Travel Award Winners

The Bioengineering Conference Travel Award is a competitive award for bioengineering PhD students who have shown outstanding contributions to their lab and the Bioengineering department by sharing their research through an oral presentation or poster at a conference. Each bioengineering student is eligible to apply for a $500 travel stipend twice per calendar year to a conference where they are presenting an oral presentation or poster.

Student Expense Reimbursement Guidelines


Name Conference Student Info
Helna Mary Baby Orthopedic Research Society 2024 Annual Meeting I am a second-year PhD student under the guidance of Associate Professor Ambika Bajpayee. My concentration is Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Engineering. My research focuses on developing charge-based drug delivery platforms to overcome tissue-specific challenges and enhance drug/gene bioavailability. At the ORS 2024 Annual Meeting, I will be giving two podium talks. My first presentation is about ‘Intra-discal Delivery of RhoA-activator For Treatment of Intervertebral Disc Degeneration,’ and my second talk is titled ‘Targeted Delivery of IL-1Ra mRNA using Cationic Peptide Modified Exosomes for Cartilage Repair’.
22nd International Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery Symposium 2024 (NanoDDS) I am a third-year PhD student working with Prof. Ambika Bajpayee. My area of focus is Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Engineering. The primary objective of my research is to develop charge-based drug delivery platforms that can address tissue-specific challenges and improve drug/gene bioavailability. I am excited to present my work titled “Cartilage-Targeted IL-1Ra mRNA Delivery using Cationic Peptide Modified Exosomes” at the 22nd International Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery Symposium 2024 (NanoDDS) in Orlando, Florida.
Tim Boyer Orthopedic Research Society 2024 Annual Meeting I am a third year PhD student in the Bajpayee lab developing targeted therapeutics for the prevention of knee osteoarthritis. I am headed to the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) conference for my third time where I am giving the talk, “Cartilage-Targeting Cationic Carriers for Sustained Delivery of Interleukin-1 Receptor Antagonist in a Rabbit Osteoarthritis Model.” I am excited to attend to discuss preclinical models of osteoarthritis and promising therapeutic targets. This year the conference will be in Long Beach, CA.
Nathan Caso IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS) The IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS) is a premier, international conference on the subject of ultrasound research and applications. It’s organized annually by the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society (UFFC-S) and covers a wide range of topics including ultrasound imaging, medical ultrasound, non-destructive evaluation, ultrasound transducers, and ultrasound in industrial applications. This year at the UFFC-S in Tapei, Taiwan, I will be presenting my research on the time-domain Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm, and its improved resolution and artifact reduction as applied to passive cavitation imaging.
Vasu Chandar Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting I’m Vasu, a 2nd year PhD student at Prof. Hari Parameswaran’s lab. As part of my ongoing work, I’m investigating the role of cellular mechanobiology in the persistence of fibrosis. I will be attending the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) annual meeting 2024 at Baltimore, MD, where I will present my findings on how intercellular communication drives fibroblast to myofibroblast transition in the absence of any external mechanical or chemical cues.
Oleksandra Fanari 2024 BMES CMBE Conference I will present a poster regarding my project titled “Predicting evolutionary conservation of human Pseuoduridine modifications”. In this project, we approached Pseudouridine from a new point of view, by looking at its evolution in non-human species. Looking at Psi in non-human organisms is an under-researched and complex topic that can help us understand the importance of Pseudouridine in the Tree of Life and uncover new essential functions fulfilled by RNA modifications for the phylogenetic development of non-human species.  Presenting my work to other researchers is a great opportunity to receive feedback about my work and discuss new possible directions for this project. In particular, the BMES is a prestigious society established more than 50 years ago that has more than 8000 members. Therefore it will provide a large audience for my research and will represent a way to connect with other researchers and introduce myself to the community.
Advances in Genomic Technology Development (AGTD) 2024 meeting I’m a second year PhD Candidate in Rouhanifard Lab. Our research focus is on RNA modifications and their biological implications. I’m going to present my work titled “RNA modification profiling reveals differences in enzyme and substrate for immortalized vs primary T cell from human blood” at the AGTD 2024 annual meeting in Farmington, CT.
Noa Grooms Society for Neuroscience I presented a talk at this conference on my research which comprises part of my dissertation. The presentation discussed the central role of a transcription factor, CREB, that we are among the first to establish as the primary driver of lesion conditioned regeneration.
