Category: J Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering

A multidisciplinary University of Florida research team, headed by Lakiesha Williams, Ph.D., will test what researchers hope will be a dural graft option less likely to succumb to structural compromise and harmful immunological outcomes.

Through a $4.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), two researchers in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering are working to advance the therapeutic intervention known as “neuromodulation,” fine-tuning electronic stimulation inside the body by creating next-generation electrodes that will deliver the equivalent of high fidelity for the central nervous system. 

Ben Keselowsky Ph.D., professor, and Greg Hudalla, Ph.D., associate professor, both in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, are collaborating with UF College of Medicine researchers on a three-year, $2.6M R01 project funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) that will further develop a novel enzyme-based therapeutic that has shown early promise in the treatment of liver ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI).

University of Florida Engineering undergraduates Marion Hagstrom and Parker Kotlarz were selected to present their research on AI in early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease at the Annual “Posters on the Hill” competition, hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). The two-day Posters on the Hill event is an advocacy outreach to promote federal legislative support of groundbreaking undergraduate research.

University of Florida researchers have confirmed their artificial intelligence system, known as MySurgeryRisk, is at least as accurate as physicians in predicting surgical complications and sometimes more so. Developing and testing MySurgeryRisk has been a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort involving experts across the UF campus. A group of 22 engineering and medical researchers initially helped to develop and test the algorithm, and researchers from the UF departments of anesthesiology, medicine and electrical and computer engineering contributed to the latest findings.

Jennifer Nichols, Ph.D., assistant professor in the J. Crayton Pruitt Department of Biomedical Engineering, and collaborators have been awarded a $2.2 million R01 grant from the NIH National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) for her project titled “Carpometacarpal Osteoarthritis: Understanding the Intersection of Muscle Mechanics, Joint Instability, and Pain.”

The University Term Professorship was established in 2016 and is presented to 250 eligible faculty members annually. Selection of the professorships is based on an assessment of academic accomplishment by either a faculty advisory committee and/or the department chair and approved by the dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.

A team of researchers at the University of Florida will explore ways to increase trustworthiness and interpretability of artificial machine learning in healthcare under a new $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The team will also investigate ways to use AI to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases earlier.

Ruogu Fang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, was recently interviewed by the Washington Post about her research into using retinal imaging to predict Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

Edward Phelps, Ph.D., assistant professor & J. Crayton Pruitt Family Term Fellow at the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a $1.8M R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to further his studies of the role of gamma Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) in the islet cells of the pancreas.