Pictured from Left to Right: BME Chair and Professor John White, Dean ad interim Elise Morgan, keynote speaker and dean of the Brown University School of Engineeering Tejal Desai, and BTEC Executive Director Diane Joseph-McCarthy.
Promising advances in biological engineering were the topics of discussion at the Bioengineering Technology & Entrepreneurship Center’s (BTEC) inaugural symposium this month. The event featured former BME faculty member and current dean of the Brown University School of Engineering Tejal Desai, as well as several BME faculty members and an industry executive.
In her remarks at the event’s outset, Dean ad interim Elise Morgan noted that a kick-off event for BTEC had been planned for the facility’s opening in the spring of 2020, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the time since classes resumed on campus, Morgan noted that BTEC has become a go-to destination for students, and has a perfect home in one of the nation’s preeminent Biomedical Engineering departments.
BTEC Executive Director Diane Joseph-McCarthy said, “BTEC is a biological engineering makerspace and the vision is for it to be a place where education and innovation is transformed for bioengineering students through hands-on learning in partnership with industry.”
Desai, who was a member of the BME faculty from 2002-2005, gave a talk titled “A Fantastic Voyage: Combining Nanoengineering, Biology, and Clinical Translation to Improve Therapy for Patients.” She said her field is at an inflection point as it moves to apply data collection to understand biological processes and aid patients.
One area of focus is modulating the epithelial barriers of the skin and eyes to introduce therapeutics less invasively and more enduringly. She cited the eye as an example. Currently, patients suffering from macular degeneration must endure injections into the eyeball because the therapeutic antibodies cannot cross the surface of the eye. What’s more, the antibodies dissipate quickly, requiring patients to undergo the uncomfortable procedure several times a year. She is working on developing a nanopore delivery device that would release medication slowly and at a constant rate and would require just one injection per year.
She also outlined an effort to dial up or down the body’s immune reaction, which produces inflammation. The approach involves nanometer-scale wires with attached antibodies, which can capture cytokines. In so doing, they have the potential to increase the immune response to kill cancer cells, or to mitigate it to treat diseases like diabetes and psoriasis.
Following Desai’s keynote, several BME faculty made presentations. William G. Warrren Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering Christopher Chen offered “Models: The Path from Ideas to Impact;” Associate Professor Mary Dunlop presented “Optogenetic Feedback Control of Gene Expression and Antibiotic Resistance in Single Cells;” Assistant Professor Hadi Nia discussed “Crystal Ribcage: A Platform for Probing Real-Time Lung Function at Cellular Resolution in Health and Disease;” Assistant Professor Timothy Shea presented “Sweet Biomaterials for Neural Repair;” and Assistant Professor Michelle Teplensky spoke on “Harnessing Nanoscale Engineering to Program Immunology for Potent Vaccines.” In addition, Jeremy Jenkins, US Head of Discovery Sciences at Novartis, discussed “Mining Unbiased Compound Profiling Data for Drug Discovery.” Novartis is a BTEC-member company and Jenkins sits on the BTEC industrial advisory board.
BTEC offers bioengineering students hands-on learning and advances cutting-edge technologies identified in partnership with industry. It consists of three suites: Molecular, Cellular, and Tissue Engineering; Biosensors and Instrumentation; and Digital and Predictive Medicine Design.