News

January 2025

DELTAi has been collaborating with Maksim Plikus’s group at UCI to study lipocartilage, a unique type of cartilage that contains cells with lipid-filled vacuoles. Our collaboration has resulted in a publication in Science! This paper describes how lipochondrocytes were found in many different animals, and explores the biomechanical and proteomic properties of lipocartilages. You can see this new paper here or in our publications list.

November 2024

Dr. Athanasiou received the Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship Award at BMES 2024 in Baltimore, MD! Dr. Athanasiou’s plenary lecture for the award included the various technologies and companies he has developed, as well as advice for succeeding in academia and translational research. This article from BMES highlights Dr. Athanasiou’s lecture — give it a read!

September 2024

Dr. Athanasiou was recently featured in a UCI School of Engineering news article about his 2024 BMES Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship Award! You can read the article here, which describes his long-lasting relationship with BMES. Congratulations, Dr. Athanasiou!

August 2024

	DELTAi translational fellow Dr. Ryan Donahue was chosen as one of University of Miami’s 30 under 30 alumni! You can read more in a news article from UCI here. Congratulations, Ryan!
Dr. Athanasiou has received the 2024 BMES Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship Award for his leadership and accomplishments in biomedical engineering! Please see the article from BMES here detailing the award and for an overview of Dr. Athanasiou’s legacy with BMES.
DELTAi specialist Dr. Rachel Nordberg was awarded a NIH L40 award for her grant entitled “Tissue engineering self-assembled neocartilage for growth plate repair.” Congratulations to Dr. Nordberg! We are excited to see her cartilage tissue engineering techniques applied to engineering growth plates for pediatric applications.
	Congratulations to DELTAi translational fellow Dr. Wendy Brown for her achievement as a Georgia Tech 40 Under 40 alumnus! Dr. Brown was recognized for her work with DELTAi as well as her leadership role in Science Cheerleaders. You can read more about Dr. Brown’s achievement on the Georgia Tech website as well as in this UCI news article. Great job, Wendy!

May 2024

Dr. Athanasiou received an honorary doctorate (DSc honoris causa) from New York Institute of Technology on May 19 and gave the commencement address! You may read a UCI news article about the commencement speech here, or watch the commencement video here (17:59-32:42). Embedded on the right is a highlight of the speech (“Think Like A Woman”) shared by NYIT on Instagram. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou for the honorary doctorate and the fantastic, compelling speech!

View this post on Instagram   A post shared by New York Tech (@mynyit)

Research from DELTAi was recently featured in a CBS News TV segment and online article. The article, titled “The horrors of TMJ: Chronic pain, metal jaws, and futile treatments,” includes links to our recent review (Bielajew, Donahue, Espinosa, et al., Knee orthopedics as a template for the temporomandibular joint. Cell Reports Medicine 2021) that compares the fields of the knee and TMJ, highlighting the lack of treatment options for TMD patients and gender imbalances in TMD incidence. Please check out the news segment included in the online article to hear some compelling stories from TMD patients that continue to motivate our work.

Dr. Athanasiou gave an interview to EurekaHub in 2020, where he talks about pursuing and exploring passion in higher education. Check out the video here!

The 2024 IADR/AADOCR/CADR General Session & Exhibition was held this year in New Orleans, LA. DELTAi postdoctoral fellow Benjamin Bielajew presented his research on the TMJ condyle at the NIDCR trainee poster session, where he was invited to present because of his F32 funding from NIDCR.

February 2024

Dr. Gabriela Espinosa, a former UCI postdoctoral researcher and DELTAi alumnus, now serves as an assistant professor at Concordia University Irvine (CUI), and also as the founding chair and program director of CUI’s engineering program. Gaby was featured in a recent UCI news article about her program which discusses Gaby’s time at UCI and her current collaborations with UCI engineering. You may read the article at this link. Congratulations Gaby, DELTAi is proud of you!

	Please see this video for the ceremony at the presidential palace for the Medal of Excellence which Dr. Athanasiou received from the President of Cyprus on Dec. 12, 2023. Dr. Athanasiou’s presentation and speech (in Greek) start around the 1 hr mark in this linked video.
Dr. Athanasiou was featured in a recent news article from UCI regarding his achievement of receiving the Medal of Excellence from the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts. You may find the news article at this link. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou for this outstanding achievement!

January 2024

Dr. Athanasiou was recently on a panel for the NIDCR 75 years “NIH Support of TMD Research” roundtable. Dr. Athanasiou’s presentation highlighted recent tissue engineering work from DELTAi related to the TMJ and discussed the concept of treating TMJ disorders as orthopedic problems. You may the whole set of TMJ Day presentations at this link (Dr. Athanasiou’s talk is 0:55-1:10).

