News 2018
November 2018
Defense and Goodbyes
Kellen defended his dissertation “Predictive Models of Cell Alignment and Scar Formation under Mechanical Loading” in the historic Dome Room at the Rotunda. Kellen, Colleen, and JJ left the CBG at the end of the month. They moved to Stanford University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Pennsylvania, respectively.
Promoting Engineering in Medicine
“Finding ways to reduce literal, and disciplinary, separation between engineering and medicine is essential for cultivating and expanding innovation at the interface.” Read Dr. Holmes's article in The Conversation
August 2018
Arlynn joins the lab!
Arlynn Baker is joining the CBG as a PhD student after receiving her BS in mechanical engineering from Western Carolina University.July 2018
Aligning Our Expectations
Laura published her paper titled Surgical Reinforcement Alters Collagen Alignment and Turnover in Healing Myocardial Infarcts in the American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory Physiology
Dr. Holmes receives the Van C. Mow Medal
Dr. Holmes received a prestigious mid-career award and also gave an associated plenary talk at the 2018 World Congress of Biomechanics in Dublin, Ireland. He received the Mow Medal for demonstrating meritorious contributions to the field of bioengineering through research, education, professional development, leadership in the development of the profession, mentorship to young bioengineers, and with service to the bioengineering community.
World Congress of Biomechanics Winners
Congratulations to Laura and Kellen who were both selected as finalists in the PhD Student Paper Competition at the 2018 World Congress of Biomechanics. Laura received 3rd place in the "Cardiac Imaging and Modeling" session and Kellen received 3rd place in the "Biomechanics at the Cell, Tissue, and Multiscale Level" session.
Becoming a Modeler
Derek traveled to Park City, Utah to participate in the 2018 Image-Based Biomedical Modeling (IBBM) workshop. He became an expert on FEBio and plans to apply mixture theory to cardiac growth & remodeling.
May 2018
A Badger Among Us
Congratulations to Colleen who accepted a new job in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin as an Assistant Professor; she starts next January.
TK Wins Otis and Mary Updike Professional Development Award
TK was selected among his peers in the BME department for this scholarship awarded annually to student exhibiting outstanding scholarship, personal commitment to the field of biomedical engineering, and significant contribution to the academic community.
April 2018
Kellen GapSummit 2018 Conference
Kellen was competitively selected as one of 100 young professionals from over 1000 applicants globally. He traveled to Cambridge University, UKÂ to meet and learn from CEOs and executives from top biotech companies about the current "gaps" in biotechnology. Kellen also did a business pitch as one of the finalists in the Voices of Tomorrow competition.
March 2018
Engineering School Research Symposium Successes
Congratulations to Laura who was selected as a finalist to represent the BME department with a podium talk at the 2018 University of Virginia Engineering Research Symposium (UVERS). And congratulations to Kellen who won first place representing BME in the poster competition.
Derek Earns NSF GRFP Honorable Mention
Congratulations to Derek who received GRFP honorable mention for his project applying machine learning to predict left ventricular growth and remodeling.
January 2018
Drawing New Boundaries
Kellen Chen published his experimental and modeling paper on the role of boundary conditions in determining cell alignment in response to stretch. This was a collaboration between Kellen's experimental work on cell alignment with modeling developed by the McMeeking (UC Santa Barbara) and Deshpande (Cambridge) groups.
News 2017
August 2017
What Exactly Does Your ECM Know?
Dr. Holmes was one of two investigators nationwide selected for the new AHA-Allen Distinguished Investigators program. A collaboration with Dr. Sarah Ewald in Microbiology and Dr. Zunder in BME, this project will track information flow in the cardiac extracellular matrix during aging and following myocardial infarction.
See more about the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQnYF7AXUr4
July 2017
Has Cardiac Fibrosis Met its Match?
Dr. Saucerman and Dr. Holmes received a new joint grant from the NIH to study the systems biology of cardiac fibrosis. The project uses signaling network and agent-based models, and includes Dr. Peirce-Cottler from BME as well.
Colleen wins AHA Fellowship
Colleen Witzenburg received a 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association to investigate the factors that drive dilation and heart failure progression following myocardial infarction.
June 2017
Hot But Cool
This month, Dr. Holmes chaired the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference (SB3C2017) in Tucson, Arizona. Nearly 700 people braved the heat to geek out about biomechanics, including Ana, JJ, and Kyoko.
Summer REU
UVA BME's new Multi-Scale Systems Bioengineering REU program brought Johns Hopkins University rising senior Tommy Athey to the lab. He worked with JJ from the CBG to couple an agent-based model of cardiac fibroblasts with the Angela Zeigler's signaling network model.
May 2017
CBG Undergrads are Going Places
Abby Teitgen graduates this month. She won a Whitaker International Fellowship to study in Auckland next year, then will pursue a Ph.D. in Bioengineering at UC San Diego.
April 2017
Virtual CRT and the CBG
The Seraph Foundation is funding the Virtual CRT project, a collaboration with Dr. Kenneth Bilchick in Cardiology to develop fast, user-friendly software to help physicians plan cardiac resynchronization therapy.
January 2017
Welcome Derek
Derek Bivona completed his rotations and joined the CBG. Derek is studying growth and remodeling in both cardiac and skeletal muscle.
News 2016
November 2016
Special Issue on Cardiovascular Biomechanics
Dr. Holmes co-wrote an editorial for a special issue of the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering; the issue highlights young investigators in cardiovascular biomechanics.
