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Engineering student research on joint damage, arthritis, heart problems, and tissue defects were the subject of presentations at a major national conference.

Six students and researchers from the��Biomedical Engineering Program (BME) presented their work at this year’s Biomedical Engineering Society 2025 Annual Meeting in San Diego.

The conference, one of the premier gatherings of biomedical engineers and allied fields, brought together over 5,500 attendees worldwide in early October to focus on health and wellness through engineering innovation.

During the five-day event, each student was given the opportunity to present a poster or talk highlighting the primary outcomes of their research. Read below to learn more about these students and their incredible contributions to science and engineering.

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Faith Olulana

Faith is a graduate student in the��Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at �鶹��Ѱ�����Boulder. She is a member of the��Neu Lab, led by Professor��Corey Neu, and gave a talk at this year’s annual meeting titled “Granular Extracellular Matrix-Based Biomaterial for Engineering of Biological Tissues.”

Joint cartilage has a limited capacity for self-repair, thus there is a need to develop tissue engineering strategies capable of new tissue growth. Decellularized extracellular matrices (dECM) are a promising platform for tissue repair, as they retain biological cues that support cell invasion and integration.��

However, dense cartilage ECM presents biophysical barriers that hinder cell infiltration. While hydrogels can provide higher porosity and migratory properties, they often fail to match the mechanical properties of dense connective tissues. Therefore, a key challenge is developing materials that provide both mechanical support and facilitate cellular migration, promoting tissue repair and function.

The Neu Lab addresses this challenge by developing granular extracellular matrix (gECM) biomaterials, comprising decellularized ECM microparticles densely packed within a hyaluronic acid (HA)-based hydrogel. The ​​packing and architecture of gECM biomaterials balances mechanical integrity and porosity, facilitating structural support and cellular migration.��

Faith’s research characterizes the mechanical and structural properties of gECM biomaterials using percolation theory. As tissue particle density increases, material properties shift from hydrogel-like to tissue-like. The percolation threshold is the point at which mechanics are dictated by tissue particles rather than the surrounding hydrogel.��

Faith and her team aim to define where this threshold occurs in naturally derived gECM biomaterials and how particle size and shape influence this threshold. Understanding this transition shows how closely the biomaterial mimics native tissues, thus demonstrating the gECM’s ability to replicate characteristics of native tissues.

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Izaiah Ramirez

Izaiah is a PhD student in the BME program and is also a member of the Neu Lab. He presented a poster titled “Increased Nuclear Reorganization Following Repetitive Stiffening in NIH-3T3 Fibroblasts.”

Fibroblasts in the heart regulate the tissue’s extracellular matrix by continuously sensing and transducing external mechanical forces. When mechanical signals become persistently imbalanced, such as after a heart attack, fibroblasts activate and quickly remodel the tissue environment in a process known as fibrosis.��

Notable changes in fibroblasts occur within hours of an altered environment and persist for the cell’s lifespan. Although these changes are well characterized, the mechanisms at play prior to these visible changes remain poorly understood.

Izaiah’s research aims to understand how mechanical stresses can affect nuclear organization, before a fibroblast activates and loses its ability to recover. To study this, he and his lab group use customized, soft polymer materials to control the magnitude and time the cells are stimulated.

Using this system, Izaiah says his team can track how fibroblast nuclei reorganize after each cycle of stress. He believes this knowledge can one day help identify when certain diseases, like fibrosis, become irreversible and when treatments might be most effective.

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Markkus Tong

Markkus is an undergraduate student in the BME program and a member of the Computer Vision/Imagine AI Lab, led by Associate Professor��Tom Yeh. At this year’s BMES event, he presented a poster titled “T13 - Supporting Strategies to Address Pulmonary Arteriovenous Malformations in Fontan Patients.”

Markkus’ research focuses on treatments for children who are born with serious heart defects where only one pumping chamber develops properly. In these instances, doctors can perform a series of surgeries to help reroute blood flow to improve oxygen levels in the lungs, bypassing the heart entirely.��

But while these treatments exist, they can cause complications and patients can develop other health issues; with no resistance in blood vessels from the heart pumping blood, malformations would develop as a result, leading to less flow traveling to organs.��

Markkus says there isn’t a clear way yet for doctors to compare the various treatment’s effectiveness and decide which option is best for a given patient. The goal of his study is to develop a framework that helps clinicians evaluate and choose the most effective strategies for restoring blood flow in patients who require this attention virtually, without having to open up the patient.��

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Katie Gallagher

Katie is a PhD student in the BME program and also a member of the Neu lab. She gave a talk titled “Tissue-specific granular extracellular matrix biomaterials drive differential responses in human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells.”

Much like Faith, Katie’s research involves using gECM biomaterial to repair damaged cartilage. But she is looking to tackle the issue from a different perspective.

Over time, small areas of damaged cartilage can lead to the breakdown of nearby cartilage and bone, eventually causing osteoarthritis. This debilitating disease affects millions of people worldwide and currently has extremely limited treatment options.

In her talk, Katie demonstrated how human derived mesenchymal stromal cells behave within different tissue derived gECM hydrogels. Her findings showed tissue specific responses to the bone and cartilage gECM materials including cellular growth and gene expression.

Katie believes these results will help them move closer towards future treatments for osteoarthritis.

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S. Ellyse Schneider

Ellyse is a Research Associate in Dr. Corey Neu’s lab, and holds a master’s degree and a PhD from the��Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at �鶹��Ѱ�����Boulder. At the annual meeting, Ellyse presented a poster titled “Senescent cardiac fibroblasts after cardiomyocyte nuclear mechanics.”

As a person ages, senescent fibroblasts within the heart can build up and may interfere with how the heart functions, but their mechanical impact on the behavior of neighboring cells, especially the contracting cardiomyocyte, is still not well understood.

In this study, Ellyse cultured cardiomyocytes on soft “healthy” and stiff “diseased” substrates to see how they respond when senescent fibroblasts are added. She found that these senescent cells immediately changed the contraction mechanics of the cardiomyocyte especially on the stiffer, disease-like substrates.��

When conditioned media from senescent fibroblast cultures was used, smaller effects on the cardiomyocyte contraction mechanics were observed, suggesting that direct contact between cells plays an important role.��

Overall, these findings show that senescent cells mechanically disrupt the microenvironment, helping to better delineate the factors that contribute to aging and heart disease.

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Juliet Heye

Juliet is a PhD candidate in the BME program and Neu Lab. She presented a poster at the BMES event titled “Characterization of Extrudable Granular ECM (gECM) Biomaterials for Five Distinct Tissue-Specific Applications.”

Juliet’s research aims to develop granular ECM (gECM) biomaterials that recapitulate native tissue for realistic in vitro models and filling tissue defects in vivo.��Her work characterizes gECM biomaterials for five tissue applications that cover a large percentage of disease applications—cartilage, bone, skin, liver, and kidney.

In her poster, Juliet characterizes the biophysical and mechanical behavior of these gECM biomaterials. She also demonstrates in a subset of gECM tissues (cartilage and skin) that these materials can support cell viability, proliferation, and tissue-specific gene expression.��

Juliet says the work demonstrates that gECM biomaterials are practical, translational, and biomimetic, supporting their use in developing realistic tissue models and implantable fillers for a variety of disease types.��