December 2023

Dr. Athanasiou was recently interviewed for GOLD Magazine, a monthly business magazine in Cyprus. In his interview, Dr. Athanasiou discusses scientific translation in academia, including his latest efforts with Cartilage Inc. You can find the full issue here, with Dr. Athanasiou’s interview starting on page 100.

November 2023

DELTAi would like to highlight this recently published article in Nature Medicine that studies cell-based versus corticosteroid injections for knee pain in osteoarthritis. None of the three cell-based injections had better outcomes compared to corticosteroid controls. This paper is important for everyone in the osteoarthritis field and cartilage healing field to read and understand, and is one of the major factors that motivates our group to develop novel and effective therapeutics for arthritides.

October 2023

Dr. Guillermo Ameer of Northwestern University was awarded the very first Athanasiou Medal of Excellence in Translational Bioengineering at BMES this year! The Athanasiou Medal recognizes the achievements of an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of biomedical engineering with a particular focus on translation. You can read an article about Dr. Ameer’s award here, and see a tweet from BMES here. Congratulations to Dr. Ameer!

April 2023

DELTAi postdoctoral fellow Ryan Donahue has been selected as a UCI Beall Applied Innovation’s Graduate Innovation Fellow! This $5000 fellowship aims to create a culture that encourages, cultivates, supports, and rewards the creativity, innovation, translation, and commercialization of research at UCI for Graduate Students, Ph.D. Students and Post-Docs. Congratulations Ryan – well done!
DELTAi will receive funding from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) late-stage preclinical (CLIN1) proposal! The CIRM CLIN1 grant awards DELTAi with $6M of funding over the next 2.5 years to conduct preclinical research on regeneration of the TMJ disc in the minipig. Our proposal received the maximum possible score. Congratulations to all those who worked on the proposal – there will be much great research to come!
DELTAi postdoctoral fellow Benjamin Bielajew has been awarded a NIH F32 NRSA for his upcoming work on tissue engineering the TMJ! This fellowship will award Ben with approximately $210k of funding over the next three years to conduct studies on tissue-engineering the mandibular condyle. Congratulations to Ben for this accomplishment!
	DELTAi members Ben Bielajew, Ryan Donahue, and Eston Kallins visited Philadelphia, PA this April for the International TMJ Interdisciplinary Research Meeting. Eston gave an excellent presentation on a characterization of the TMJ disc-attachment complex in the Yucatan minipig. Great job, Eston!
The 2023 TERMIS-AM conference was in Boston, MA this year. DELTAi postdocs Ben Bielajew and Ryan Donahue attended, with Ben presenting two posters and Ryan presenting two posters and a podium talk. Dr. Athanasiou also accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award at this conference. For more photos, see “Other Event Photos.”

January 2023

Dr. Athanasiou will be awarded the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). He will receive the award during the 2023 TERMIS-Americas conference in Boston, MA, this April. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou! To read more, you can find a UCI news release about this award here.

October 2022

The 2022 BMES Annual Meeting was held in San Antonio, TX. DELTAi postdocs Ben Bielajew and Wendy Brown attended, with Ben presenting two posters and Wendy as a panelist for a special session on clinical translation. Wendy also accepted the 2022 Herbert Voigt Distinguished Service Award on behalf of Dr. Athanasiou.
	Dr. Athanasiou received the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Federation of Cypriot-American Organizations! The award was given to Dr. Athanasiou in New York by the President of Cyprus and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of North America. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou for this incredible achievement! A UCI news article detailing the award can be found here.

August 2022

The 2022 Athanasiou Student and Post-Doc Awards was recently featured in an editorial in Annals of Biomedical Engineering. This editorial highlights the four awardees for 2022, selected from all papers with graduate student or post-doctoral scholar first authors published online in 2021. An overview of the wide range of research in these four articles is described in the editorial. The awardees will present their papers this October at the 2022 BMES Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX.

 

May 2022

A recent DELTAi publication, “The effect of neonatal, juvenile, and adult donors on rejuvenated neocartilage functional properties,” was featured on the cover art of the latest issue of Tissue Engineering Part A! This figure from Dr. Ryan Donahue and Dr. Rachel Nordberg’s publication shows safranin-O staining of self-assembled neocartilage. Great work, Ryan and Rachel! You may find the full issue at this link.

