Science & Technology

After graduating in May with a degree in biomedical engineering from the McKelvey School of Engineering, Carolyn Duncan will work as a researcher at Auragent Bioscience, a startup with many WashU connections.

Ning Zhang, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to address threats to the availability of cyber-physical systems, like the systems behind self-driving cars or energy production pipelines.

Sang-Hoon Bae, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the McKelvey School of Engineering, won an award from Samsung’s Global Research Outreach Program to explore next-generation semiconductor materials and fabrication.

Ning Zhang, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, won a three-year $180,000 award from Intel to support work to assure availability of the Intel Trusted Edge Platform.

Fuzhong Zhang, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, developed a method to create synthetic spider silk at high yields while retaining strength and toughness using mussel foot proteins.

Abhinav Jha, an assistant professor at the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine, and his collaborators developed and evaluated two methods to quantitatively determine the realism of synthetic, or computer-generated, medical images.

Quing Zhu, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, and Matthew Mutch, MD, at the School of Medicine, have been working together to develop a new imaging technology that can help doctors determine which colorectal cancer patients’ treatments have been successful, helping some to avoid surgery. Their efforts received a $1.75 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant.

Lan Yang, the Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor at the McKelvey School of Engineering, has been elected a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors. She is among 95 new senior members who will be honored in June at the NAI’s annual meeting,

Researchers from the laboratory of Amit Pathak at the McKelvey School of Engineering found that cancer cells can sense a layer of cells beneath the top collagen layer on which they normally travel, while normal cells cannot. Their new study was published in Cell Reports.

Faculty from Arts & Sciences, the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine received seed grants and other funding from the Taylor Geospatial Institute totaling more than $950,000. The grants are designed to encourage collaborative research and provide resources to advance geospatial science through innovative projects.