REGENERATIVE ENGINEERING TRAINING PROGRAM

Rachel Daso’s research focuses on the development of novel methods for monitoring neuronal outgrowth and regeneration in critical nerve gap injuries. Her work incorporates flexible thin-film electronics with conductive nerve conduits to observe in real time neuronal repair across nerve grafts via electrical impulses. The ultimate goal of her work is to create a closed loop system that can both monitor and stimulate the healing nerve. She hopes that the knowledge generated from her work will inspire new model systems for understanding nerve gap repair and could eventually lead to new technologies for non-invasive surgical feedback in clinical settings.

Rachel earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Fordham University in 2021 and is continuing her work in conductive biomaterials for nerve regeneration at Northwestern University, where she is pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. Under the mentorship of Drs. Jonathan Rivnay, Colin Franz, and Sumanas Jordan, she is excited to develop new technologies at the forefront of regenerative medicine.

 

Mary Kelly’s work focuses on the development of smart-materials through the integration of synthetic biology tools, specifically cell-free systems, with dynamic hydrogel materials. This new generation of materials embedded with biological systems has applications to the development of artificial tissue scaffolds. Alongside this, Kelly is studying the development of artificial antigen presenting cells for expansion of CD8+ T cells for the treatment of cancer patients.

Kelly is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student under advisement from Prof. Neha Kamat. She received a Bachelor of Science in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado. During her undergraduate years, Mary worked in Dr. Andrew Goodwin’s material science group and completed an research internship with the Biosciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Kelly is completing her work in the RE-Training program with mentorship from Drs. Neha Kamat, Nathan Gianneschi, and Jaehyuk Choi.