April 2022

Dr. Benjamin Bielajew received an honorable mention for the UCI 2022 Celebration of Teaching “Most Promising Future Faculty” award. Congratulations! Ben will be honored among the other honorable mentions and winners at the Celebration of Teaching Reception on April 21st.

March 2022

	Ryan Donahue successfully defended his PhD dissertation “Tissue engineering of temporomandibular joint disc implants toward clinical translation” on March 29th. Congratulations to Dr. Donahue for an excellent defense!
Benjamin Bielajew defended his PhD dissertation “Collagenomics of tissue-engineered cartilage regeneration” on March 24th. Congratulations to Dr. Bielajew for a job well done!
On March 10th, Erik Gonzalez-Leon successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled “Enhancing functional properties of self-assembled neomenisci and neocartilage toward their implantation in a suitable preclinical large animal model.” Congratulations Dr. Gonzalez-Leon, excellent work!

February 2022

The 2021 Athanasiou Student and Post-Doc Award Session was held prior to the 2021 BMES Annual Meeting. These awards were selected from all publications submitted to Annals of Biomedical Engineering in 2020 with a graduate student or post-doctoral scholar first author. These papers covered a variety of topics including tissue engineering, biomechanics, and medical imaging. Please see this article for more information about the awards and this year’s winners. Congratulations to the awardees!

Professors Kyriacos Athanasiou and Maksim Plikus obtained a $1 million award (direct funds) from the W.M. Keck Foundation to study a new cell type, a lipid-containing cartilage cell, found in craniofacial areas such as the nose and ears. An article from UCI regarding the award and the research can be found here. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou and Dr. Plikus!

January 2022

DELTAi  translational fellow Dr. Wendy Brown was recently featured on the UCI Engineering news site for a Q&A on her involvement with the Science Cheerleaders! In this interview, Wendy describes her role in the program and her goals toward involving more women in professional STEM careers. Keep it up Wendy! You can read the article here.

December 2021

DELTAi translational fellow Dr. Wendy Brown, the Director of Outreach for the Science Cheerleaders, was at the 2021 Pop Warner National Cheer & Dance Championship to engage with the cheerleaders and inspire these girls to pursue education and careers in STEM. A news article and video about the event can be found at this link. These are the future generation of biomedical engineers – great job Wendy!

October 2021

Expertscape, an analysis service that ranks people and institutions in biomedical topics, has listed Dr. Athanasiou as the world’s #1 expert in the temporomandibular joint disc, the #7 expert in cartilage, the #9 expert in articular cartilage, and the #10 expert in tissue engineering.  Dr. Jerry Hu is also rated highly as an expert in these topics (# 4, 10, 12, and 15, respectively). You may search through the listings at this link.

July 2021

Dr. Athanasiou was recently featured as one of four almuni in the spotlight section of the New York Institute of Technology’s alumni magazine. The article focuses on Dr. Athanasiou’s career and achievements since graduating from NYIT in ’84. The full magazine can be accessed at this link.

June 2021

Dr. Athanasiou has been awarded the Senior Faculty Excellence in Research Award for the 2020-21 academic year! The award is provided by the Samueli School of Engineering as part of the 2021 8th Annual Spring Faculty Awards. Dr. Athanasiou was nominated by peer faculty, and his award was featured in a spotlight during the virtual End-of-Year Event. Congratulations Dr. Athanasiou for receiving this award!

May 2021

DELTAi members Benjamin Bielajew, Ryan Donahue, and Gabriela Espinosa have published a perspective article in Cell Reports Medicine discussing the disparities between the knee and TMJ fields, and how the TMJ field can move forward using lessons and templates from the world of knee orthopedics. Their publications was featured in a UCI press release which can be found here, and the article may be accessed here. Art on left by Chrisoula Skouritakis.

DELTAi proudly announces that the lab has been awarded an NIH R01 grant for $2 million (PI: Prof. Athanasiou). This project will develop tissue-engineered treatments for the facet joint. The work will be led by DELTAi postdoctoral fellow Dr. Rachel Nordberg, Dr. Jerry Hu, and Dr. Athanasiou, and it will be in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic. Congratulations to Rachel and the rest of DELTAi – many facet joint tissue engineering studies are in the future! You may read more in this UCI press release.

February 2021

The Engineering Student Council has awarded Dr. Athanasiou with the Best Professor of the Year award for 2021! Nominees are directly picked by undergraduate students. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou! Dr. Athanasiou: “I am very excited to be a faculty member of UCI, a fantastic university not only in terms of its research output but also for all it does in endowing our students with rigorous and appropriate knowledge for their future careers. I enjoy receiving awards and honors, in general, but I am particularly thrilled to be recognized by our undergraduate students. I am intensely delighted to receive the Best Professor of the Year Award! My gratitude to our students for this cherished recognition.”

