Spring Break
Science Center awards grants to Drexel professors
Anupma Sahay
Issue date: 10/30/09 Section: News
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The three awards were the first of the QED program and resulted after regional industry representatives and investors reviewed and selected the chosen projects.
Wan Shih, associate professor at the Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, was awarded the grant for her project concerning a breast-cancer screening device for women with dense breasts.
"The research topic is to use a device which we call piezoelectric fingers, which was invented at Drexel between myself and Prof. Wei-Heng Shih of Dept of Materials Science and Engineering, for radiation-free breast cancer detection for young women and women with dense breasts," Shih wrote in an e-mail.
The grant will quicken the development of the piezoelectric finger device and also in-patient testing. Drexel undergraduate students currently work with Shih in her lab on translational research topics and the grant will allow for increased student research.
"The grant and the project is a recognition that Drexel is a leader in translational research committed to bring cutting edge technologies from bench top to bedside," Shih wrote.
"I think it's really great that all these Drexel professors are being recognized for the work they're doing, she said. "I'm really excited that I'm going to have all these research opportunities, too," Amanda Colburn, freshman biomedical engineering major, said.
Elisabeth Papzoglou, assistant professor at the Drexel School of Biomedical Engineering, also was awarded a grant to further progress on a handheld wound-healing monitor. She and her team are programming the device to aid in analyzing complex wounds and how to heal them. The monitor would also lower costs and prevent drastic healing processes, such as amputation.
Paul Ducheyne, professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, along with his team will use the award to further develop films that lessen bacterial infection from external bone fixator pins. The films, which are nanostructured and thin, would reduce the high rate of issues that arise in current external fixation operations.
"The goal of the program was to provide funding to support technology transfer," Christopher Laing, director of Science and Technology at the University City Science Center, said. "What we were looking for were technologies found in the life and health sciences that showed good commercial potential and a clear plan for retiring early stage business risk,"
At the end of the QED project, the three technologies will be attractive to next stage developers, who can be companies deciding to license the technology, or investors wanting to put money toward building start-up companies. Laing said the goal is for these three products to actually be developed.
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