Thirty-four Brown researchers, including seven from the School of Engineering, are receiving University research awards through eight Research Seed grants and 13 Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Awards, with awards totaling more than $640,000.
"The Office of the Vice President for Research makes these Seed and Salomon Awards to support exceptional faculty research," says David Savitz, Vice President for Research. "These awards provide a foundation for future scholarly work and highlight Brown's strength in tackling multidisciplinary challenges."
The 2015 Research Seed Awards fund 21 Brown researchers, involved in eight research projects, including five researchers from the School of Engineering involved in three projects. Research Seed awards are designed to help faculty compete more successfully for large-scale, interdisciplinary, multi-investigator grants. Investigators may propose projects with budgets up to $75,000.
This year, eight of 23 Research Seed applications received funding totaling $450,000. Projects from the School of Engineering include: Diane Hoffman-Kim, who is investigating "Tissue Engineering for Personalized Medicine – 3D Human iPSC-Neuronal Microtissues," Ian Wong, Anges Kane, and Robert Hurt, who are investigating "Engineering Cell Morphology and Phenotype using Bioinspired Graphene Nanoarchitectures," and Alexander Zaslavsky and Domenico Pacifici, who are reseraching "Nanoimprinted Nanowire Solar Cells".
The 2015 Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Awards go to 13 faculty members, including two in the School of Engineering. The Salomon awards were established to support excellence in scholarly work by providing funding for selected faculty research projects deemed to be of exceptional merit. Investigators may propose projects with budgets up to $15,000. This year, OVPR received 30 Salomon applications and made awards totaling $193,968.
Between Brown's FY 2006 and FY 2012, OVPR awarded $2.6 million in Seed Funds, which led to more than $36 million in grants from federal agencies, foundations and other external organizations. Since 2003, OVPR has awarded 174 Salomon awards and 77 Seed awards.
2015 Seed Awards
Tissue Engineering for Personalized Medicine – 3D Human iPSC-Neuronal Microtissues
Modern drug development requires drug discovery, testing, and validation. It is costly and inefficient, and after drugs are brought to market, many fail. The goal of this project is to develop three-dimensional (3D) microtissues composed of patient-specific neural cells, in order to develop patient-specific disease modeling, drug testing and personalized medicine. Advantages of this approach are clear. Safety and efficacy studies on human cells can increase the likelihood of success in drug targeting. 3D cultures replicate the in vivo environment better than two-dimensional (2D) cultures, and as such, will provide more authentic assays for testing. We focus on the nervous system because there is an unmet need for fully comprehending and developing truly successful therapeutics for neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric, and neurodegenerative disorders.
This interdisciplinary team brings to bear the approaches of stem cell technology, neuroscience, neurophysiology, and tissue engineering on these complex problems. They will generate patient-specific neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), including those from patients with Christianson syndrome and from their unaffected siblings. These neurons will be placed into high-throughput 3D cultures. hiPSC-neurons' abilities to express key characteristics of neurons, including synaptic connections, will be confirmed, and their response to various drugs and disease assays will be explored. At the conclusion of this study, we will have key data to secure external funding for large-scale studies in these critical fields of research, and we will advance Brown's position in the cutting- edge areas of pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine.
Dianne Hoffman-KimPI: Diane Hoffman-Kim, Associate Professor of Medical Science and Engineering, Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology
Co-Investigators: Julie Kauer, Professor, Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology
Eric Morrow, Assistant Professor, Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology
Funded: $60,000
Engineering Cell Morphology and Phenotype using Bioinspired Graphene Nanoarchitectures
Interactions between mammalian cells and nanoscale topographies represent an important but poorly understood signaling modality. In particular, the extracellular matrix (ECM) presents nanoscale architectural features that can direct cellular form and function, particularly during epithelial tissue remodeling and macrophage inflammatory responses. Remarkably, modern nanofabrication techniques enable artificial structures with sizes and geometries comparable to those found in the ECM. Here, we propose to explore the role of topographically patterned graphene oxide on cell morphology and phenotype. We will apply thin, stiff graphene oxide sheets to softer elastomeric substrates to generate periodic wrinkling patterns. We hypothesize that anisotropic geometries lead to the alignment and elongation of epithelial cells and macrophages. These biased nanoarchitectural cues may then alter gene expression to perturb cellular phenotype. We envision that this project will inspire new directions in nanomechanics with applications in stretchable electronics, energy storage and functional coatings. Moreover, this project will lead to new fundamental insights into how cell behaviors are modulated during embryonic development, wound healing, inflammation and cancer, with applications in designer biomaterials and regenerative medicine.