November 2020

DELTAi postdoctoral fellow Wendy Brown has been awarded with the L’Oréal USA For Women in Science (FWIS) Fellowship! Along with four other FWIS fellows, Dr. Brown was featured in this video where the fellows and their research are introduced. Congratulations, Wendy!

October 2020

Ben Bielajew’s article, “Collagen: quantification, biomechanics and role of minor subtypes in cartilage,” was featured in the UCI Biomedical Engineering Discovery Magazine for Fall 2020. The magazine can be found online here, with this feature on page 16. In the article, Ben Bielajew and Dr. Athanasiou discuss collagen and the role of next-generation quantification methods for applications in tissue characterization and engineering.

Professor Athanasiou has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine — one of the highest distinctions awarded to professionals in the medical sciences, healthcare and public health. Dr. Athanasiou was one of 100 members added in the annual meeting for 2020. You may read more about the members added this year here, and news articles from UCI are available here and here. Congratulations on this wonderful achievement!

August 2020

	Evelia Salinas successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis titled “Using mechanical stimulation to improve neocartilage for implantation in the knee joint” on August 19th. Great job Dr. Salinas, congratulations!
We are delighted to report that DELTAi postdoctoral fellow Dr. Nathan Castro has received a NIH Diversity Supplement grant for research in TMJ disc regeneration. Dr. Castro’s supplement grant will continue to provide funding for our research in tissue engineering implants for the TMJ disc. Congratulations Nathan!

July 2020

Ben Bielajew’s article, “Collagen: quantification, biomechanics and role of minor subtypes in cartilage,” was recently published by the  prestigious journal Nature Reviews Materials! This article discusses the major and minor types of collagen and their roles in engineering robust tissues such as cartilage. You may access the article here. Congratulations to the authors!
On July 23rd, Jarrett Link successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis titled “Toward enhancing the durability and integration of engineered articular cartilage.” Congratulations Dr. Link, excellent work!

April 2020

Congratulations to DELTAi undergraduate researcher Jessica Herrera for receiving the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program award! This is a great achievement for Jessica – the fellowship program is very competitive, and this fellowship will undoubtedly set up Jessica for success as she continues toward her graduate studies. DELTAi is proud!

February 2020

Ben Bielajew has been awarded with a travel fellowship to the May Institute on Computation and Statistics for Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics! The May Institute is a two-week course on quantitative proteomics, held at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Ben was selected among 130 applicants from 13 countries for the fellowship. More information on the May Institute can be found here.
	The inaugural Faculty Innovation Fellows Recognition Reception was held on January 24th, and Dr. Athanasiou was a keynote speaker, and the program recognized UCI faculty who are accelerating translation of academic research. The news article can be found here, and a photo album of the event can be found here.

January 2020

Prof. Athanasiou is grateful to CAPT David M. Stevens, MC USN for this touching gift: “This American flag was flown into combat in an EA-6B Prowler…for Kyriacos Athanasiou. Presented by Captain David M. Stevens, M.D.” Dr. Stevens was one of Dr. Athanasiou’s first students when he was at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Congratulations to Jessica Herrera for again receiving the UROP Fellowship! This fellowship comes with an award for her project on mechanical stimulation of self-assembled neocartilage.

December 2019

The Athanasiou Awards Session at BMES 2019 was featured in a recent BMES blog post. This post describes each of the winning papers, and highlights that the next Athanasiou Awards Session will be held at BMES 2020 in San Diego, CA. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with first author papers published in 2019 are eligible for the award.

November 2019

Annals of Biomedical Engineering  published an article on the Athanasiou Awards Session from BMES 2019! Click this link for the article.
	Ben Bielajew passed his qualifying exam, and is now a PhD candidate!

October 2019​

The 2019 BMES Annual Meeting was held in Philadelphia from October 16th to 19th. Two DELTAi members, Jarrett Link (pictured) and Erik Gonzalez-Leon, presented on their research. The 2019 Athanasiou ABME Student Award Session was also held at BMES!

August 2019

Congratulations to Erik Gonzalez-Leon for receiving the 2019 BMES Student Design and Research Award for his extended abstract on meniscus tissue engineering! His abstract is titled “Enhancing Mechanical and Biochemical Properties of Self-assembled Neomenisci Through a Novel Combination of Bioactive Stimuli,” and the award comes with a certificate, a $400 award, and complimentary registration to the 2019 BMES Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Erik will be attending the 2019 BMES Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, along with other DELTAi members, on October 16-19.

