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. mechanisms for tree frog adhesion. The research of Bioengineering Distinguished • Zev Binder, a PhD student in the Wirtz lab, in her lab aims to harness interfacial phenomena Alumnus Award. He was presented was awarded the NIH/NCI F31 Fellowship to achieve external, reversible, and local control of with this honor at the BMES meeting at the (Sept. 2013) "Invasion of glioblastoma multi- wetting and adhesion properties. Washington State Convention Center in Seattle on forme cells in organotypic brain slices". September 26. • Kimberly Stroka, postdoc in the Konstanto- Jeffrey Gray, Associate Professor, poulos lab, was awarded an NIH fellowship enjoyed a sabbatical at the Uni- Marc Ostermeier, Professor, (March 2013) “Role of the physical microen- versity of Texas at Austin where he renewed his NIH R01 grant on vironment in tumor cell migration and the scaled up his lab’s antibody struc- developing protein switches as se- cell cycle”. ture prediction methods to analyze lective therapeutic agents. His lab repertoires of antibodies from naive and matured developed and published a novel B cell populations. The lab released the Second method for high-throughput targeted mutagenesis Undergraduate Awards Edition of the PyRosetta Workshops, now used in of DNA called PFunkel and used the method to protein engineering/biophysics courses at MIT, develop a new hypothesis on the origin of the • Joshua Scaralia’ 14 received the 2013 NYU, U-Kansas, UNC, and Stanford. His team led genetic code. Genentech Process Research & Development the Rosetta Commons deployment of the ROSIE (PR&D) Outstanding Student Award. server providing free access to nine biomolecular Rebecca Schulman, Assistant • Matthew Gonzalez ’15, Alex Abramson ‘15, modeling protocols. The lab’s paper on pKa predic- Professor, received an NSF CA- Hyun Ji (Sarah) Kim’14 and Parth Patel ‘15 tions in proteins was the most frequently accessed REER award and a DOE grant for received the Fall 2013 Provost’s Undergradu- article in Biophysical Journal last August. the design of active materials for ate Research Award (JHU). Chanon Tuntivate nanoscale circuit assembly and ‘15 received the Summer 2013 Provost’s energy applications. She delivered seven invited Undergraduate Research Award (JHU). Faculty Awards conferences talks and departmental seminars, • Joseph Colao ’13, Mitchell Desmond ’13, Michael Betenbaugh, Professor and work from her group on self-assembly was Faraz Jivan ’13, Yoni Krupski ’14, Daniel received a $2M grant from the published in Physical Review Letters and the Pro- Lewis ’14, Yu Chuan Ou ’14, Nicholas Mav- NSF EFRI (Emerging Frontiers in ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. rogiannis ’13, Parth Patel ’15 and Nicholaus Research and Innovation). Trenton ’13 received the Chemical and Denis Wirtz, the Theophilus Hal- Biomolecular Engineering Undergraduate ley Smoot Professor, received a Research Award. Honggang Cui, Assistant Professor, $3.75M grant from NIH to develop • Sangkyun Cho ’13, Hasini Jayatilaka ’13, El- earned an NSF Career Award to improved strategies for therapy liot Osbourne ’13 and Nicholaus Trenton ’13 develop new strategies to directly and prognosis in pancreatic received the Joseph L. Katz Award. assemble anticancer drugs into cancer. The grant launched the Center for Digital • Joseph Colao ’13 and Kelsey Hirotsu ’13 well-defined nanostructures. Pathology. received the Loy Wilkinson Award. Cui has published more than 10 manuscripts in • Kevin Huang ’14 and Rachel LeCover ’14 journals such as ACS Nano and Journal of the received the Paul A.C. Cook Award. American Chemical Society. Graduate and PostDoc • Matthew Davenport ’13 and Kavan Reddy Fellowships & Awards ’13 received the Elenora Streb Muly Award. Lise Dahuron, Senior Lecturer, • Jorge Marchand-Benmaman ’13 received the received from the Class of 2013, • David Raciti from Chao Wang’s lab received Francis J. Fisher Award. The Gold Cup Award for outstanding the 2013 E2SHI and Croft Graduate Fellow- • Alexis Ham ’14, Kevin Huang ’14 and Nicho- contribution to enhance the academic ships (JHU). las Siegel ’14 received the AIChE Award. experience of graduating seniors.

