Category: McKelvey School of Engineering

How do cells take out the trash?

Unfolded proteins are unhealthy proteins. When found inside of cells, they are rounded up, identified, and destroyed. This is an important quality-control process, especially in the brain and the heart. How these unfolded proteins are identified, however, has been a mystery. Now, research led by Kiersten Ruff, a senior research scientist in the lab of […]

Kamilov awarded second Scialog grant

Ulugbek Kamilov, PhD, assistant professor of electrical and systems engineering and of computer science at Washington University in St. Louis’ McKelvey School of Engineering, is among 21 early-career researchers awarded funding in the second year of Scialog: Advancing Bioimaging. The project is supported by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the […]

Personalized prediction of depression treatment outcomes with wearables

Over the past several years, managing one’s mental health has become more of a priority with an increased emphasis on self-care. Depression alone affects more than 300 million people worldwide annually. Recognizing this, there is significant interest to leverage popular wearable devices to monitor an individual’s mental health by measuring markers such as activity levels, […]

High-tech imaging focuses on oxygen metabolism in newborn brain

Our brains consume huge amounts of energy and rely on oxygen supplied by blood vessels. When the brains of infants are deprived of oxygen for any reason, it can lead to brain injury that causes cerebral palsy, epilepsy or cognitive impairment.  Song Hu, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering […]

New practical method of producing Airy beams could enhance ultrasound

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis recently invented a technique for generating ultrasound waves that can self-bend, like the rainbow. Airy beams are a class of acoustic waves that move on a curved, arch-like trajectory and can auto-focus around obstacles that are directly in the beam’s path, which makes them well suited for ultrasound […]

Restoring movement after spinal cord injury focus of new research

People with spinal cord injuries often experience lifelong movement impairment or paralysis, for which there is no cure. When coupled with rehabilitative exercise, electrical spinal cord stimulation can help restore some movement, though the mechanisms of how the nerves in the spinal cord recover are unknown. Ismael Seáñez, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at […]

Study reveals novel mechanism behind epilepsy, drug modulation

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that arises from abnormal electrical activity in the brain leading to seizures. These seizure events can have a variety of causes, including genetic variants in a family of proteins that regulate potassium ions in the brain. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have led an international team to take […]

Predicting surgical outcomes with machine learning

Hospitals spend about one-third of their expenses on perioperative care – the high-stakes period just before and after a patient is in surgery — to prevent complications afterward. Washington University in St. Louis researchers have developed a machine learning approach that exploits the large amount of clinical data collected during perioperative care to predict potential […]

Wang receives funding for preterm birth research

The factors that lead to preterm birth, which affects nearly 10% of pregnancies worldwide, are poorly understood. Its effects, however, are known. Among them: cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, and visual and hearing impairments. In order to better understand the cause of preterm birth, researchers need to better understand the uterine contractions patterns responsible for initiating […]

Modeling personalized medicine for neurocritical illness

Precision medicine, which considers the unique characteristics of individuals to provide the most effective treatment, has been a goal of health care providers for decades. Now, it is a goal for those with critical neurological illnesses, such as stroke, traumatic brain injury and spine trauma, to track and predict secondary injury, such as seizures, and […]

A helping hand

Collaboration across disciplines is integral at WashU, often yielding life-changing discoveries. In 2002, when Eric Leuthardt, MD, and Dan Moran, PhD, were introduced to each other by their department chairs, no one could have predicted it would lead to a collaboration that is reshaping the future of neuroscience. Moran, professor of biomedical engineering at the […]

NIH grant awarded to create neurotech training program

The National Institutes of Health has awarded Daniel Moran, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, more than $1 million over five years to create the Translational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology Training Program. This interdisciplinary program will train students to use engineering tools to develop technology that address neurological issues such as […]

A one-two punch for photoacoustic imaging

Scientists use photoacoustic microscopy to measure various biomarkers in the body, but some of these measurements can be inaccurate due to limitations of the light-focusing beam that produces out-of-focus images. Engineers in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have designed a new technique that combines hardware and software innovations as […]

Podcast: Giving stroke patients a hand

Brain-computer interfaces connect activity in the brain to an external device by means of a computer. Research has shown it’s possible to use such interfaces to move robotic arms and perform other tasks. Almost 30 years ago, Washington University researcher Eric Leuthardt, MD, a professor of neurosurgery, demonstrated that he could hook electrodes to the brains […]

Wearable ultrasound sensors for human brain in development

A submarine can inadvertently reveal its location because of cavitation, a condition that creates bubbles underwater that burst, then emit sound waves that can be detected by sonar. A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis plans to use the same concept to detect cavitation in human brains that may contribute to […]

New structure found in cells

Every cell contains millions of protein molecules. Some of them have the ability to phase-separate to form non-membrane-bound compartments, called biomolecular condensates, inside a cell. It has long been assumed that there was no further structure underlying these condensates, only solution-soluble proteins. A research group led by Rohit Pappu, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor […]

Early to serve as interim CRE2 director

Gerald Early, PhD, the Merle King Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences, will serve as interim director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) at Washington University in St. Louis, effective July 1. The center provides programs and partnerships for Danforth and Medical campus faculty researching issues related to race […]

Board grants faculty appointments, promotions, tenure

At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting May 6, numerous faculty members were appointed or promoted with tenure or granted tenure, effective July 1 unless otherwise indicated. Appointment with tenure Andrew Clark as associate professor of electrical and systems engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering; Xianglin Li as associate professor of mechanical […]

Lew lab sheds new light on cell membranes

Research from the lab of Matthew Lew, PhD at Washington University in St. Louis offers entirely new ways to see the very small. The research — two papers by PhD students at the McKelvey School of Engineering — was published in the journals Optica and Nano Letters. They have developed novel hardware and algorithms that allow them to visualize the […]