July 2019

DELTAi undergraduate Jessica Herrera will be featured in an upcoming article for the CAMP annual magazine!  Photos taken by UCI School of Education.

June 2019

Dr. Athanasiou was featured on a panel of UCI faculty in an event called From Bench to Business: Faculty Experiences at the Cove @ UCI Beall Applied Innovation. Dr. Athanasiou talked about the translation process of taking research developed in the laboratory to practice and commercialization. Specifically, Dr. Athanasiou talked about how the potential for commercialization can help convince grant reviewers about the high impact of our research. A news article about the event can be found here.

May 2019

DELTAi undergraduate researcher Jessica gave an outstanding presentation at the UROP program, covering her work on the time-dependent effects of fluid induced pulsatile shear stimulation of tissue-engineered articular cartilage constructs! Congratulations to Jessica for the great presentation and to Evelia for her mentorship.

April 2019

High school students in the Long Beach Upward Bound program visited DELTAi for a lab tour organized by Jarrett Link. Ben Bielajew, Rachel Nordberg, and Gaston Otarola, and Jarrett helped to give tours and talk about being a STEM researcher.
DELTAi graduate student Ryan Donahue’s article “Remaining Hurdles for Tissue-Engineering the Temporomandibular Joint Disc” and subsequent UCI news article were featured in Issue 2, 2019 of the TMJ Association’s TMJ News Bites e-newsletter! The TMJ Association’s website is located here and their newsletters can be found here. We hope that the TMJ Association’s featuring of Ryan’s research will help to bring more attention to the pressing need for tissue-engineered TMJ disc implants and regenerative treatments.
	DELTAi graduate student Ben Bielajew helped acquire funding and volunteered at Take Back the Night 2019, a campus-wide event for education and awareness against power-based personal violence. Ben is a member of ChAMPS (Challenging All Men to Prevent Sexism), a peer education group on campus that leads workshops on- and off-campus to engage men in violence prevention. Take Back the Night 2019 was a huge success, with over 500 attendants!
DELTAi graduate students Erik Gonzalez-Leon and Evelia Salinas participated in a career fair for Long Beach’s Upward Bound students, where they shared experiences of biomedical engineering research.

March 2019

The journal Tissue Engineering has recognized a paper by DELTAi graduate student Evelia Y. Salinas, Dr. Jerry C. Hu, and Prof. Kyriacos A. Athanasiou, as a top-ten most read paper from the journal in the past year. The paper is titled “A Guide for Using Mechanical Stimulation to Enhance Tissue-Engineered Articular Cartilage Properties” and can be found in Volume 24 Issue 5 of Tissue Engineering: Part B or by clicking this link.
	DELTAi graduate student Ryan Donahue’s article “Remaining Hurdles for Tissue-Engineering the Temporomandibular Joint Disc” was recently featured in a UCI news article and podcast about Dr. Athanasiou’s efforts in the tissue-engineering approach to TMJ disorders. You can see the article and podcast here.
Congratulations to Gaston Otarola for passing his Qualifying Exam—he is now officially a DELTAi doctoral candidate!

February 2019

	On February 28, several high school and middle school students visited the DELTAi lab for tours. These students got to look at tissue engineered and native articular cartilage, and observed the biochemical and biomechanical testing equipment.
An online editorial about the 2018 Athanasiou ABME Student Awards was recently published in Annals of Biomedical Engineering! This editorial highlights the importance of this event led by Dr. and Mrs. Athanasiou. The next Athanasiou ABME Student Award Session will be held at the 2019 BMES Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

January 2019

Congratulations to DELTAi undergraduate student Jessica for achieving the appointment of UROP fellow, along with a grant for her project on shear stimulation of self-assembled articular cartilage!

 

Dr. Athanasiou was featured in two recent newsletters from BMES. In the October 18, 2018 edition, the section “Current and past leaders gather to celebrate BMES 50th Anniversary” highlights BMES past presidents and leaders. The October 20, 2018 edition includes the story “Athanasiou Award Session and Journal Awards,” which shows the Athanasiou Annals of Biomedical Engineering Student Awards session at the 2018 BMES annual meeting.
	Doctoral candidate Evelia Salinas and postdoctoral fellow Wendy Brown presented at the BMES Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA.
The most recent issue of Tissue Engineering Part B, published on October 6, 2018, features Evelia’s article, “A Guide for Using Mechanical Stimulation to Enhance Tissue-Engineered Articular Cartilage Properties.” You may find the article online here or in our publications list. Congratulations, Evelia!

