Healing Wonders of Hydrogel Department News
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FALL 2013 HEALING HYDROGEL Associate professor Sharon Gerecht examines hydrogel, stained blue for visualization, with Hyun Ho Song (master's) and Yu I Shen (doctoral). Photo by Mary Spiro IN THIS ISSUE Healing Wonders of Hydrogel DeparTMENT NEWS.........2 FACULTY NEWS .............2 Sitting in a petri dish, hydrogel resembles a tiny jellyfish “We found that the inflammatory cells have a really you might come across during a vacation walk along easy time penetrating the gel, so that blood vessels are AWARDS AND HONORS.......3 the ocean’s edge. It’s transparent, colorless, and odorless. able to move in quickly and support the growth of new STUDENT INVOLVEMENT . .4 Smear it on third-degree burns in mice, however, tissues there,” says Gerecht, who also is affiliated with and its true power is revealed: Within days, those the Institute for NanoBioTechnology. “This is exactly CURRENT RESEARCH ........6 wounds begin to heal. Three weeks later, recovery is so what we designed the gel to do, and what we hoped ALUMNI NEWS..............7 advanced that hair is sprouting on the surface of the would happen.” rodents’ tender new skin. Interestingly enough, the researchers aren’t precisely “It’s definitely pretty amazing,” says Sharon sure how hydrogel works. Gerecht wonders whether it Gerecht, an associate professor in the Department of is somehow able to “recruit” stem cells, either circulat- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and leader of ing in the mice’s bloodstream or in the surrounding the team that developed the material. (Clinicians from tissues, and signal them that they need to become new the Johns Hopkins Burn Center at Bayview Medical skin and blood vessels. It is also possible, she says, that Center and the School of Medicine’s Department of the structure of the hydrogel directs the tissue repair in Pathology were part of that team.) “We were frankly some way she and her team don’t yet understand. surprised that it worked so well.” One great advantage of Gerecht’s hydrogel is that Though the simple substance comprising a water- it is purely synthetic and contains no pharmaceuticals based, 3-D network of polymers has only been tested or animal-derived ingredients, so the Food and Drug so far in laboratory mice (studies in pigs are about to Administration (FDA) will likely consider it a Class II begin), Gerecht and her team believe the gel has enor- medical device. (Class II medical devices are considered mous potential not only for the treatment of human “medium risk,” and include hearing aids and syringes.) third-degree burns (which reportedly afflict more than Class II devices take less time to go from “laboratory 100,000 Americans annually) but also in healing dia- to clinic” than do Class III devices, such as heart valves betic foot ulcers and other wounds that happen when and pacemakers, which are considered “high risk,” ac- vital blood vessels carrying oxygen-rich blood have been cording to Ian Tolfree, MS ’05, PhD ’09, a business seriously damaged or destroyed. CONTINUED ON page 7 DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL AND BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT NEWS MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR FACULTY NEWS Dear ChemBE Alumni and Friends, Gerecht Earns Tenure speak on his work at the ACS Fall Meeting in Sharon Gerecht, was promoted August 2012, as well as Rutgers University and This fall we conclude commemoration to tenured Associate Professor in our own JHU Department of Materials Science of the Centennial Anniversary of the Whiting May 2013. One of her PhD stu- and Engineering. His graduate student, David School of Engineering. In our latest edition dents, Sravanti Kusuma, won the Raciti, received the 2013 E2SHI and Croft of the ChemBE Bond newsletter, we are Peterson Award for the best student presentation Graduate Fellowships (JHU). His undergraduate happy to highlight some of the reasons we have at ACS BIOT 2012 and named a 2014 Siebel student, Matthew Gonzalez, received the 2013 to celebrate the innovation, creativity and Scholar. Quinton Smith received an NSF gradu- Provost's Undergraduate Research Award (JHU). drive of our faculty, students and alumni. ate research fellowship and honorable mention This fall, we welcomed 36 new graduate by the Ford Foundation Fellowship. Technol- Bevan Speaks and 94 new undergraduate students, selected ogy developed in Dr. Gerecht’s laboratory was in Switzerland from an ever-increasing pool of highly quali- optioned to a company who is also sponsoring Michael A. Bevan, Associate Pro- fied applicants. Our graduate students and further development. Dr. Gerecht traveled to fessor, Director of the Graduate postdoctoral fellows live up to their high Asia as part of a special panel that conducted Program, received new grants and promise and receive faculty appointments at an international Assessment of Physical sciences continued funding from the Air Forces Office of premier universities. We laud the professional and Engineering advances in LIfe sciences and Scientific Research, the National Science Foun- successes of our alumni and appreciate their ONcology (APHELION) for the NCI