Bill Hakim Orthopedic Research Society 2024 Annual Meeting I am a third-year PhD student at Associate Professor Bajpayee’s Molecular Bioelectrostatics & Drug Delivery Lab. I am working on optimizing drug delivery into cartilage for osteoarthritis treatment by utilizing charge interaction. I will present my work titled “Designing Cartilage Targeting and Drug Depot-Forming Cationic Fusion Protein of Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1” at the Orthopedic Research Society (ORS) 2024 Annual Meeting in Long Beach, CA.
Mahsa Karamzadeh Conference on Brain Research I am a second-year PhD student working in Francis Loth’s lab, which is focused on Chiari Malformation. Our research involves the analysis of real MRI images from patients. I will be presenting my work on brain tissue motion in Chiari patients at the Conference on Brain Research in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Deng Li American Chemical Society Fall 2024 Meeting & Expos I am a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Mona Minkara’s lab at the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University. My research focuses on using computational chemistry methods to understand the structure and function of Surfactant Protein D at the molecular level. I will be presenting an oral presentation titled “Comparative Assessment of Water Models in Protein-Glycan Interaction: Insights from Alchemical Free Energy Calculations and Molecular Dynamics Simulations” at the ACS Fall 2024 Meetings & Expos in Denver, CO.
In this study, we systematically evaluated the accuracy of five water models in simulating protein-glycan interactions at the molecular level. This was achieved through full-atomistic molecular dynamics simulations and alchemical absolute binding free energy calculations. The insights gained from this study contribute to a deeper understanding of protein-glycan interactions and provide valuable guidance for selecting suitable water models in computational simulations of these systems.
Yuntao Li Optica Biophotonics congress: Biomedical Optics I’m a second year PhD student in Abbas Yaseen’s Optical Microscopy & Neuro-Imaging (OMNI) Lab. My research focuses on developing a physiological and behavioral monitor for intravital imaging on small mammals.
I will be giving a poster presentation in Optica Biophotonics congress, 2024 in Florida. In my presentation, I will share my recent development on the integrated device that monitor the animal’s behavior and collect several physiological signals from the peripheral sensors, and its contribution on the optical neuroimaging applications.
Chang Liu Optica Biophotonics Congress 2024 I’m a 5th year PhD candidate in the OMNI lab at Northeastern University. Our lab develop and apply high-resolution optical technologies to investigate brain function in rodent models of human disease. My research focuses on using multiphoton microscopy and Ca2+ imaging to study the effect of systemic inflammation on brain hemodynamics during functional activation in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.
I’ll give a poster presentation at the upcoming Optica Biophotonics Congress, 2024, in Florida. The presentation will focus on some pilot results highlighting the impact of endotoxin-induced systemic inflammation on cerebral arteriole dilation and astrocytic Ca2+ dynamics during functional activation.
Yifang Liu 2024 BMES CMBE Conference I am a fifth year PhD student in Rouhanifard lab, and my concentration is cell and tissue engineering. My research interest is utilizing fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique to detect single infectious viral particles and target transcription sites inside cell nucleus. I will attend 2024 BMES-CMBE conference held in Carolina, Puerto Rico to do a poster session for my second project: “Defining cell states based on stochastic transcription site in cellular nucleus.” In this project, I improve the click-amplifying FISH method (clampFISH) to target transcriptions sites which cannot be achieved by other amplified FISH method, I sort out actively transcribing cells and do protein profiling to better understand the transcription process and modulation.
Zhengyi Lu Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics I am a 4th year PhD candidate in the Biomedical Devices and Bioimaging concentration. I am attending the Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics in Florida to give an oral presentation. My research focuses on studying hippocampal alterations included by sleep deprivation using two-photon microscopy. In the presentation, I will describe a technique we developed that allows for tissue oxygen measurement at subcortex of a mouse model.
Ashlynn McCann Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics 2024 I am a second-year PhD Candidate in Dr. Qianqian Fang’s COTI Lab. I had the opportunity to present at the Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics 2024. I presented a poster about our tool to generate anatomically derived head caps for functional neuroimaging. I also gave a presentation highlighting our multi-faceted system for functional neuromonitoring in natural settings.
Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy I am a third-year PhD Candidate in Dr. Qianqian Fang’s COTI Lab. I had the opportunity to present at the Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy 2024 Conference in Birmingham, UK.  I gave a talk about improving contrast and spatial resolution of tomographic fNIRS using activation-prior guided reconstructions.