September 2018

Post-doctoral fellow Wendy Brown accepted the Innovator of the Year award on behalf of Dr. Athanasiou at OCTANe’s High Tech Innovation Awards. The award was presented by Ken Walsh, UCI’s Senior Assistant Dean and Chief of Staff.

August 2018

Darryl, a DELTAi summer undergraduate researcher, will be departing the lab this week after completing 8 weeks with the group. He will be giving his final presentation at the student center on Thursday August 16th, to report on auricular cartilage biomechanics and hyperelastic mechanical testing he’s done with us. We wish him great luck at his presentation and a safe return back to Virginia!

July 2018

	A few articles relevant to our group have recently been posted to the BMES blog! Dr. Athanasiou was mentioned regarding his award, the Savio L-Y. Woo Medal for his exceptional contributions to bioengineering. This post can be found here. Also, BMES’s flagship journal, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, recently achieved the highest impact factor in the journal’s history. The story, along with some commentary from Dr. Athanasiou, can be found here.
Erik Gonzalez-Leon was awarded the Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is one of 45 students in the country to receive this prestigious award. We are all very proud of Erik! You can read more about the award here.
Congratulations to Evelia for receiving the 2018 BMES Career Development Award! This award shows that BMES recognizes Evelia’s excellence as an early career professional. Evelia will be attending the 2018 BMES Annual Meeting in October, in Atlanta, GA.
A recent DELTAi publication in Science Translational Medicine was featured in a Nature Reviews Rheumatology research highlight titled “Jaw-dropping new surgical approach.” This highlight, located here, discusses our group’s novel use of tissue engineering in conjunction with new surgical approaches to address TMJ pathologies. Congratulations to DELTAi alumni Natalia Vapniarsky and Le Huwe for this recognition!

June 2018

At the inaugural UCI Innovator Awards held at The Cove at UCI, Dr. Athanasiou was given the Lifetime Achievement award. This award recognizes Dr. Athanasiou’s great strides towards translating engineering innovations into commercially available medical instruments and devices. You can watch a video recap of the awards here or read the news article here.
Congrats to DELTAi undergrad Jessica Herrera for being accepted to the CAMP Scholars Program! Your DELTAi family is proud!
Congratulations to Evelia Salinas for passing her Qualifying Exam!
	Dean Gregory Washington awarded Dr. Athanasiou last week at a ceremony following the spring faculty meeting. He received the Innovator of the Year Award, and was recognized for his many FDA-approved technologies and products. Eight others were awarded, and you can read more in the article here.
Happy birthday to doctoral student, Evelia, who is celebrating her 3rd annual 21st birthday!

May 2018

Congratulations to doctoral students Ben Bielajew and Ryan Donahue for passing their preliminary examinations!
Dr. Athanasiou gave a keynote talk for the Allergan Lecture Series in Modern Biology. His presentation was entitled “Rebuilding our Joints – Translating Discoveries in Biology and Engineering” and was dedicated to his wife, Kiley, and his mother, Anastasia.
	Dr. Athanasiou received the Lifetime Achievement Award at The Innovator Awards event at The Cove on May 14th. Aside from the stunning memento, Dr. Athanasiou received certificates of recognition from the US Congress, California Senate, and California Legislature Assembly. Congratulations to Dr. Athanasiou for his wonderful achievement!

April 2018

Congratulations to DELTAi graduate students Gaston Otarola and Erik Gonzalez-Leon for passing their preliminary examinations!
	Dr. Athanasiou delivered the 2018 Hohenschuh Lectureship on April 16th at Washington State University. His lecture, “Toward bioengineering translation,” presented a focus on commercializing outcomes of our academic research.
DELTAi doctoral student Erik Gonzalez-Leon was featured in a recent UCI news article for being a NSF GRFP recipient. Erik is one of six engineering graduate students at UCI to win the fellowship this year. The article can be found here. Congratulations Erik!

March 2018

One of our post-doctoral fellows, Wendy Brown, was interviewed on the Beyond the Microscope podcast which highlights women in STEM! Click here to listen for free. Her interview covers topics such as her research in cartilage tissue engineering, the resources at UCI (particularly, Applied Innovation), her career as a professional cheerleader, and her involvement in Project MERCCURI (a citizen science research project conducted on the International Space Station). Wendy is a great example of a successful woman in STEM with diverse interests and is a great role model.

February 2018

DELTAi and its entrepreneurial interests were highlighted in the most recent issue of Applied Innovation’s Tech Currents periodical. Check out the article, here.

