BME Design Day Highlights Research Prowess

On March 2, posters made by 20 undergraduate biomedical engineers lined the Grand Ballroom in the Student Union Memorial Center for the department's fourth annual BME Design Day. More than 150 faculty and fellow students attended, including all first-years enrolled in BME 295C: Challenges in Biomedical Engineering.

The event was sponsored by W.L. Gore & Associates and featured a keynote presentation from lead engineer Rachel Rakvica on "The Value of a Biomedical Engineering Degree in Device Design." Representatives from Gore and the UA Foundation judged the poster competition.

This year's winners were:

• First Place: Mary McIntosh for "Physiological Model for Assessing Ankle Joint Contact Pressure in Weber Fracture Malreduction"
• Second Place: Caitlin Moffett for "TNFalpha Priming Selectively Enhances CD4+FoxP3+ Regulatory T Cell Suppressive Function"
• Third Place: Chris Gallo for "Zinc (Zn²⁺) Alters Calcium Oxalate Crystal Formation in a Drosophila Model of Nephrolithiasis"
• Most Promising Research: Summer Garland for "Augmented Microscopy with Spatial Light Modulation"
• Most Creative Research: Tyler Toth for "Rapid Detection of Ebola Virus Surrogate Using Interfacial Tension-Based Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR-IT)"

A gallery of photos taken by Mia Schnaible is available on the BME Facebook Page.