and NSF. dation, and the Office of Naval Research. His lab tremendous support of our developed novel methods for feedback control department. Gracias Promoted over colloidal assembly processes published in Furthermore, our faculty to Professor Advanced Functional Materials (featured as a re- remain extraordinary. David Gracias, was recently search highlight in Nature Materials) and in Lab Although our faculty are promoted to Full Professor and on a Chip (designated a “Top 10% paper”). He young—on average 14 years honored as the inaugural Russell was an invited speaker in workshops on emer- post graduation—we publish Croft Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University. gent colloidal dynamics (at EPFL, Switzerland) more than six peer-reviewed He was a recipient of the Nanoengineering Pio- and programmable functional materials (at Univ. articles per faculty member neer Award at the 2013 SPIE Defense Security Illinois Urbana-Champaign). One of his former per year in prestigious jour- and Sensing Meeting and will present an Interfa- doctoral students started as an assistant profes- nals such as CELL, Journal cial Phenomena Plenary Session talk at the 2013 sor in Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M of Cell Biology and PNAS, AIChE National Meeting. Recent collaborative University and another was awarded a Langmuir to name a few. In addition, research projects in the Gracias Lab including student presentation award from the ACS Col- we are recognized for our the statistical biopsy of tissue with sub-milli- loids & Surfaces Division. innovative research activities as well as for meter scaled surgical tools and the 3D printing remarkable dedication as mentors and educa- of a bionic ear received significant national and Konstantopoulos tors, as evidenced by the awards that both we international attention such as being featured on Brings New Insights and our trainees receive inside and outside the NIH Research Matters, NPR, CBS News and to Cell Migration university community. Wired Magazine. ChemBE professor and chair My colleagues and I are confident that Konstantinos Konstantopoulos ChemBE will continue to excel in the years Wang Lab Growing investigated how the width of a micro-channel to come. We all share the university’s mission, Chao Wang, Assistant Professor, impacts cell movement. His results were which is traceable in our heritage as the na- joined the department in July published in the Aug. 26 issue of the Journal of tion’s first research institute, that as a depart- 2012 and is a recipient of the Cell Biology. When crawling through a spacious ment, we remain committed to generating 2013 E2SHI Seed Grant (JHU) channel (50 μm wide), a cell can slide through new knowledge through discovery, innovation, and ORAU (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) unhindered using a movement style regulated by scholarship and implementation of research award. In the past year, he has started his lab for Rac1. A narrower channel (10 μm) constrains the to help mankind. a variety of studies including organic solution cell. And when the width is confined to a very synthesis of nanomaterials such as alloy nanopar- tight space (3 μm width), the cell has to squeeze ticles and chalcogenide nanocrystals, GC-MS itself to fit through, and its movement is driven for chemical analysis, heterogeneous catalytic by myosin II. This study shows that cells are experiments, and potentiostats for electrocataly- more plastic than previously thought, and that Best wishes, sis. His co-authored paper, “Mesostructured thin physical microenvironment alters cell migration Konstantinos Konstantopoulos films as electrocatalysts with tunable composi- mechanisms. Faculty of 1000 has recommended Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular tion and surface morphology” was published in the work as being of special significance. Engineering Nature Materials (2012). He was also invited to 2 JHU.EDU/CHEMBE AWARDS & HONORS Joelle Frechette, Assistant Profes- Marc Donohue, Professor, is cur- • Quinton Smith from Sharon Gerecht’s lab re- sor, has seen a lot of changes in rently the Chair of Board of Direc- ceived a fellowship from the National Science her lab in 2012 as a postdoc (Min- tors for the Council of Chemical Foundation (NSF) and honorable mention by gxiang Luo), a PhD (Rohini Gupta) Research (CCR). During the past the Ford Foundation Fellowship. and two MS (Arianne Sevilla, and year, Dr. Donohue developed three • Colin Paul from the Konstantopoulos lab Tim Bowman) left, while three new PhD students new courses: Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynam- received the BMES Graduate Design and joined the group (Yumo Wang, Charles Dhong, and ics and Alternative Energy. Research Award. Colin’s extended abstract, Xiaoqing Hua). Her lab published 6 referred papers “A MIcrofluidic Device to Measure Traction in 2012, including one in Lab on a Chip with an Konstantinos Konstantopoulos was Forces During Confined Migration” will be undergraduate student as a first author and one selected as the 2013 recipient of presented at the BMES Annual Town Hall and in Langmuir about our efforts to understand the the Rice University Department Awards Ceremony on September 26, 2013.