News and Events

Three seniors from the Department of Biomedical Engineering received student leadership awards from the Cockrell School of Engineering on Monday, February 24th.

Bo Zhao will join the department and the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences as an assistant professor.

Tyrone Porter will join the faculty as a full professor in August 2020. Porter is currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering at Boston University.

Cleft lip/palate(CL/P) are one of the most common birth defects in the U.S., affecting 1 out of every 940 births. Children with CL/P are susceptible to a range of functional and aesthetic problems, which can impact quality of life.

Hyun Jung Kim and his team have received a new grant from GlaxoSmithKline to study the application of chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cell therapy to colorectal cancer. The grant will provide funding over two years for Kim and his team to use their innovative colorectal cancer-on-a-chip (CRC Chip) platform to test the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy against colorectal tumors.

Daniel Chavarria, a graduate student working with Drs. Aaron Baker and Andrew Dunn, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Before applying to UT Austin’s Biomedical Engineering Department, Chavarria did research through the BME CUReS Cancer REU, a ten-week research experience sponsored by the National Science Foundation for undergraduate student. In this program non-UT Austin students are partnered with graduate student and faculty mentors to conduct cancer research projects.

Students from other institutions are invited to participate in an NSF-sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates at UT Austin. Application deadline for the Texas BME CUReS Cancer REU is February 1, 2020. Apply here.

Nicholas Peppas, professor of biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, pediatrics, surgery and pharmacy at The University of Texas at Austin and an expert in biomaterials and drug delivery systems, has been awarded the Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Award sponsored by the Georgia Institute of Technology Sigma Xi Chapter.

Taylor Johnson, a senior biomedical engineering undergraduate student, has been selected to participate in the Science Mentoring and Diversity Program (SDMP). SMDP is a competitive one-year career mentoring program that pairs ethnically diverse students or early career researchers with industry mentors who work at companies in medical technology, biotechnology, and consumer healthcare.

An emphasis on the psychosocial elements of living with diseases such as breast cancer may seem uncommon in engineering. But Mia K. Markey, biomedical engineering professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering, is dedicated to designing decision-support systems for patients, aiming to help enhance their quality of life post-treatment.