Zhang Gets $3-Million Grant to Engineer Heart Tissue
Biomedical Engineering Department Chair Jianyi “Jay” Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., brought his expertise to UAB to fix hearts.
His dream — and the dream of other heart experts at major research universities around the world — is creating new tissue that can replace or protect damaged muscle after a heart attack.
Zhang already took a major step toward that goal when he and colleagues protected pigs from post-heart attack heart failure. As described in his 2014 Cell Stem Cell paper, the researchers placed a mat of fibrin over the area where muscle had died and injected three types of cardiovascular cells underneath the mat. This is somewhat akin to starting new lawn by scattering grass seeds beneath a protective layer of hay. The fibrin helped some of the injected cells survive and grow, and they in turn protected the heart from further damage.
While Zhang’s colleague at the University of Paris Descartes, Philippe Menasché, M.D., Ph.D., is currently testing this approach on five patients, Zhang is launching a new effort in biomedical engineering to improve heart repair, supported by a new $3 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the NIH.
Instead of injecting individual cells and hoping they take seed, Zhang plans to robotically build and grow a mat of heart tissue made from individual cells, using a custom 3-D printer. Surgeons will then place this custom mat of living cells over the dead, infarcted tissue of the heart, somewhat akin to starting a new lawn by laying sod.
“We will make our own printer, using machinery experts, robotic experts and computer science experts,” said Zhang, who last fall became the new leader of UAB Biomedical Engineering, a joint department of the UAB School of Medicine and School of Engineering. “A robotic arm will pick up cells of various types from petri dishes and place them onto fine needles that are a few microns apart. The growing cells fuse after three to seven days, and the shape is based on the needles.”
“Then we can lift off the tissue,” Zhang said. “It is scaffold-less tissue engineering. I already have two Ph.D. students on the project.”
AIMTech to Unveil First Product at ACSM Conference
Chris Hurt works with a geriatric patient to measure her fitness level on the ResistX treadmill. After its debut in Boston, the ResistX will be used in Hurt's lab in the UAB Department of Physical Therapy.A unique treadmill designed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UAB and Southern Research will make its debut at the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Boston May 31-June 4.
The device, ResistX, is the first product produced by the Alliance for Innovative Medical Technology (AIMTech), a partnership between Southern Research and the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering.
“ResistX is different from anything on the market, and represents a significant milestone for AIMTech and the physical therapy and rehab communities,” said Robert Hergenrother, Ph.D., director of AIMTech and professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
ResistX is a unique force-induced treadmill designed with safety in mind and engineered for use in physical therapy and rehabilitation centers. It is the first treadmill to allow individuals recovering from neurological or physical disorders — such as injury, stroke, or surgery — to exercise in a challenging treadmill environment to improve cardiovascular fitness and lower limb strength. Thanks to a custom algorithm, the device employs resistive forces to increase the amount of work required by an individual to move under his or her own effort, and at a comfortable pace.
Additionally, in order to guard against injury, ResistX features a protective catching mechanism and padded backstop. These features ensure that if a user loses balance, he or she will not fall or be thrown from the device.
The project was accelerated by a $164,800 grant from the Alabama Innovation Fund — a program administered by the Alabama Department of Commerce that provides funding for promising research being conducted at Alabama universities and organizations.
SAFER Barriers Go International
Life-saving Technology Installed at Historic Le Mans Race Circuit
Mechancial Engineering Professor Dean Sicking is the inventor of the SAFER Barrier, a product proven to save lives on American racetracks that is now being used for the first time on the historic circuit at Le Mans, France.For more than a decade, the SAFER Barrier has proved its life-saving ability at NASCAR and IndyCar circuits across the United States. This year, the device is going international.
The SAFER Barrier is making its European debut at the historic circuit in Le Mans, France, site of the world’s oldest active endurance racing event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The SAFER Barrier, which stands for Steel and Foam Energy Reduction, is the invention of Dean Sicking, Ph.D., a mechanical engineering professor and researcher at the UAB School of Engineering.
Sicking says the installation of his product at Le Mans is significant in that it marks the first time a racing facility has performed an independent evaluation of two competing barrier systems. Earlier renovations to the Le Mans circuit in 2014 installed TechPro barriers, a fundamentally different type of barrier system.
“We are very pleased that Le Mans is installing the SAFER Barrier, because we believe it validates what we already know; that our barrier is the best option to improve driver safety,” said Sicking.
SAFER Barriers from uabnews on Vimeo.
Dream Opportunity
Members of the senior design team that designed and built an electric car made a strong impression at a career fair in Detroit, landing several interviews and, for one, a job offer from Fiat Chrysler. Team members are, from left, Michael Burke, Max Goldsmith, Christina Town, and Chantel Jordi.
ME Grad Uses Senior Design Trip to Land Job with Chrysler
When a team of engineering students took their senior design project to Detroit for a competition in April, it was the end of a long journey and the culmination of months of hard work. For one member of that team, however, the trip that capped his college engineering career resulted in a new beginning—a job offer from Fiat Chrysler Automotive.
Hessam Taherian, far right, served as the team's faculty mentor throughout the senior design project. Click the image above to view a larger version.Michael Burke, who graduated from UAB in the spring with a degree in mechanical engineering, will start work in mid-June as part of the Chrysler Institute of Engineering Program—a multi-phase training program that immerses new employees in seven different areas of automotive development while also paying for them to pursue master’s degrees at select Detroit-area universities.
“I’ve always been passionate about cars, so this is a dream opportunity,” says Burke. “I’ve never lived in the North before, so that part will be an adjustment, but this is a chance to continue my education while working for Chrysler. I can’t pass that up.”
While it may seem that Burke is stepping straight from college to the big leagues, the job with Chrysler is not his first foray into industry. As an undergraduate, he completed an internship at Southern CaseArts in Bessemer as well as a co-op position at Nemak Alabama—a manufacturing facility in Sylacauga that, coincidentally, makes engine blocks for Chrysler.
Both of those experiences, he says, were invaluable once he arrived in Detroit. “I would encourage any engineering student to take advantage of the co-op and internship opportunities that are available through Career Services,” he said. “Even though I’m entering a training program at Chrysler, every question in my formal interview was about my prior work experience. If I had focused only on school work and hadn’t explored those jobs, I don’t believe I would have gotten this chance.”