Quentin Meslier Orthopedic Research Society 2024 Annual Meeting My name is Quentin; I am 4th year PhD candidate in the Shefelbine Lab. As part of my thesis project, I am developing tools to investigate bone mechanoadaptation.
I will be attending the Orthopedic Research Society Annual Meeting 2024 where I will present a poster summarizing novel methods to label and image mRNA of mechanosensitive genes, and related proteins, in 3D mouse bones.”
Seunghwan Noh Biophysical Society 2024 Annual Meeting Hello, my name is Seunghwan, currently in my second year pursuing a PhD in Bioengineering, specializing in Imaging, Instrumentation, and Signal Processing, under the guidance of Meni Wanunu Lab. My research ambitiously aims to advance the field of direct RNA sequencing by utilizing Zero Mode Waveguides. This year, I am excited to be part of the Biophysical Society (BPS) 2024 Annual Meeting set to take place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I will present a poster. The poster will detail my latest findings in direct RNA sequencing technology using electro-optical Zero Mode Waveguides (eZMWs) with labeled dNTPs, titled “LONG READ DIRECT SEQUENCING WITH ELECTRO-OPTICAL ZERO MODE WAVEGUIDES”.
The Biophysical Society 68th Annual Meeting My name is Seunghwan, a second-year PhD student in Meni Wanunu’s Lab. My research is developing a direct RNA sequencing tool with Zero-mode waveguides. I’m so glad to join the 2024 AGTD conference to show my recent progress in synthesizing short-length RNA for direct RNA sequencing and show the reverse transcriptase activity in the ZMW system with fluorescently labeled dTTP.
Josh Pace Optica Biophotonics Congress 2024 I am a fourth year PhD candidate in the Biomedical Devices and Bioimaging concentration. I am attending the Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics in Florida to orally present my research on in vivo labeling and detection of circulating tumor cells with fluorescent molecular contrast agents. I will describe progress on labeling cancer cells with targeted “light bulbs” in order to noninvasively detect them as they are traveling in the blood. We hope that this may lead to the spreading of cancer being detected earlier for a patient. I am very grateful to the BioE department for providing me with this travel award because it is very helpful.
Seyedeh-Fereshteh Sadeghian-Kiadehi The Allied Genetics Conference I am a third-year PhD candidate in the Cram lab, researching cell signaling and mechanotransduction in the C. elegans organism. I presented a part of my thesis project at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2024, focusing on “Actomyosin Contractility in smooth muscle-like cells.”
Yuanyuan Shi Biophysical Society 2024 Annual Meeting This travel funding will be used to support me to attend 2024 Annual Biophysical Society Meeting. The conference will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19107, February 10-14, 2024. I will present a poster during the conference. At this conference, I will present my current research’s latest progress and results through the poster and communicating with peers from different countries and regions enabled me to gain a broader understanding of the field. These communications help me identify key technologies and challenges for current and future research while presenting to fellow researchers the innovations of my research and exploring possible solutions to problems.
Tanvi Vinod Pathrikar Orthopedic Research Society 2024 Annual Meeting I’m a second year PhD candidate in the Molecular Bioelectrostatics and Drug Delivery Lab with a concentration in Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Engineering. My research focuses on developing effective drug delivery systems for cartilage repair in Osteoarthritis using electrostatic interactions. I will be presenting my work on ‘Delivery of Receptor Antagonist of IL-1 using Cationic Exosomes for Cartilage Targeting and Repair’ at the poster session of the Orthopedic Research Society 2024 Annual Meeting.
Shaobo Yang American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 I am a 4th year PhD student advised by Dr. Jiahe Li (moved to University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and Dr. Rizwan Romee (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School). My concentration is Molecular, Cell and Tissue Engineering. My research focus is to engineer non-pathogenic bacteria for the targeted delivery of biologics (anti-toxin, immune-relevant molecules, enzymes, etc.) to tumor microenvironment (TME) and gastrointestinal tract. The poster I have presented titled as “Nonpathogenic E. coli engineered to surface display human cytokines for enhanced immunotherapy” is based on my project to efficiently deliver immune-activating cytokines to TME by engineered bacteria for potent anti-tumor efficacy.
