with
valvular heart disease. According to recent statistics from
the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, about
95,000 open heart surgeries are performed annually for
patients with severe narrowing of the heart valve. Conventional heart valve replacement is a well-established procedure, however replacements fail predictably within
10-15 years.
“One underappreciated aspect of aortic valve replacement design is the layered structure of the
native
tissue. Each layer of
aortic valve tissue has
different structures: one
is very organized with
collagen, another is geDan Gould is in his third
latinous, and the other is
year of graduate studies at
elastic. These three layRice and is an M.D./Ph.D.
ers work synergistically
student in the Rice-Baylor
to
keep up with the deThe American Heart Association’s South Central Affiliate
Medical Scientist Training
mands
of the beating
has awarded competitive Predoctoral Fellowships to Rice
Program (MSTP). His research
heart,”
said Tseng.
University bioengineering graduate students Dan Gould
in Associate Professor Mary
(left) and Hubert Tseng (right) to open new doors in
Dickinson’s laboratory at
Tseng’s aim is to design an
cardiovascular and stroke research.
Baylor College of Medicine
anisotropic composite(BCM) involves the use of neulaminate scaffold for aortic
ral stem cells and novel scaffold materials for implantation
valve tissue engineering that matches native material
into the damaged cortex of stoke patients to stimulate the
properties. He will use the fellowship funds to investigate
repair of injured tissue. Dickinson is also an adjunct assodifferent hydrogel designs that are both biocompatible and
ciate professor in bioengineering at Rice, and a large porcan be tuned to have different mechanical properties.
tion of Gould’s work has been performed and supported
Tseng has a B.S. in Engineering Mechanics and in
by a National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and BioenApplied Mathematics and Statistics from Johns
gineering (NIBIB) Quantum grant in neuro-vascular
Hopkins University. ●
regeneration – a highly collaborative project with Rice
Professor Jennifer West.
“One critical aspect to stroke recovery is the early development of adequate blood vessel growth. My research
seeks to determine which growth factors are needed within
the scaffolds to work with neural stem cells and promote
blood vessel response and growth of replacement tissues,”
said Gould, who has a B.S. in Micobiology, Immunology
and Molecular Genetics from the University of California,
Los Angeles.
Hubert Tseng is a fourth-year graduate student in Associate Professor Jane Grande-Allen’s Integrative Matrix
Student Highlights and Alumni News
Page 14
A road less traveled
Rice, Baylor M.D./Ph.D. student wins top biomedical engineering awards
Few scholars have ventured down
the path that leads to M.D. and
Ph.D. degrees; especially to earn
the advanced degrees simultaneously. From this road less traveled,
Rice University alumnus Jim Kretlow has been selected for two prestigious awards for his outstanding
research accomplishments in the
fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Kretlow, a former Ph.D. student
of Antonios Mikos, was chosen for the 2010 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Outstanding Student Award of the North American Chapter of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative
Medicine International Society (TERMIS). He was selected
based on a non-published manuscript, which will be a recognized feature in the journal Tissue Engineering as the
result of the award.
Tissue Engineering is published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
and is widely considered the premier journal in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Kretlow is the first student selected for this inaugural award, which will be presented along with a $500 cash prize at the TERMIS North
American Conference in Orlando, FL, December 5-8, 2010.
Earlier this summer, Kretlow was named the 2011 Richard
R. Dickason, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Outstanding Physician
Scientist by Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). The BCM
award, which includes a $1,000 prize, has been given annually since 2001 to an M.D. /Ph.D. student for excellence in
academics, research, and citizenship. He is the first Rice
graduate student to receive the top honor from BCM’s
Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP).
Kretlow is the author of 23 peer-reviewed publications
related to biomaterials and bone tissue engineering primarily to address post-traumatic craniofacial injuries. A
large portion of this work has been performed and supported by the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative
Medicine (AFIRM), and is related to ongoing efforts by
Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, director of
the Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering, and director of the J.W. Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering; Kurt Kasper, a faculty fellow in bioengineering;
and Mark Wong, chairman of the Department of Oral and
Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Texas Health
Science Center at Houston. The AFIRM project aims to
use biomaterials in combination with growth factors, antibiotics, and cells to better address the repair of combat
injuries suffered during military service.