October 2016
Colleen's Homecoming
Colleen and Kellen presented talks at BMES in Colleen's home state, Minnesota. Go Gophers! Colleen presented on modeling the compensatory response following myocardial infarction. Kellen presented a comparison of his in vitro results from stretching fibroblasts in collagen gels to a computational model of cell alignment.
June 2016
Road Trip to SB3C
Kellen, Colleen, and T.K. traveled to National Harbor, MD to present at the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference (SB3C2016). T.K. won second place in the Master's Student Paper Competition.
Summer in the CBG
Devrick Thomas, a rising senior at Georgia State University, joined the CBG for the summer through the School of Medicine's Summer Research Internship Program. He is working with Ana Estrada on analyzing the collagen alignment of myocardial infarction scar in sheep.
May 2016
Ana wins AHA Fellowship
Ana Estrada won a 2-year Predoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association to study the effect of mechanical reinforcement on cardiac growth post myocardial infarction.
Congratulations Angela and Will
Angela Zeigler from the Saucerman lab and Will Richardson from the CBG published the first large-scale cardiac fibroblast signaling network model in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.
News 2015
December 2015
JJ Joins the CBG
Jia-Jye Lee completed her PhD with Dr. Kevin Costa at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and joined the CBG in December. She will be our new point person on agent-based scar modeling.
November 2015
Reviews, Reviews, Reviews
Three review articles from the CBG were released online this month, including a review on therapeutically modifying infarct mechanics in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (Clarke, Richardson, Holmes), a review on “Making Better Scar” in terms of both mechanical and electrical properties in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (by Dr. Holmes and Dr. Lior Gepstein), and a review on computational modeling of cardiac fibrosis written jointly with the Saucerman lab.
September 2015
New Grant on Multiscale Modeling of Heart Growth
A new U01 Multiscale Modeling grant from the NIH will support a collaboration between the CBG and the CMRG at UC San Diego to study how the heart remodels following infarction and in response to cardiac resynchronization therapy.
August 2015
More Goodbyes
Sam graduated and accepted a job with Ethicon, and Will accepted a faculty job in Bioengineering at Clemson; he starts in January.
June 2015
Mechanics with Altitude
Sam, Will, and Dr. Holmes all attended the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport (SB3C) Conference in Snowbird, Utah. Sam and Will both gave talks on their research, and we all earned margaritas by hiking to the top of Hidden Peak.
May 2015
Moving On
Kamal, Kevin, Vaish, William, and Wade all graduated this month, and moved on to jobs, medical school, and BME PhD programs (William will head to Georgia Tech, Wade to UCSD). Congrats to all!
March 2015
Mechanics Matters
This month, Dr. Holmes gave invited talks at two conferences where mechanics is not usually featured: a Keystone Symposium on Cell Biology of the Heart and a Gordon Research Conference on Cardiac Arrhythmia Mechanics. The talks addressed how scar structure and mechanics influence the effect of a wide range of heart therapies, including stem cell implantation and radiofrequency ablation.
January 2015
New Research on Atrial Fibrillation
The CBG has secured funding from nContact, Inc. to evaluate the mechanical effects of their novel approach to ablation for atrial fibrillation.
News 2014
December 2014
So many grants, he has to give some back!
This summer, Will was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association. Now, he has also been selected for a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. Sadly, he can't keep them both…
October 2014
Undergrads rule at BMES 2014
Will led a team of CBG undergrads who presented their research at the 2014 Biomedical Engineering Society annual meetings in San Antonio, TX. Vaish, Wade, and William all presented posters, and Will gave a talk as well.
September 2014
Biomechanics Summer School in Austria
Dr. Holmes joined 5 other instructors at the 6th Summer School on Biomechanics in Graz, Austria. Organized by Professors Gerhard Holzapfel and Ray Ogden, the summer schools are held every other year and provide a great crash course in continuum mechanics and current state-of-the-art biomechanics research.
August 2014
New Scar Grant on Scar Modeling and Remodeling
A new R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund a stringent test of our models of scar formation in the heart. We will predict changes in scar structure following mechanical unloading by surgical reinforcement, then test those predictions in new experiments. The ultimate goal is to produce models good enough for use in designing new post-infarction therapies.
July 2014
CBG at the WCB
Cardiac Biomechanics Group members gave 4 talks at the World Congress of Biomechanics in Boston this month. Highlighted projects included Christian's work on the mechanics of atrial fibrillation, Will's work on scar compaction, and Wade's models of hemodynamics compensation following infarction.
May 2014
Colleen Witzenburg selected for Hartwell Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
Colleen – currently completing her PhD with Dr. Victor Barocas – won a postdoctoral fellowship from the Hartwell Foundation to model heart growth in children with congenital heart disease. She will start her project in Fall 2014.
March 2014
Two new PhD students join the CBG
Two new PhD students have finished their rotations and officially joined the lab. Kellen Chen did his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, and Ana Estrada graduated from Rice University.
February 2014
Paper published and highlighted in Biophysical Journal
Andrew's paper showing that mechanical restraint biases cell migration in an in vitro wound model was published in Biophysical Journal and highlighted in a New & Notable editorial by Guy Genin and Elliot Elson.
January 2014
Physiological Genomics paper selected for the cover
Beth and Charlie's paper, “Effects of stretch and shortening on gene expression in intact myocardium,” was published in Physiological Genomics and selected for the cover illustration. The paper shows that a surprising number of genes that respond specifically to changes in shortening in cardiac muscle are related to extracellular matrix.