Faculty help first-year students research brain imaging, drug delivery
Materials science and engineering associate professor Minkyu Kim's KEYS intern, Alexis Hanus (left of poster), presents research on developing artificial blood to address national shortages at blood banks.
First-year students in the College of Engineering stood out at the BIO5 Institute's 19th annual KEYS Research Internship Showcase on July 18.
The event marked the culmination of the Institute's Keep Engaging Youth in Science (KEYS) program, which brought 65 high school students from 35 Arizona schools to the University of Arizona for summer internships in laboratory settings.
Kapil Inguva researches MRI methods in the lab of Nan-Kuei Chen, associate professor of biomedical engineering.
Biomedical engineering associate professor Nan-Kuei Chen and assistant professor Swarna Ganesh, both first-time KEYS mentors, facilitated the research of two interns, Kapil Inguva and Avery Eliscu.
"KEYS is a great opportunity to show young minds, who are just starting to learn what biomedical research is, the state-of-the-art programs that we have built in the past years," said Chen.
Inguva's work focused on using advanced MRI methods to identify links between cerebrospinal fluid flow and brain activity.
"I was analyzing the glymphatic system of the brain," Inguva said. "I saw how cerebrospinal fluid was flowing through the brain, which can help with diagnosing and preventing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's."
Avery Eliscu researches cancer-fighting drug scaffolds in the lab of Swarna Ganesh, assistant professor of biomedical engineering.
Eliscu's project involved developing a synthetic polymer scaffold that could better deliver cancer drugs directly to tumors.
"We put the scaffold on a tumor, and the drug is slowly released as the scaffold degrades," she said. "Theoretically, the drug would get rid of the tumor."
Other engineering faculty participants and BIO5 members included BME’s Alex McGhee, Elizabeth Hutchinson, Jennifer Barton, Jeong-Yeol Yoon, Philipp Gutruf and Vignesh Subbian, as well as materials science and engineering associate professor Minkyu Kim