Narges Yazdani TERMIS-AM 2023 Annual Conference I had the opportunity to attend the TERMIS-AM 2023 Annual Conference from April 11 to 14 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. The conference focused on “Tissue Engineering Strategies for Human Health and Longevity.” During my presentation, I highlighted our research team’s objective: to comprehend the interactions between neural cells and their environment to develop innovative solutions to support nerve regeneration. My research revolves explicitly around the remarkable potential of neural stem cells to generate new neurons throughout adulthood. A central aspect of our hypothesis centers on the impact of integrin-mediated mechanotransduction on neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation. We believe that elucidating the dynamics between integrins and laminin fragments holds significant promise for developing future treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Fan-Yu Yen Optica Biophotonics Congress 2024 My name is Ivy (Fan-Yu) Yen, and I am a second-year PhD candidate in Associate Professor Qianqian Fang’s lab with a concentration in Biomedical Devices and Bioimaging.
I will be giving two oral presentations at the Optica Biophotonics Congress: Biomedical Optics 2024. The titles of my presentations are “Real-Time Guidance for fNIRS Headgear Placement Using Augmented Reality” and “MCX-LLM: An Experiment in Bridging Natural Language Problem Descriptions With Quantitative Scientific Simulations.” In the first presentation, I will present an augmented reality system for guiding fNIRS headgear placement. In the second, I will demonstrate the use of a large language model for light simulation.
VIII Biennial Meeting of the Society for Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) I will give a poster presentation at the fNIRS 2024 conference. The title of my research is “AI-driven large-scale and automated neuroimaging and fNIRS data analysis pipeline using mega-datasets on NeuroJSON.io.” This presentation will show a pipeline that integrates a large language model with the neuroimaging data-sharing platform, NeuroJSON.io. The pipeline simplifies querying and analyzing large-scale neuroimaging datasets, enhancing the automation and simplification of the meta-analysis process
Previous Winners
Name Conference Student Info
Mohamad Motaz Al Samman Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference (SB3C) I am a second year Bioengineering PhD student under the mentorship of Francis Loth. My concentration is Imaging, Instrumentation, and Signal Processing. I study the biomechanics of the brain and cerebrospinal fluid noninvasively using dynamic MRI sequences in patients with Chiari malformation type I. The granted travel award will be used to deliver a podium presentation at SB3C 2023 about the relationship between cardiac-induced brain tissue strain and the imbalance symptom of Chiari patients.
Tim Boyer Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting 2023 I’m a second year PhD student at the Bajpayee Lab (Bioengineering). I’m originally from Leesburg, Virginia and did my undergraduate at the University of Virginia. I’m interested in drug delivery, biophysics, and molecular modelling.
I’m returning to the annual Orthopaedic Research Society conference (this year in Dallas, Texas), to present my work on cartilage-targeting biomaterials for osteoarthritis prevention after ACL or meniscus injury.
Julia Clarin Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference (SB3C) I’m a third-year PhD student studying tricuspid valve biomechanics in the Amini Lab. I will be attending SB3C to give a talk entitled “Mechanical Characterization of Porcine Tricuspid Valve Anterior Leaflets Over Time: Applications to Ex-Vivo Studies.” In addition, I will be presenting a poster on the effects of chordae rupture on tricuspid valve leaflet strains in an ex-vivo beating heart simulator.
Matthew Eden Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference (SB3C) I am a fifth-year PhD candidate working in the Integrated Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Team (ICAP), advised by Dr. Jessica Oakes and Dr. Chiara Bellini. My research focuses on using computational models to study the pulmonary and cardiovascular health effects of wildland fire smoke inhalation. At SB3C I will be giving a talk titled “Effects of Wildland Fire Smoke Exposure on Airflow and Particle Deposition in the Mouse Respiratory Tract”. For this project, we developed a computational framework to investigate the regional deposition of inhaled smoke particulates in the mouse respiratory tract.
Oleksandra Fanari Advances in Genomic Technology Development (AGTD) 2023 Annual Meeting I am a 1st year PhD student from Sara Rouhanifard Lab in BIOE department. My concentration is molecular, cell, and tissue engineering and my research focuses on studying RNA modifications. The purpose of this travel is to attend the 2023 AGTD Conference in La Jolla, California, from June 5th to June 8th.
At this conference, I will present a poster regarding my project titled “Sequence conservation surrounding sites of Human psi modifications”. This computational project is focused on the evolutionary analysis of nanopore sequencing data, which represents a new and under-researched topic that can help understand the importance of Pseudouridine modifications for the phylogenetic development of non-human species.
Ali Fallahi The 67th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting 2023 Presenting an oral presentation titled: “Nanopore-based quantification of viral vectors and nanoparticles as an analytical tool for gene therapy products.”