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 3 Student Involvement

Students Build Device Grad Students for Precise Liquid Manipulation Hit the Trail

seniors and now in the department’s master’s Ten students from the Chemical and Biomo- degree program, used the fact that when an ex- lecular Engineering Department took part in a ternal electric field is applied across an interface service project June 1 organized by the Graduate between two materials with different electrical Student Liaison Committee (GSLC) at Patapsco properties, surface charge will accumulate at the Valley State Park for National Trails Day. The interface. This allows electric fields to be used to event focused on reclaiming a portion of trail precisely control micro-particle motion in liquid. that was both the product of and a contributing The goal of the project was to be able to electri- factor to significant erosion in the park. cally manipulate liquid in microfluidic devices at The ChemBE students used pickaxes, shovels the same level of precision that others have been and pulaskis to break up the old trail. Leaves able to electrically manipulate particles. and deadfall were then used to obscure the trail The effect, called Fluidic Dielectrophoresis and several plants were placed at the trailhead (fDEP), “has been limited to the boundaries to further discourage continued use of this of suspended particles, oil droplets, or liquid- particular trail. This will allow this section of the electrode surfaces,” said Desmond. “This is why state park to return to a more natural condition we decided to look at the effect of an electric and will encourage hikers to use the sustainable field on a new interface, that is on a liquid-liquid trail that was put in place by the park’s rangers a interface.” The team created the device with a few years ago. A Liquid interface displaces in an electric field (a) Top simple T-channel design with two inlets and a The new trail was specifically planned to view of a microfluidic liquid interface between an array of single outlet as shown in the photo. “The two decrease erosion during rainstorms and provide microelectrodes created using a microfluidic “T-channel”. solutions come together to create an interface a more relaxing and enjoyable hiking experi- [3D VIEW] Confocal microscopy reveals a sharp (< 2 μm) down the center. Electrodes are aligned to the ence for the park’s guests. After a tiring morning boundary between two co-flowing red and green fluores- center channel in between the interface.” Des- of trail work, the ChemBE students gathered cently labeled streams. (b) The interface polarizes and mond explained. together for lunch and pictures. They had a great electrically displaces when exposed to an AC electric field. Their project and paper demonstrated that time at the park and are looking forward to dielectrophoresis could be used to displace the future service events! interface in a way that allowed for the liquid National Trails Day is an annual event that Students in the laboratory of assistant profes- to be controlled precisely. The vision for this has been sponsored by the American Hiking sor Zachary Gagnon developed a lab-on-a-chip research, Desmond added, would be to create Society since the 1980’s to celebrate and support device for a senior design project that resulted diagnostic point-of-care medical testing devices the trail system in the United States being published in the prestigious peer-reviewed that use this new lab-on-a-chip technology to journal, Physical Review Letters. Mitchell Des- improve global health. mond and Nick Mavrogiannis, then ChemBE —Mary Spiro Gonzalez Nets Sommerman TA Award

The George M.L. Sommerman Engineering Gonzalez said she enjoyed teaching this course, because it used “Peer-led Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, granted an- Team Learning,” which implements workshop-style problem solving. nually to an outstanding graduate teaching assis- “I worked with small groups of students and got to know their indi- tant in the Whiting School of Engineering, was vidual strengths and learning styles. It was a fun challenge to figure out awarded to Courtney Gonzalez, a PhD student how they would best learn different concepts and how to make sure the in the laboratory of Professor Marc Ostermeier. group worked in harmony. It's rewarding to see students apply what they've For the last two years, Gonzalez has been the learned and successfully solve a problem. As a TA, you get to see a lot of teaching assistant for Associate Professor Jeff those ‘light bulb’ moments!” she said. Gray’s course Process Analysis in Chemical and Gonzalez’s own research focuses on “epistasis, which is the interaction of Biological Systems. mutations, in an antibiotic resistance gene,” Ostermeier explained. “Court- “Besides being technically excellent and ney is carrying out what will be the largest epistasis study of its kind using a performing all her grading and teaching duties combination of a synthetic biology and next generation DNA sequencing,” with great attention to quality, Courtney is very he said. She is also an NRSA fellow from the National Institute of General observant and she figured out effective pedagogi- Medical Sciences. cal methods,” Gray said. —Mary Spiro

