Category: Research
BU Dark Matter Researcher Wins Award for Contributions to Experimental Physics
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has named Boston University physicist Alex Sushkov to its 2023 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators. The recognition is given to a select group of distinguished scientists who the organization hopes will make “extraordinary contributions to the field of experimental physics.” Sushkov will receive $1.25 million over five years to support his work on an imaging technique used to study the nuclei of atoms.
Royal Society of Chemistry Honors BU’s Mark Grinstaff
Chemist, biomedical engineer, and William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor Mark Grinstaff has won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Centenary Prize in “recognition of brilliance in research and innovation.” The Centenary Prize is given to “outstanding chemists, who are also exceptional communicators, from overseas,” according to its website.
FDA Clears Bionic Pancreas Developed in BU Lab for People with Type 1 Diabetes
A bionic pancreas—a wearable, pocket-sized, automated insulin delivery device—that was first developed in a Boston University lab has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The iLet Bionic Pancreas is now commercially available, bringing fresh hope to the almost two million Americans with type 1 diabetes.
Ji-Xin Cheng Named BU’s Innovator of the Year
Moustakas Chair Professor in Photonics and Optoelectronics Ji-Xin has been named the 2022 Boston University Innovator of the Year. The College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and materials science and engineering has a long list of trailblazing achievements, including inventing a way to use blue light and hydrogen peroxide to treat a drug-resistant skin infection called MRSA, finding molecular signatures associated with aggressive cancers for treatment and diagnosis, and creating novel imaging techniques using infrared light to see molecules inside living cells.
CAS’ Renato Mancuso Wins Gitner Family Award
Renato Mancuso was awarded the Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. Mancuso received the award for designing a system that enables students to submit their coding assignments via a web-based interface and then view how their submission performs and compares to classmates’ work.
BU Researchers Join $100 Million Effort to Fight Future Deadly Pathogens
Boston University researchers are joining a $100 million effort to advance our understanding of dangerous pathogens—and help spur new ways to defeat or at least contain them. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Emerging Pathogens Initiative, which is pulling in 70 scientists from 29 organizations, will include 7 BU researchers, who will be part of teams working on the next generation of RNA-based antiviral therapies and investigating microscopic pathogenic parasites called protozoa. BU’s share of the funding will be $16 million.
BU Finds CTE in Nearly 92 Percent of Ex-NFL Players Studied
According to new figures released by the Boston University CTE Center, 345 former NFL players were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), out of 376 former players who were studied, a rate of 91.7 percent. To put those numbers in perspective, a 2018 BU study of 164 brains of men and women donated to the Framingham Heart Study found that only 1 of 164 (less than 1 percent) showed signs of the progressive degenerative brain disease. And that lone CTE case? A former college football player.
BU Researchers Named AAAS Fellows
Every year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) honors scientists across the country for their pioneering or outstanding contributions to their disciplines. BU’s 2023 honorees are astrophysicist Catherine Espaillat, chemist Malika Jeffries-EL, and electrical engineer Vivek Goyal.
BU’s Christopher Chen Elected a National Academy of Inventors Fellow
Christopher Chen, a Boston University biomedical engineer, has been named a National Academy of Inventors fellow in recognition of a career filled with patents and inventions—many building toward potentially lifesaving breakthroughs. In 2022 alone, Chen cofounded a regenerative medicine company—securing $110 million in funding to boost its organ-healing technology—and helped build a miniature beating heart that could speed efforts to repair damage from a heart attack. To be nominated for a fellowship, inventors must have a track record of “outstanding contributions to innovation” and be a named inventor on patents.
NEIDL Researchers Discover New SARS-CoV-2 Weak Spot—Which Could Inspire Improved Vaccines
In a Boston University–led paper published online in Nature, an international team of researchers identify the mutations that help Omicron dodge prior immunity and show that a previously unheralded virus protein—known as NSP6—might be an essential factor in the variant’s lower disease-causing potential, or its pathogenicity. A draft containing some of the paper’s early results previously made international headlines when a series of false reports sensationally misconstrued its findings. But the study’s senior author, BU virologist Mohsan Saeed, says this research could have a major positive impact, potentially helping provide a new target for vaccines and therapeutics.