Fatemeh Farhangdoust 67th Annual Biophysical Society Conference 2023 I’m a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Bioengineering with a concentration in Imaging, Instrumentation, and Signal Processing.
My Ph.D. work in Wanunu lab focuses on developing a new long-read DNA/RNA sequencing
I will be attending the 67th Annual Biophysical Society Conference and will present my most up-to-date findings with the title “Towards direct RNA sequencing using electro-optical waveguides” as a poster.
Bill Hakim 2023 Society for Biomaterial Annual Meeting I’m a second-year Bioengineering PhD student in Dr. Ambika Bajpayee’s Drug Delivery and Bioelectrostatics Lab. My work is concentrated on cartilage biomechanics and biotransport. Specifically, I’m investigating cartilage penetrating peptides for drug delivery.
At the 2023 Society for Biomaterial Annual Meeting, I gave an oral presentation titled “Spatial Configuration of Charge Modulates Transport of Cationic Peptide Carriers in Cartilage Matrix.” I investigated the effect of charge arrangement in cartilage penetrating peptide sequence on its transport properties. This work would provide important information for charge-based drug delivery system design.
Wen Han Lee Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting 2022  I gave a podium presentation at the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting in San Antonio. The BMES Annual Meeting is a prominent conference in the field of bioengineering and has been a center of the exchange of information and knowledge since 1968.
My research was about 3D printing of vascular conduits using a novel elastic hydrogel we developed with our collaborators at the University of Texas in Arlington.
Ashley Herrick Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting 2023 I’m a second year PhD student working in the lab of Dr. Chiara Bellini, where we specialize in cardiovascular biomechanics. Over the last year, I have been investigating the effect that administration method and dose of chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin has on cardiotoxicity in a murine model. At the Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting 2023 in Nashville, I will be presenting a poster detailing my findings regarding doxorubicin-induced vascular dysfunction. Outside of the research I pursue at Northeastern, I have a personal research interest in women’s health topics.
Fernando Ivich Optica Biophotonics Congress: Optics in the Life Sciences Hello, my name is Fernando Ivich and I joined the Bioengineering department at Northeastern University in 2019 after completing my master’s degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I am a PhD candidate in the Imaging, Instrumentation and Signal Processing track, and work in Dr. Mark Niedre’s biomedical optics laboratory. I am interested in using diffuse light for personalized medicine applications, and I am happy to go to Vancouver, Canada to give an oral presentation on  “Ratiometric Diffuse in vivo Flow Cytometry for quantification of blood sodium levels using fluorescent microsensors.”
Shravani Kakarla Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting 2022 BMES is a professional society for all researchers, academic or otherwise, in biomedical engineering that majorly focuses on human health. The Annual Meeting is a place to share new findings, celebrate contributions made by members to the field and discuss innovative new ideas in solving healthcare issues. The 2022 Annual Meeting also focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and women’s health, highlighting huge disparities, and showcasing researchers working to reduce those disparities.
My presentation centered on a new 3D blood vessel model, directly differentiated from pluripotent stem cells, that aims to mimic early vascular development. We were able to see the distinct separation of early arterial and venous structures. The method of differentiation we developed is applicable in 2D, 3D and in microfluidic devices; it produces blood vessel cells, as well as support cells found alongside blood vessels, such as pericytes and smooth muscle cells.
Xinqi Kang 2023 BMES CMBE Conference Presenting poster “Single-cell analysis and subcellular localization of TRUB1-mediated, pseudouridine-modified transcripts in human cells”
Vineel Kondiboyina Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting 2023 I am a third-year Bioengineering Ph.D. candidate in the Shefelbine lab for Multiscale Mechanics and Musculoskeletal Mechanobiology (M4). I study the mechanics of calcium signaling in cartilage during development and regeneration.

I have been awarded the travel grant to attend the Annual Meeting of the Orthopedic Research Society in Dallas, Tx. There, I will be presenting a poster on the changes in material properties of regenerating limbs in axolotls. I am excited to share my Ph.D. research with an international audience at the conference and possibly meet some future collaborators.