4 jhu.edu/chembe Recent Graduates

Susan Thomas Receives Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award

Susan N. Thomas, a former Prior to this appointment, she was PhD student in the laboratory a Whitaker postdoctoral scholar of Konstantinos Konstantopou- at École Polytechnique Fédéral los, has received the 2013 Rita de Lausanne (one of the Swiss Schaffer Young Investigator from Federal Institutes of Technology) the Biomedical Engineering developing nanomaterials for can- Society. The award was presented cer immunotherapy and studying at the society's Annual Meeting the role of lymphatic transport in in Seattle September 28. The immunity. Rita Schaffer Young Investiga- She received her PhD from tor Award is offered each year by Johns Hopkins University while the BMES to stimulate research working as an NSF Graduate careers in biomedical engineering. Research Fellow in ChemBE The award is given to a young where she studied the role of fluid investigator whose originality and flow in regulating blood-borne ingenuity is demonstrated in a metastasis. She received her BS published work. in Chemical Engineering with an Thomas is currently an assis- emphasis in Bioengineering from tant professor at the Georgia the University of California Los Institute of Technology. She Angeles (cum laude). joined Georgia Tech in November —From BMES News 2011 as an Assistant Professor.

Stephanie Fraley is a postdoctoral fellow working with Samuel Yang, MD, in Emergency Medicine/Infectious Disease at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Jeff Wang, PhD, in Biomedical Engineering with appointments in the Whiting School of Engineering and the medi- cal school. The goal of her work is to develop engineering technologies that can diagnose and guide treatment of sepsis, a leading cause of death worldwide, while simultaneously leading to improved understand- ing of how human cells and bacterial cells interact. Fraley earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and her doctorate in ChemBE with Denis Wirtz, professor and director of Johns Hopkins Physical Sciences-Oncology Center. Wirtz is associate director for the Institute for NanoBioTechnology and Yang and Wang also are INBT affiliated faculty members. Fraley Earns Prestigious Burroughs “Sepsis is an out of control immune response to infection,” Fraley said. “We are developing tools that are single molecule sensitive and can Wellcome Fund Award rapidly sort and detect bacterial and host response markers associated with sepsis. However, our devices are universal in that they can be ap- plied to many other diseases.” A Johns Hopkins research fellow and former ChemBE doctoral student who Fraley is using lab-on-chip technology, also known as microfluidics, is developing novel approaches to quickly identify bacterial DNA and human to overcome the challenges of identifying the specific genetic material microRNA has won the prestigious $500,000 Burroughs Wellcome Fund of bacteria and immune cells. Her technology aims to sort the genetic (BWF) Career Award at the Scientific Interfaces. The prize, distributed over material down to the level of individual sequences so that each can be the next five years, helps transition newly minted PhDs from postdoctoral quantified with single molecule sensitivity. work into their first faculty positions. —Mary Spiro

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 5 Current Research

Getting a Grip on Better Biopsies

When movie audiences in 1966 thrilled to watch a diminutive submarine race through a man’s ar- teries to save him from a deadly blood clot, The Fantastic Voyage was exactly that: an incredible story ripped from the pages of a science fiction novel. Half a century later, the notion of deploy- ing miniaturized tools into the body’s tiniest c ias L ab c ias L ab conduits and organs is no longer either fantastic or incredible: It’s happening. of G ra t esy