WashU weekly Neuroscience publications: May 9, 2022

“Shared and unique brain network features predict cognitive, personality, and mental health scores in the ABCD study” (2022) Nature Communications Shared and unique brain network features predict cognitive, personality, and mental health scores in the ABCD study(2022) Nature Communications, 13 (1), art. no. 2217, .  Chen, J.a b c d , Tam, A.a b c d , Kebets, V.a b c d , Orban, C.a b c d , Ooi, L.Q.R.a b c d e , Asplund, C.L.b c d f g h , Marek, S.i , Dosenbach, N.U.F.j k l m , […]

BME Day 2022 showcases senior design projects and student innovation

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering welcomed students, judges and guests back May 2 for the first in-person BME Day since 2019. The celebration rounds out a year of learning with senior design competitions, research awards, faculty presentation and the Frank C.P. and Grace C. Yin Distinguished Lecture. Student teams […]

Pappu lab untangles more IDR secrets

Intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) of proteins, when tethered to folded domains, function either as flexible tails or as linkers between domains. Most IDRs are composed of a mixture of oppositely charged residues. Recent measurements of tethered polyampholytes have shown that arginine- and lysine-rich sequences tend to behave very differently from one another. In a paper […]

Cui to seek better drugs for irregular heartbeat

Irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, affects about 5 million people in the United States, and interestingly, some of the drugs used to treat the condition can also cause it. A biomedical engineer in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis is going deep into the basic mechanisms that lead to arrhythmia to […]

Bayly-led team to study mechanical strains, stresses in traumatic brain injury

Naval warfighters may be exposed to explosions, impacts or high accelerations that increase their risk for traumatic brain injury. A team of researchers led by Philip Bayly, PhD, at Washington University in St. Louis plans a comprehensive study of skull-brain mechanics using imaging, computer and preclinical models to study the strains and stresses of the […]

Board grants faculty appointments, promotions, tenure

At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting March 4, numerous faculty members were appointed or promoted with tenure or granted tenure, effective July 1 unless otherwise indicated. Promotion with tenure Carlos A. Botero to associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences; Caitlyn M. Collins to associate professor of sociology in Arts & […]

Predicting the chaos in Tourette syndrome tics

During the pandemic, news reports surfaced of a surge of young adults showing up at doctors’ offices with unexplainable movement disorders that looked, perhaps to a nonspecialist, a little bit like Tourette syndrome. But when those patients were sent to see a specialist, “They’d say, ‘that doesn’t look at all like any of my first […]

Low-cost, 3D printed device may broaden focused ultrasound use

Researchers and clinicians have been working to use focused ultrasound combined with microbubbles to open the blood-brain barrier (BBB) for both noninvasive diagnostic use as well as to deliver treatments to the brain for tumors and neurodegenerative diseases. However, the few existing devices for preclinical research are expensive, bulky and lack the precision needed for […]

The ‘surprisingly simple’ arithmetic of smell

Smell a cup of coffee. Smell it inside or outside; summer or winter; in a coffee shop with a scone; in a pizza parlor with pepperoni — even at a pizza parlor with a scone! — coffee smells like coffee. Why don’t other smells or different environmental factors “get in the way,” so to speak, […]

Understanding features that help cells stay organized

The labs of Tanja Mittag, PhD at St. Jude and Rohit Pappu, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of biomedical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, created a stickers-and-spacers model to discern the rules underlying the driving forces for phase separation. The “stickers” and “spacers” are different types of amino acids along the […]

International team finds new mechanism critical for formation of membrane vesicles

Researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, Université de Montréal and McGill University have discovered a new mechanism by which membrane vesicles are made. The roles played by these self-contained nanoparticles are essential to the normal function of our cells. Their dysfunction is implicated in diseases ranging from cancers […]

Paola Cepeda named Director of Postdoctoral Affairs

Dear Colleagues, I am pleased to announce that, after a nationwide search, Paola Cepeda, PhD, has been named Director of Postdoctoral Affairs in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, effective January 4, 2022. Paola currently serves as the Program Manager for Graduate and Postdoctoral Professional Development at Stony Brook University. In the role […]

IpsiHand stroke-recovery device named product of year by science society

The IpsiHand, an innovative stroke-recovery device that helps stroke patients recover significant arm and hand function by retraining their brains, has received the 2021 Pantheon Product of the Year Award from California Life Sciences. The organization advocates for the state’s life sciences sector and its innovation pipeline by supporting companies of all sizes, from early-stage […]

Covey, Milbrandt, Moran named to National Academy of Inventors

The National Academy of Inventors has elected three faculty members from Washington University in St. Louis to its 2021 cohort of fellows: Psychiatry professor Douglas F. Covey, PhD, geneticist Jeffrey Milbrandt, MD, PhD, both at the School of Medicine; and bioengineer Daniel Moran, PhD, at the McKelvey School of Engineering. The NAI fellowship is the highest professional distinction reserved solely […]

WashU weekly Neuroscience publications

“Levetiracetam Prophylaxis for Children Admitted With Traumatic Brain Injury” (2022) Pediatric Neurology Levetiracetam Prophylaxis for Children Admitted With Traumatic Brain Injury (2022) Pediatric Neurology, 126, pp. 114-119.  Surtees, T.-L.a , Kumar, I.b , Garton, H.J.L.c , Rivas-Rodriguez, F.d , Parmar, H.d , McCaffery, H.b , Riebe-Rodgers, J.b , Shellhaas, R.A.b a Department of Neurology, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United Statesb Departments […]