Aleksei Krotov Neural Control of Movement 2023 I am a 3rd year PhD Bioengineering student at the Action Lab. Our lab studies how humans interact with complex objects and my research has aimed at an epitome of such complexity by studying how humans manipulate a bullwhip to hit a target. Our lab and my research bring together neuroscience, physics, biomechanics, and control theory to promote understanding of human movements and transfer that knowledge to motor rehabilitation and robotics. The BioE Travel Grant supported my presentation at a conference on motor neuroscience, Neural Control of Movement (NCM) 2023, where I discussed a novel method of decoupling spatial and temporal variability in human movement data.
Jane Lee Optica Biophotonics Congress: Optics in the Life Sciences I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Bioengineering receiving mentorship from Drs. Mark Niedre and Chiara Bellini. The goal of my project is to develop a wearable fluorescent detection instrument to measure tumor cells in circulation of mice that are awake and freely moving. I will be speaking about this work at the Optica Biophotonics Congress in a presentation titled “Tethered Fluorescence Instrument for Continuous Detection of Circulating Tumor Cell Numbers in Awake Mice”.
Deng Li American Chemical Society Spring 2023 Meeting & Expos My name is Deng Li, a third-year Ph.D. candidate from Dr. Mona Minkara’s lab at the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University. My research focuses on using computational chemistry methods to understand Surfactant Protein D’s structure and function at the molecular level. I will give an oral presentation titled “Elucidating the enhanced binding affinity of a double mutant SP-D with trimannose on the influenza A virus using molecular dynamics” at ACS Spring 2023 Meetings & Expos in Indianapolis, IN. In this study, we used full-atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulation with microsecond trajectories to explore the molecular mechanism of how Asp325Ala and Arg343Val mutations affect SP-D’s ability to bind viral glycans.
Chang Liu SPIE Photonics West Chang Liu is a 4-th year Ph.D. Candidate from the Bioengineering Department.  Joining the Optical Microscopy & Neuro-Imaging Lab (Yaseen Lab) in the spring of 2020, her research focuses on using rodent disease models and multiphoton microscopic techniques to study brain function and metabolism in awake mice.
She will be giving a short oral presentation in SPIE Photonics West, 2023 in San Francisco and competing for the “Jenlab Young Investigator award”.  She will also be giving a poster presentation and competing for the “best poster award”.  In her presentation, she will share her recent findings on how induced inflammation affects cerebral oxygenation and microcirculation in Alzheimer’s disease mice.
Amr Makhamreh 67th Annual Biophysical Society Conference 2023 I am a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Wanunu Lab here at Northeastern University.
My major is Bioengineering with a concentration in Imaging, Instrumentation, and Signal Processing.
My research focuses on the development of new nanopore-sensing platforms and nanopore-based computational methods with the goal of 1) fingerprinting proteins and 2) quantifying site-specific modifications on mRNA, both at a single-molecule level.
I will be attending the 67th Annual Biophysical Society Conference in San Diego, California. I will present the newest results from my work that implements machine-learning models trained with synthetic mRNA data in order to quantify the presence of pseudouridine at specific locations in HeLa mRNA. I will be presenting this work in the form of a poster titled “MESSENGER-RNA MODIFICATION STANDARDS AND MACHINE LEARNING MODELS FACILITATE ABSOLUTE SITE-SPECIFIC QUANTIFICATION OF URIDINE MODIFICATIONS”.
Caroline McCormick Advances in Genomic Technology Development 2023 Annual Meeting I am a third-year Bioengineering PhD candidate in the Rouhanifard Lab at Northeastern University. My dissertation work focuses on developing platforms and community resources for detecting, quantifying, and characterizing RNA modifications at single-nucleotide resolution using long-read sequencing. At the 2023 Advances in Genomic Technology Development (AGTD) NIH-NHGRI grantee meeting, I gave a flash talk and presented a poster on my most recent publication, “Multicellular, IVT-derived, unmodified human transcriptome for nanopore direct RNA analysis”. This work addresses previously unanswered questions about appropriate controls and standards for long-read direct RNA modification sequencing studies. We constructed a universal negative control as a tool for the RNA sequencing field.
Keqing Nian 2023 BMES CMBE conference I am Keqing Nian, a 4th year PhD student from Sara Rouhanifard Lab in BIOE department. I began my PhD at Northeastern in 2019 after graduating from East China University of Science and Technology with my bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering. My concentration is molecular, cell, and tissue engineering. The purpose of this travel is to attend the 2023 BMES CMBE Conference in Indian Wells, California, from January 2nd to January 6th. At the conference, I will be presenting a poster about my project with the title “DNA-enhanced CuAAC ligand enables live-cell detection of intracellular biomolecules”. My long-term research plan is to apply CuAAC for live-cell applications. With the development of the new CuAAC accelerating BTT(1,2)-DNA ligand, we already achieved the labeling and detection of nascent RNAs in live cells which cannot be achieved by the CuAAC in the presence of commercial ligand. Our live-cell labeling and detection could enable future applications such as tracking the dynamics of global cellular transcription over time.