One of the newest and most exciting exam- of G ra t esy ples of this comes out of the laboratory of David o c u r o c u r t Gracias, the Russell Croft Faculty Scholar and an t P ho associate professor in the Department of Chemi- P ho cal and Biomolecular Engineering. A team led Prof. Gracias discussing m-gripper fabrication protocols Mu-Gripper near the opening of a catheter. by Gracias, along with postdoctoral fellow Evin with post-doctoral fellow Evin Gultepe Gultepe and gastroenterologists Eun Shin and Florin Selaru of the Department of Medicine, has— for the first time ever—sent hundreds of via endoscope into the warm GI tract, the grip- the greater the chance (statistically) of finding untethered, dust-particle sized devices into the pers’ polymer-coated joints soften, causing them mutations-in-the-making. digestive system of a living animal to collect tis- to attach to mucosa and excise tissue samples. “We used a mathematical model that showed sue for biopsies. They are then collected by a magnet inserted that it would take up to 1,000 samples to make “For more than 50 years, people have been through the endoscope so that the DNA can be sure you don’t miss a peanut-sized lesion,” says talking about doing this, but we have actually harvested and examined for mutations and signs Gracias, who also is affiliated with the Institute done it,” says Gracias, co-author on a paper of cancer or other pathology. for NanoBioTechnology. “When you consider about the research that appeared in recent issues Taking a biopsy this way is far superior to the that, it’s not surprising that when you sample of Gastroenterology and Advanced Materials. conventional method, according to Selaru, who only a small part of the colon, you might miss The ultrathin chromium and gold instru- also is a molecular biologist. something vitally important.” ments called “mu-grippers,” each measuring “A typical cancer-surveillance endoscopic As promising as the technology is, though, less than a millimeter in diameter, can collect session for patients involves taking about 30 the team has more work to do before it can be living cells from hard to access places in the body random forceps samples of colon tissue, two at tried in humans. without being attached to any wires or tubes, a time, which is time-consuming. The endosco- “We have provisional patents on the design, and without being powered by batteries or any pist can’t take more samples than that because it and [the mu-grippers] are very easy and inexpen- external sources. Instead, Gracias and his team will cause undue trauma to the tissue. But with sive to make,” Gracias says. “As we move toward cleverly designed the grippers to respond to the mu-grippers, we can get literally hundreds this becoming a medical device, there is much thermal and biochemical signals. of samples from various parts of the colon with fine tuning to do. But in the end, we think this Stored on ice before the procedure, the mu- little or no trauma,” he explains. will be a real paradigm shift in the way biopsies grippers’ six three-jointed digits extend straight Even more important is the fact that the are done, and that’s really exciting.” out from the center “palm.” But once deployed greater the number of tissue samples taken, —Lisa DeNike Ercolano

2013 AIChE Annual Meeting Global Challenges for Engineering a Sustainable Future November 3-8, 2013 Hilton San Francisco Union Square, San Francisco, CA

The AIChE Annual Meeting is the premier educational forum for chemical engineers interested in innovation and professional growth. Academic and industry experts will cover wide range of topics relevant to cutting-edge research, new technologies, and emerging growth areas in chemical engineering.

Join us at the Johns Hopkins University Reception, Tuesday, November 5 at 8 p.m.; location TBA.

6 jhu.edu/chembe Alumni News

Alumni Profile: Mark Perez, ’98 Chemical Engineering

The way Mark Perez sees it, all engineering has a single goal: problem solving. “Whether you’re a chemical, mechanical, or other kind of engineer, what you do in the end is analyze situations and solve problems,” he said. Today, as a partner with San Francisco Bay Area-based Virgo Investment Group LLC, Perez analyzes special situations for a living, leading his firm’s investment efforts in sectors that include aviation and niche industrials. He credits his engineering background and varied technical and professional experiences for his ability to offer a different perspective on investments at Virgo, a firm that has managed in excess of $500 million in committed and deployed capital since inception. Perez graduated from Hopkins in 1998 with a degree in chemical engineering, and it was at JHU where he honed important analytical and critical thinking skills. “It was at Hopkins where I learned how to evaluate complex situations, gather and analyze data, run a process, think methodically, and velop national environmental regulations. Three In early 2009, Perez relocated to the Bay ultimately, solve whatever problem was in front years later, though, he was restless, and made the Area to join JHU alumnus and friend, Jesse of me,” he says. leap to Seattle’s ChemPoint, a specialty chemical Watson (IR ’99) in launching Virgo. In fact, it was Perez’s desire to always tackle distribution company and subsidiary of Univar Perez’s Hopkins ties remain strong. Not only “the next challenge” that has led him down a NV. There, he discovered an appetite and facility have he and Watson used the JHU Career Cen- path not clearly obvious for most engineers: the for business. ter to find and hire a summer intern, but Perez one away from engineering and toward business Perez eventually left ChemPoint to enroll at also serves as an alumnus interviewer for Bay and finance. New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School Area students applying to the Whiting School. The son of a chemical engineer, Perez chose of Business. Upon obtaining an MBA with hon- “I tell the students I meet that Johns Hop- Hopkins because of its strong engineering ors and specialization in finance, he joined the kins is a superb place to receive a high quality program ensconced in a world-class research investment banking division of Goldman, Sachs education and learn the skills necessary to be university. & Co. in the firm’s Global Natural Resources successful at a wide range of careers,” he says. Upon graduation, he became an assistant group. —Lisa DeNike Ercolano project manager with the U.S. EPA’s Office of “Once again, my engineering background Science and Technology, where he helped de- was a big asset,” said Perez.