Dr. Athanasiou was featured in UCI Magazine in the feature, “Tissue Trailblazer.” Check out the article, here!

January 2018

Doctoral student, Evelia Salinas, was awarded a three-year NIH diversity fellowship! Check out the announcement made by the School of Engineering, here.

December 2017

Dr. Athanasiou has been awarded the 2018 Savio L-Y. Woo Translational Biomechanics Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in recognition of his exceptional contributions to bioengineering.

November 2017

The Annals of Biomedical Engineering and Dr. Athanasiou are about a month away from passing the editor-in-chief torch to Stefan Duma. ABME recently joined Twitter (@ABMEjournal) and Stefan posted a note thanking Dr. and Mrs. Athanasiou for their generous donation and establishment of the Athanasiou Endowment. BMES plans to give the first awards in the Fall at BMES 2018.

October 2017

Dr. and Mrs. Athanasiou were honored at the BMES Annual Meeting in Phoenix for his contributions to the Annals of Biomedical Engineering and their generous donation to form the Athanasiou Endowment.

September 2017

Doctoral student Natasha Vapniarsky successfully defended her dissertation! Congratulations!! a a a a a a a

August 2017

Michael Detamore, a former doctoral student of the lab, has been elected as a 2017 BMES Fellow! He will be honored, along with the rest of his BMES class, at the BMES Annual Meeting in October.

July 2017

Dr. Athanasiou and the laboratory group have officially arrived and set up the new lab at UC Irvine!

June 2017

Doctoral student Wendy Brown successfully defended her dissertation entitled, “Engineering Osteochondral Constructs to Treat Articular Cartilage Defects.” Congratulations, Doc Brown!

March 2017

Doctoral student Le Huwe successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Functional Articular Cartilage Engineering for Regenerating the Patellofemoral and Temporomandibular Joints.” Great job, Le!

October 2016

Doctoral student Le Huwe received the Amgen Scholars Alumni Travel Award to fund her trip to the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (TERMIS) Annual Meeting in San Diego this December.

July 2016

Doctoral student Brian Huang successfully defended his PhD entitled “Scale-up of Engineered, Large, Anatomically-shaped Neocartilage with Robust Mechanical Properties.” Congratulations, Dr. Huang!

June 2016

Doctoral student Wendy Brown was awarded the Graduate Student Research Summer Award by the College of Engineering.

Wendy Brown also received a travel award from the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group to fund her trip to the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in October, where she will be giving a talk.

May 2016

Doctoral student Wendy Brown won the Best Oral Presentation award at this year’s annual UC Davis Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group Research Conference.

April 2016

Dr. Jeni Lee received the 2016 Zuhair A. Munir Best Dissertation Award for her dissertation “Bioactive and Mechanical Stimuli for Engineering Neocartilage with Native Tissue-like Tensile Properties.” As part of her dissertation Lee created a new biomechanical device that is the first of its kind to successfully apply tensile loading to fabricate cartilage. This discovery will help treat sports-related injuries and osteoarthritis. In addition to Lee’s research she has done extensive extracurricular work in STEM education and has a natural gift for mentoring students. And, she is noted for being active in entrepreneurial communities. Lee won the 2015 Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group Outstanding Graduate Student Award. As a graduate student she co-founded the regenerative medicine start-up ViVita Technologies that won the 2013 Big Bang! Business competition. And, Lee was named one of Comstock’s “Next Wave” of 10 young professionals on the radar for 2015. Lee is also dedicated to addressing the challenges women face in STEM fields. She served as President of the Sacramento Valley Chapter of the Association for Women in Science from 2015-2016 and helped launch the UC Davis Women in Leadership Seminar Series. Dr. Lee is currently an associate with Novo Ventures, an international life science investment company, in Boston, MA.

December 2015

Doctoral student Dr. Derek Cissell successfully defended his Ph.D. entitled “Toward Detection of Early Degeneration, Restoration of Function, and Evaluation of Regeneration in Cartilage.” He is now faculty in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. Congratulations, Dr. Cissell!

October 2015

Doctoral student Jeni Lee successfully defended her Ph.D. entitled “Bioactive and mechanical stimuli for engineering neocartilage with native tissue-like tensile properties.” Congratulations, Dr. Lee!

January 2015

PhD/DVM candidate Jamie White was awarded the Mentored Clinical Research Training Program Fellowship for 2015 – 2107.

May 2014

Doctoral student Meghan Murphy successfully defended her Ph.D. entitled “Engineering Functional Cartilage for the Temporomandibular Joint.” Congratulations, Dr. Murphy!

