Upcoming Speakers | Seminar Archive
The Spring 2023 seminars will be held in person at alternating campus locations. For more information, please contact Denise Perea.
Every semester, the Marquette University and Medical College of Wisconsin Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering brings together biomedical engineers from across the United States for a series of speaking engagements describing ongoing research and novel contributions to this dynamic and engaging field.
The Spring 2023 Graduate Seminar Series is proud to feature physicians and researchers from across the United States specializing in a broad range of biomedical engineering specialties, including regenerative engineering, optical and photoacoustic technologies, and cognitive and clinical neuroscience.
Colin Burnett, MD, January 20, 2023
Dr. Colin Burnett is a graduate of the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and a current Electrophysiology Fellow at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Putting the Heat Back into Calorimetry
Obesity continues to worsen along with its comorbid conditions, and the limited efficacy of current pharmacotherapies necessitates reevaluation of the most common method of metabolic rate measurement: gas respirometry. Direct calorimetry overcomes the limitations of gas respirometry to reveal unappreciated changes in metabolism. Designing better calorimeters will become necessary to advance the understanding of the pathophysiology of obesity and to create more effective treatments of obesity.
Austin Stellpflug, PhD Candidate February 3, 2023
Austin is a doctoral candidate and research assistant in Dr. Bo Wang's Tissue Regenerative Engineering Laboratory (TRE Lab).
Development of a New Generation of Nanoparticles with Acellular Porcine Bone for Regenerative Engineering and Orthopedic Therapy
The increasing prevalence of bone-related diseases and physiological conditions has posed a significant health challenge, particularly to an aging society and those with bone-disease-related conditions. As an important tool of nanomedicine, Nanoparticles (NPs) have been extensively studied in areas including disease diagnosis and therapy, biomedical imaging, and drug and gene delivery, in large part due to their low toxicity, controllable physical stability, and tailorable characteristics for surface binding and encapsulation of drugs or molecules of interest. Although there are currently no FDA approved NP options for clinical orthopedic treatment, scientists are developing new NPs for improving the safety, diagnostic, and therapeutic efficiency that will address potential risks associated with NP use including elevated risks of low biocompatibility and drug delivery efficiency, unwanted accumulation in non-targeted organs, and a high chance for toxic side effects. Our lab has developed a novel type of multifunctional bone-based nanoparticle (BPs) using the decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) of porcine bone tissue designed for orthopedic use. In this talk, I will discuss our current research using the BPs including 1) Local application of BPs for In vivo bone regeneration and healing, 2) Encapsulation of Indocyanine Green (ICG) for use with Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Imaging (NIR) in both local and systemic applications, and 3) Modification for bone-targeting systemic delivery with in situ, real time monitoring capability.
Hernan Rey, PhD February 17, 2023
Dr. Rey is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Marquette-MCW Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. He graduated in Electronic Engineering from the University of Buenos Aires, where he also obtained his PhD. He joined the University of Leicester (UK) in 2010 to perform his postdoctoral studies, and in 2012 he was awarded a Special Training Fellowship in Biomedical Informatics from the Medical Research Council (UK).
Recording Neural Activity 24/7 at Different Scales in the Human Brain: A Unique Opportunity to Study Mechanisms Underlying Memory and Epilepsy
Epilepsy affects about 1% of the population worldwide, causing mortality, morbidity and reducing quality of life. When epilepsy becomes refractory (i.e., pharmacologically resistant), it is common to implant (macro) electrodes to record intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) in candidates identified for a surgical solution. In this talk, I will show you how we can apply modern technologies to simultaneously record from the human brain at different scales: from iEEG with clinical electrodes, to field potentials and single neuron activity from microwires protruding from the clinical probe. In fact, we are now able to record 24/7 for about a week, while the patient undergoes long-term monitoring to identify the epileptogenic zone (EZ), the area of the brain that is necessary for the appearance of seizures. During this time, the patient can engage in behavioral tasks while the neural signals are being recorded. In my lab, we are developing a research program that would allow to use this setup to answer important questions in clinical and cognitive neuroscience. The cognitive studies will allow us to unravel the building blocks of episodic memory and the associated neural mechanism, but will also provide us a platform to study other brain processes like perception, attention, language, and decision making. On the clinical research, we will search for new biomarkers to improve diagnosis and treatment in epilepsy. To achieve this, we rely on developing and applying methods to improve acquisition and analysis of neurophysiological data, based on concepts from signal processing and machine learning.
Whitney Morelli, PhD March 3, 2023
Dr. Morelli (Welch) completed her BS and MS degrees at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and earned her PhD in Exercise Physiology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the NCI-funded T32 training program in cancer prevention and survivorship. In 2019, she was appointed to a faculty position at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine prior to joining the MCW faculty in 2022.
Abstract Coming Soon!
Marcella Vaicik, PhD March 24, 2023
Dr. Vaicik is an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering within the Armour College of Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She earned her BS in Chemical Engineering from Purdue, and earned her MS in Bioengineering from the U of Illinois at Chicago. She completed her PhD at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and her postdoctoral research at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital, in Illinois.
Abstract Coming Soon!
Song Hu, PhD April 14, 2023
Song Hu’s research focuses on the development of cutting-edge optical and photoacoustic technologies for high-resolution structural, functional, metabolic and molecular imaging in vivo and their applications in neurovascular disorders, cardiovascular diseases, regenerative medicine, and cancer.
Abstract Coming Soon!
Yubing Tong, PhD April 21, 2023
Dr. Yubing Tong is a Senior Research Investigator at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.
Abstract Coming Soon!
For your convenience, the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering provides a complete seminar archive, dating back to 2016, when the Joint Department was formed between Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
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