Continued from page 1 Tolfree, who notes that the university has filed that have the potential to grow into almost any analyst with Homewood Intellectual Property, patents to protect the invention and signed a kind of tissue within the human body.) which manages IP and technology commercial- licensing agreement with one local angel investor. “The idea is to harness what we know the ization for the Homewood campus. “The main chemical ingredient here is a form body can already do, and enhance that ability In fact, Tolfree posits that if the upcom- of sugar currently used in bread, and which has with our biomaterials,” she says. “We know the ing pig studies turn out to be as promising as been used clinically since the 1940s with a long biologies that are important for vasculature and Gerecht expects, the hydrogel could be on the safety record. I anticipate seeing hydrogel being are engineering them into our systems. There is market for veterinary/animal use within six to 18 used clinically in pre-approved trials on humans still much work that must be done before we can months. He expects that the gel will be valuable within 18 to 24 months.” make it work the way we want it to. But I think in hard-to-treat canine and feline wounds and Gerecht and her team are also working on we are on the right track.” skin conditions, as well as in slow-to-heal equine forms of hydrogel that are infused with various Gerecht’s work is funded in part by the hoof and lower leg wounds, among other things. forms of human stem cells in an effort to trigger National Institutes of Health and the National “To get a human product on the market the body’s power to regenerate blood vessels. Science Foundation. will take a bit longer, though not much,” says (Stem cells are undifferentiated or “blank” cells — Lisa DeNike Ercolano

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering 7 For Ostermeier, Music is Labor of Love

Marc Ostermeier, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the Whiting School, engineers proteins with new properties. Tanya Maus, an assistant professor of history in Wittenberg University’s East Asian Studies Program, explores the history of the Okayama Orphanage in 19th-century Japan and child relief activism. Together they make plush rock music as the shoegaze band Should. Ostermeier formed Should, originally called shiFt, writing, playing, and recording most of the music himself, with some parts added by his brother and vocals from Maus, a friend of his wife’s. In 1994 the band released a CD EP titled A Folding Sieve on the Austin independent label N D. After six years of work he had another album’s worth of material, and in 2011 he released the first new Should album in 13 years, Like Fire Without a Sound. He’s discovered that a younger generation was also getting into shoegaze bands. Captured Tracks, a Brooklyn, N.Y., indie label started in 2008 that puts out up-and-coming underground rock outfits, launched its Shoegaze Archives reissue series in fall 2011. The series’ first reissue was Should’s A Folding Sieve. Now the writing comes a little bit quicker for Ostermeier, and he’s pushing himself to try some new ideas. He’s already got another album’s worth of Should material recorded and hopes to release it this coming winter or spring. He just needs to write lyrics and record his vocals—which is the hard part. “I hate writing lyrics, and I hate recording vocals because I’m not a tal- ented singer,” Ostermeier says. “So it’s trying to figure out what can I do with my limitations that will be acceptable for this song. This [past] weekend was productive, which made me a little bit more optimistic.”

Adapted from an original article by Bret McCabe. Photo by Will Kirk.

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