Ian Y. Wong
Agnes B. Kane
Robert H. HurtPI: Ian Y. Wong, Assistant Professor, School of Engineering
Co-PIs: Agnes B. Kane, Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Robert H. Hurt, Professor, School of Engineering
Funded: $60,000
Nanoimprinted Nanowire Solar Cells
The eventual long-term goal of this research program is to create a cost-effective high-density nanowire (NW) solar cell that will exceed the so-called Shockley-Queisser power efficiency limit of ~29% for single-junction, single-crystalline silicon solar cells. The nanowire platform makes it possible to create multi-junction solar cells involving multiple materials that absorb more of the solar spectrum over a far smaller vertical cell thickness, resulting in lighter, more efficient cells. While both NWs and NW arrays have demonstrated impressive performance in the laboratory recently, cost-effective heteronanowire integration remains to be demonstrated. We have recently combined nanoimprint lithography, which permits effective fabrication of high-density (~500 nm pitch) arrays, with epitaxy (at NIST) of < 200 nm diameter Si nanowires to fabricate high-density solar cell arrays with improved efficiency over lower-density arrays grown from the usual vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) method using randomly dispersed metal seeds. Our three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations show that due to diffractive scattering and light trapping, an array with 250 nm pitch should significantly outperform a blanket Si film of the same thickness – a result we plan to demonstrate experimentally during the next 6–9 months. At the same time, the small diameter of our NWs permits the combination of lattice-mismatched Ge/Si NW sections – an enabling technology for tandem Ge/Si NW solar cells combining reduced reflection with better solar spectrum coverage. The seed grant will strengthen the existing collaboration between the PIs and a National Laboratory, positioning the Brown-led team for success in extramural funding.
Alexander Zaslavsky
Domenico PacificiPI: Alexander Zaslavsky, Professor, School of Engineering; Physics
Co-PI: Domenico Pacifici, Assistant Professor, School of Engineering
Funded: $60,000
2015 Salomon Awards
Kareen Coulombe
Kareen Coulombe
Assistant Professor of Engineering and Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology
$15,000
How Shape and a Three-dimensional Microenvironment Influences Human Cardiomyocyte Phenotype
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and a global epidemic according to the World Health Organization. A heart attack kills up to 1 billion cardiomyocytes and novel therapies to replace these cells using human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)‐derived cardiomyocytes aim to restore heart function. While hiPSC‐derived cardiomyocytes are a renewable and clinically tractable cell source, these cardiomyocytes are phenotypically immature and lack the shape and functional properties of mature, adult cardiomyocytes. Developing a deeper understanding of how cell shape and three-dimensional (3D) extracellular matrix interactions influence the structural organization and electrical, biochemical, and mechanical function of hiPSC‐cardiomyocytes is necessary for developing tissue engineering therapies that will maximize the contractile contributions of the graft. In this proposal, we aim to independently and simultaneously alter cell shape and 3D extracellular matrix to examine structural organization, electrical activation, calcium transients, and contractility in hiPSCcardiomyocytes. We will pattern three shapes in 2D – an ellipse, rectangle, and bowtie – to mimic the elongated shape of mature cardiomyocytes and use immunohistochemistry to assess adhesions and myofibril organization of single hiPSC‐cardiomyocytes. Using a thin hydrogel of four matrix components – collagen, fibrin, fibronectin, and laminin – we will measure functional outputs including contractility using traction force microscopy of hiPSC‐cardiomyocytes either plated on 2D patterned surfaces and coated with gel or embedded in gel. Finally, we will assess neighboring cell interactions and time-dependent plasticity of hiPSC‐cardiomyocytes and hypothesize that cues from shape, matrix, and neighboring cells will maximize organization and function of hiPSC‐cardiomyocytes.
David Henann
David Henann
Assistant Professor of Engineering
$15,000
Predictive modeling of size-segregation in dense granular flows
Granular materials are ubiquitous in industry and day-to-day life but remain poorly understood. They display a variety of complex behaviors which arise due to the finite size of the grains – a feature which differentiates them from conventional solids or fluids. One especially curious phenomenon exhibited by granular media is size segregation. Briefly, flowing granular materials composed of different-sized grains tend to de-mix, resulting in separate domains of large and small particles. This phenomenology has a significant impact on the performance of industrial processes involving powders and grains and affects the damage done by landslides and avalanches, and consequently, predictive models of granular flow including the effect of size segregation are needed. This has been a particularly persistent challenge, since the segregation process crucially depends upon the grain sizes present in this system. Current models of granular segregation either don't account for all the mechanisms at play or rely on kinematic fields, such as the velocity, to be given as an input. The proposed work is aimed at addressing and filling this need. Building upon recent modeling successes, we propose to develop a continuum-level model capable of describing size-segregation in dense granular flows. In particular, to aid in the development and testing of a model, we will build a split-bottom cell – an experimental apparatus ideal for probing this phenomenology – and perform a systematic series of experiments in which the effect of grain-size disparity in bidisperse granular systems is probed.