Additional awards Kretlow has recently received include
an MSTP Publication Award from BCM (2010), a Mary
Frances Dunham Morse Graduate Fellowship from Rice’s
Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (2009), and
the Rice University Outstanding Bioengineering Teaching
Assistant Award (2008).
Kretlow graduated cum laude from Rice in 2003 with
dual bachelor’s degrees in Bioengineering and Mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering this past May,
and has returned to BCM to complete his medical studies.
The MSTP at BCM has been funded by the National
Institute of General Medical Sciences for over 30 years.
There are 88 students currently in the physician-scientist
training program – making it one of the larger programs
of its kind in the United States. Almost 190 students have
graduated from the program with combined degrees;
including 26 who received their Ph.D. in Bioengineering
and other graduate programs at Rice. ●
Compact microscope a marvel
Matches performance of expensive lab gear in diagnosing TB
A compact microscope is proving its potential to impact
global health.
Results were published online in the August 4 journal
PLoS ONE by Rice bioengineering alumnus (‘09) Andrew
Miller and co-authors. The portable, battery-operated
fluorescence microscope, which costs $220, stacks up
nicely against devices that retail for as much as $40,000 in
diagnosing signs of tuberculosis.
Miller and colleagues at The Methodist Hospital Research
Institute (TMHRI) analyzed samples from 19 patients
suspected of having TB, an infectious disease that usually
attacks the lungs and can be fatal if not treated. His instru-
By Shawn Hutchins
By Mike Williams
ment performed just as well as the lab's referencestandard fluorescence microscope. The team reported
similar findings were obtained in 98.4 percent of the samples tested.
He created the 2.5-pound, battery-powered microscope as
his senior project last year, working with faculty in Rice
360˚: Institute for Global Health Technologies. The aim
was to make an inexpensive, robust, highly capable microscope that could be used in clinics in developing countries.
The microscope was built with off-the-shelf parts encased
in a rugged plastic shell Miller created
Continued on p. 15
with a 3-D printer at Rice's Oshman
Student Highlights and Alumni News
Page 15
Class of 2010 Graduate Degree Recipients
The Rice University Department of Bioengineering is
proud to recognize the following 2010 graduate degree
recipients, 13 of whom obtained a doctorate degree:
Julia Elizabeth Barbick, Ph.D. (Dec ‘09)
Adviser: Jennifer West, Ph.D.
Promotion and Control of Angiogenic Activity in
Polyethylene glycol) Diacrylate Hydrogels for Tissue
Engineering Applications
Joseph Andrew Barrow, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Samuel Miao-Sin Wu, Ph.D.
Spatiotemporal Response of the Photoreceptor Network
Sue Anne Chew, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Antonios Mikos, Ph.D.
Biodegradable Branched Polycationic Polymers as Nonviral Gene Delivery Vectors for Bone Tissue Engineering
Kerstin Martina Galler, Ph.D. (Dec ‘09)
Adviser: Jeffery Hartgerink, Ph.D.
Self-assembling Peptide Hydrogel Scaffolds for Dental
Tissue Regeneration
Seyed Pooya Hejazi, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Michael W. Deem, Ph.D.
The Immune System and Pathogen Co-Evolution
James Douglas Kretlow, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Antonios Mikos, Ph.D.
Biomaterial-Based Strategies for Craniofacial
Tissue Engineering
Irene Martinez Basterrechea, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Ka-Yiu San, Ph.D.
Metabolic Engineering of the Flow of Reducing
Equivalents for the Production of Biochemicals
in Escherichia coli
Stephanie Nemir, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Jennifer West, Ph.D.
Harnessing Cell Response to Substrate Rigidity
for Tissue Engineering Applications
Gidon Ofek, Ph.D. (Dec ‘09)
Adviser: Kyriacos Athanasiou, Ph.D.
Biomechanics of the Single Chondrocyte and
its Developing Extracellular Matrix
Anita Saraf, Ph.D. (Dec ‘09)
Adviser: Antonios Mikos, Ph.D.