Seunghwan Noh Advances in Genomic Technology Development 2023 Annual Meeting I’m a first year PhD student from Meni Wanunu Lab. My major is Bioengineering with a concentration in Imaging, Instrumentation, and Signal Processing. My research focuses on the developmet of direct RNA sequencing with Zero Mode Waveguides.
I will be attending the Advances in Genomic Technology Development (AGTD) 2023 Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. I will present a poster about the latest result of RNA sequencing with eZMWs which title is “Development of Electro-Optical Zero-Mode Waveguide (eZMW) Based RNA Sequencing”.
Joshua Pace Optica Biophotonics Congress: Optics in the Life Sciences I am a 3rd year PhD candidate originally from Arizona. I’m interested in developing biomedical optical techniques to detect and monitor the spread of cancer. My concentration in the department is imaging, instrumentation, and signal processing. I will use this travel award to present orally on research relating to “Fluorescent Molecular Labeling and In Vivo Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells in Mice” and how the work can be translated to helping humans.
Mina
Pakzadmanesh
Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference (SB3C) I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student at the Laboratory for Soft Tissue Biomechanics advised by Rouzbeh Amini. My research focuses on multi-scale modeling of the tricuspid valve. My upcoming talk at SB3C is titled “Nuclear Deformation of Tricuspid Valve Intercellular Cells.” It investigates how interstitial cell deformation changes with different alignments relative to extracellular matrix fibers, with and without elastin.
Tanvi Vinod Pathrikar Society for Biomaterials 2023 Annual Meeting and Exposition I’m a second year PhD candidate at the Bajpayee Lab in the Bioengineering department with a concentration in Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Engineering. My research focuses on developing effective drug delivery systems for cartilage repair in Osteoarthritis using electrostatic interactions. I will be presenting my work on ‘Cationic Exosomes Anchored with Receptor Antagonist of IL-1 for Cartilage Targeting and Repair’ in a rapid-fire presentation as well as the poster session.
Rahul Ragunathan SPIE Photonics West I am currently a 4th year Bioengineering PhD student in Dr. Qianqian Fang’s Computational Optics and Translational Imaging Lab (COTI), where I am developing a method to develop heterogeneous 3D printed optical phantoms that can be used for Diffuse Optical Imaging. I have developed the first method to create heterogeneous models with programmable optical properties at designated locations using off-the-shelf filament mixing 3D printers as well as commercially available inexpensive 3D printing filaments. The proposed method requires considerably less laborious manual steps compared to currently used optical phantom fabrication methods, while allowing us to generate geometrically accurate complex optical phantoms similar to that of biological tissue. I am presenting an invited presentation in late January 2023 as part of the SPIE Photonics West conference, which will outline our preliminary results as well as the potential broad applications of the method.
Frederick Sebastian The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Annual Meeting and Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering and Biotransport Conference (SB3C) For SB3C I am doing two podium presentations. First, we developed micro-indentation techniques to be utilized on porcine iris in different environments (temperature, hydration, and time) to understand their effect on elastic modulus (stiffness). Iris stiffness values have been shown to be relevant in understanding the prognosis of primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG). This study serves as a pedestal for future experiments to characterize iris stiffness in different genders since PACG is more prevalent in women than men.
The second presentation is on an analysis of abstracts submitted to SB3C over the course of 7 years to understand the inclusion of both sexes in biomedical research. The inclusion of women as research subjects—both in hypothesis-driven investigations and in tool-development efforts—is vital to extend our understanding of medicine and to improve human health. It also ensures that generalized inferences about health and diseases can be made accurately. Evidence has shown that certain areas of biomedical engineering suffer from extensive disparity between its effects on women and men, including but not limited to cardiovascular disease, biomechanical response to concussion, and motor vehicle crash injury outcomes. Our analysis showed that while the overall trend of using both sexes in biomedical research is optimistic, our analysis has shown that the disparity is still prominent.
