Brianna Perales (ENG\u201928) has always loved hands-on work and problem-solving. Growing up, her family didn\u2019t have the resources to send her to summer science camps. Instead, Perales would make her own toy claw vending machines out of cereal boxes and scrap plastic, finding joy in building something functional. Later, she joined STEM-focused clubs in high school that only furthered her engineering interest and abilities. But after learning her lungs had developed scar tissue from a nasty bout of pneumonia, Perales\u2019 quest for discovery found a new purpose: finding a way to treat\u2014and even regenerate\u2014tissue damage in patients like herself.<\/p>\n
When Perales came to Boston University to study electrical and biomedical engineering\u2014the first in her family to go to college\u2014she looked for ways to have an immediate impact.<\/p>\n
This past year, Perales applied for a BU College of Engineering\u2013affiliated program, Research Engineering and Mentoring-Includes (REM-Includes), designed to give first-generation and low-income college students their first taste of lab time. It\u2019s run by the BU-led\u00a0<\/span>CELL-MET, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center in Cellular Metamaterials<\/a>. The center, funded by a 10-year NSF grant and housed at the BU Photonics Center, is a collaboration between partner institutions\u2014BU, Florida International University, and the University of Michigan\u2014that seeks to create\u00a0<\/span>breakthroughs in cardiovascular care<\/a>, particularly in the areas of cardiac tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.<\/p>\n