Regulated Release of a Novel Non-viral Gene Delivery
Vector from Electrospun Coaxial Fiber Mesh Scaffolds
Richard A. Schwarz, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Ph.D.
Depth-Sensitive Optical Spectroscopy for Noninvasive
Diagnosis of Oral Neoplasia
Vittal Raman Srinivas, Ph.D. (Dec ‘09)
Adviser: K. Jane Grande-Allen, Ph.D.
Orthogonal Approaches for Studying
Glycosaminoglycan Biopolymer
Elizabeth Humes Stephens, Ph.D. (May ‘10)
Adviser: K. Jane Grande-Allen, Ph.D.
Composition, Turnover, and Mechanics of Extracellular
Matrix in Developing, Aging, and Pathological Valves—
for Application in the Design of Age-specific Tissue
Engineered Heart Valves
Vijetha Bhat, M.B.E. (May ‘09)
Cristen Marie Graham, M.B.E. (May ‘09)
Kemly Mary Philip, M.B.E. (May ‘09)
Liang Gao, M.S. (Dec ‘09)
Compact microscope a marvel (Cont.)
Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK). Light to power the
1,000-times magnification microscope comes from a topmounted LED flashlight.
The microscope won the 2010 Hershel M. Rich Invention
Award from Rice Engineering Alumni. It was the first
undergraduate project to win the award.
Miller, a full-time medical device designer for Thoratec in
San Francisco, spends his free time seeking ways to commercialize the microscope so that it is affordable for users
in developing countries.
Miller and Rice have contracted with a medical device consultant, 3rd Stone Design, to produce 20 microscopes that
soon will be ready for field testing. Co-authors of the paper include Rice alum Gregory Davis; Maria Oden, profes-
sor in the practice of
engineering education and director of
the OEDK; Mark
Pierce, a research
scientist in bioengineering; Randall
Olsen, a Methodist
Hospital pathologist Rebecca Richards-Kortum with
and TMHRI scientist; Andy Miller and his portable miand Mohamad
croscope, which incorporates fluoRazavi, Abolfazl
rescence microscopy and can be
Fateh, Morteza
manufactured for less than $220.
Ghazanfari, Farid
Abdolrahimi, Shahin Pourazar and Fatemeh Sakhaee of
the Pasteur Institute of Iran. ●
Department of Bioengineering
MS-142, 6100 Main Street,
Houston, TX 77005-1892
Phone: 713.348.5869
Fax: 713.348.5877
[email protected]
Grin and bear it
Texas dentists to test Rice students' portable suction device
Rice University bioengineering students really get their
teeth into their senior design projects. This year, one team
got everybody else's teeth into it, too.
By Mike Williams
oped by Beyond Traditional Borders to fulfill needs in
developing countries around the world.
“While building the device last year for their senior
engineering design project the students evaluated the need
described by their mentors at the
University of Texas Dental Branch
in Houston and created a viable
solution,” said co-adviser Maria
Oden, professor in the practice of
engineering education and director
Bioengineering majors Brian
of Rice’s Oshman Engineering
Benjamin and Jaime Wirth
Design Kitchen, where the device
teamed with Carmen Perez and
was built. "The system can run
Tiffany Kim, both of biochemiswithout direct electrical service
try, and cell biology major
and should protect patients from
Jessica Ma to build a footswallowing debris during proceoperated portable system that
dures, save dentists time as they
costs a lot less than the systems
perform procedures, and greatly
used by dental practitioners. The
reduce
the amount of waste to
students’ portable system is ideal The members of Team Pearly Whites show their dispose of — all at low cost."
dental vacuum device. From left, Tiffany Kim,
for developing countries with
Carmen Perez, Jaime Wirth and Jessica Ma.
A video about Team Pearly Whites
limited access to electricity.
Missing from the photo is Brian Benjamin.
and their device can be found on
Soon the device will be tested by Photo by Jeff Fitlow
YouTube. ●
dentists through the University of
Texas Dental Branch-Houston, and will eventually become
a standard part of Rice's dental Lab-in-a-Backpack develFive Rice seniors created a portable dental suction device,
an inexpensive, battery-powered
version of the vacuum system
commonly used in dentists'
offices to remove blood and
saliva from a patient's mouth.