Yuanyuan Shi 67th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting 2023 My name is Yuanyuan Shi; after I finished my master’s degree at Northeastern, I had the chance to continue my PhD study at Dr. Wanunu’s lab. My major is Bioengineering, and I focus on modifying membrane proteins/other nonmembrane inserting ring-shaped proteins to improve their application in nanopore sensors.
In the 2023 Annual Biophysical Society Meeting, I will present a strategy for inserting viral portal proteins with flexible inner pores into lipid membranes: We expressed different mutants of G20C portal protein to 1) enable chemical modifications of hydrophobic anchors to the portal’s exterior structure and 2) substitute hydrophobic amino acid residues into the portal’s base in order to facilitate membrane insertion. In this work, we engineered and purified different portal mutants, and verified their structural integrity with electron microscopy. Building on our recent demonstration of DNA sensing with G20C mutants, we are in the process of characterizing the sensing capabilities of these mutants through ionic current recordings of DNA and peptide translocations through the portal mutant. We expect to apply this approach to a wide range of non-membrane, ring-shaped proteins and facilitate the development of new biological nanopores that can provide improved signal resolution and data quality
Sepideh Tavakoli Advances in Genomic Technology Development 2023 Annual Meeting I’m a fourth-year PhD candidate at Rouhanifard Lab. I’ll be attending the Advances in Genomic Technology Development (AGTD) 2023 Annual Meeting in La Jolla, California, from June 6th to June 8th. I’ll present a poster titled “Measurement and Perturbation of Pseudouridine (Ψ) mRNA Modifications in Human Neuroblastoma Cells.” My research aims to gain insights into the dynamic behavior of Ψ modification and contribute to understanding its underlying mechanism.
Ana Vargas International Congress on Cardiac Problems in Pregnancy (CPP)  In this conference I gave an oral presentation on “Material Softening of the Murine Thoracic Aorta During Pregnancy”. This meeting was an opportunity to learn from health professionals around the globe in the management of cardiovascular diseases during pregnancy by exchanging research and updates on recent data collected. My talk was under the Physiology session, where speakers talked about the physiological changes that occur in the maternal cardiovascular system during pregnancy.
Yukai You 2023 Annual Symposium for Quantitative Cellular and Molecular Biology (qCMB) and Undergraduate Quantitative Biology (UQ-Bio) Summer School I am a first-year PhD student from the Mingyang Lu lab, and my research focuses on computational systems biology. Specifically, I am working on building gene regulatory networks using single-cell RNA-seq data.
I will present the advancements in single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology for studying gene expression dynamics. Despite challenges like substantial noise and capturing dynamic changes, our research utilizes scRNA-seq data from induced pluripotent stem cells. We classify cells into distinct groups based on time trajectory using gene expression pseudotime analysis. This approach accurately determines the directionality of gene regulatory networks, aiding in understanding the dynamic processes of key gene regulatory circuits.
Chenzhen Zhang Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting 2023  The ORS 2023 is the most famous annual meeting in the research of orthopaedics and musculoskeletal system, attracting more than 3000 attenders from academia and business around the globe.
The oral talk of ‘Cationic Peptide Modified Exosomes For Cartilage Targeting For Applications In Drug Delivery’ will present my recent work on the reversal net charge on anionic exosomes by anchoring their surfaces with cartilage targeting cationic peptide carriers and cationic glycoprotein Avidin. These surface modified exosomes possess cartilage and chondrocyte targeting properties and can be used for delivery of OA therapeutics including protein drugs and genetic materials.
Hengli Zhang Orthopaedic Research Society Annual Meeting 2023 I’m a 2nd-year graduate student from Bajpayee Lab focusing on cell and tissue engineering. I will have an oral presentation at the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) 2023 annual meeting (February, Dallas, Texas) about our recent works on designing sustained-release PLGA-based formulations of Neosaxitoxin for long-term osteoarthritis pain relief.
Zhuoyu Zhang Advances in Genomic Technology Development 2023 Annual Meeting I am a Ph.D. candidate working in Wanunu Lab. I focus on development of nanopore system for protein identification. I am presenting a poster titled “Full-length protein fingerprinting via enzyme-free single-file nanopore translocation of DNA-tagged proteins” on the AGTD 2023 annual meeting and giving a 2 minutes’ flash talk for the poster. My poster involves our recent progress in developing a terminal tagging strategy: by incorporating a densely charge tag to protein molecules, we exploit electrophoretic force to enhance their translocation through nanopores. The content includes evidence of tagged products and current trace of their translocation through nanopores.