November 2014

Former postdoctoral fellow Raja Eswaramoorthy was appointed as an associate professor at Sri Ramachandra Medical University in India.

October 2014

Graduate student Le Wut Huwe unconditionally passed her qualifying exam! Her proposal was entitled “Engineering Articular Cartilage via Mechanical Stimulation.”

September 2014

Graduate student Pasha Hadidi successfully defended his Ph.D. His dissertation was entitled “Enhancing the Biochemical and Mechanical Properties of a Self-Assembling Scaffold-Free Tissue Engineered Knee Meniscus.” Congratulations, Dr. Hadidi!

January 2014

Graduate student Eleftherios A. Makris successfully defended his Ph.D. and received his degree with highest honors from the University of Thessaly.

Ph.D./D.V.M. candidate Jamie White was awarded the Year-Long Exposure to Advanced Research (YEAR) Program Fellowship for Veterinary Students by the NIH.

December 2013

Graduate student Gina MacBarb successfully defended her dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. MacBarb!

November 2013

Graduate student Wendy Brown passed her qualifying examination! Her proposal was entitled “Engineering Skin-Derived Osteochondral Grafts to Treat Articular Cartilage Defects.”

September 2013

Graduate student Pasha Hadidi was accepted as a fellow in the Business Development Program at UC Davis, a program in conjunction with the Graduate School of Management focused on entrepreneurship.

September 2013

The self-assembly approach to cartilage tissue engineering was mentioned in this season of Grey’s Anatomy!

November 2012

On November 27, the President of the Republic of Cyprus presented Dr. Kyriacos Athanasiou with the Nemitsas Prize, the highest honor a Cypriot scientist can receive, and one of the most prestigious awards in the European Union. For this reason, it is often called the “Nobel Prize” of Cyprus. For more information, please click this link. (Nemitsas Foundation award announcement).

Doctoral student Wendy Brown is co-PI on Project MERCCURI, a team that has been chosen out of a group of competitors in the Space Florida International Space Station Research Competition to send an experiment to the International Space Station. The experiment will be launched to the ISS in December, 2013. (UC Davis press release)

September 2012

Through an exciting collaborative effort involving Dr. Boaz Arzi and Dr. Dan Huey of the Athanasiou Lab with the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, the regrowing of a dog’s jawbone following cancer gives promise to the use of such techniques in humans (Whiskey’s New Jaw – articles) (Direct link to video)

May 12, 2012

Congratulations to Sriram Eleswarapu, Donald Responte,  Johannah Sanchez-Adams and Vince Willard on their doctoral commencement!

January 6, 2012

Dr. Grayson DuRaine was featured in Arthritis Foundation Magazine.

September 25, 2009

The lab was featured in the UC Davis Dateline publication: http://dateline.ucdavis.edu/dl_detail.lasso?id=11890

August 2, 2009

Interview in magazine “K” of the Sunday Edition of Kathimerini (newspaper in Greece): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathcolumns_3_02/08/2009_1289023

June 28, 2009

One-page article in the Greek-language publication BHMA (Vima) for research in cartilage regeneration. Vima is the largest Sunday paper in Greece. Title “Joints: Achievements in diagnosis and therapy” (http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=33&artId=275733&dt=28/06/2009)

March 11, 2009

Michael Detamore has been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure at the University of Kansas. Michael received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the Univ of Colorado-Boulder in 2000. In 2004, he received his PhD with us at Rice. In 2008, he went up for early promotion. And now, in 2009 he deservedly became a tenured faculty member. Congratulations!

February 2, 2009

A rebirth in stem cell research is featured in Houston Chronicle

January 11, 2009

Dr. Athanasiou and high school researchers are featured in St. John’s newsletter.

September 30, 2008

Dr. Athanasiou’s paper with Dr. Detamore and Dr. Mao was one of the top ten cited articles in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering in 2008. The article reference is below:
“Detamore, M.S.; Athanasiou, K.A., Mao, J.J. A call to action for bioengineers and dental professionals: directives for the future of TMJ Bioengineering. Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 35 (8): 1301-1311, 2007″

September 29, 2008

Vidacare’s product, the EZ-IO, was the sole winner of Wall Street Journal’s 2008 Innovation Award Competition. The company was co-founded by Dr. Athanasiou and he invented the technology. For the news article, please click here.

August 19, 2008

Ben Elder successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Optimizing a Scaffoldless Approach for Cartilage Tissue Engineering.” Well done Dr. Elder!

July 10, 2008

Our lab’s research was reviewed in the July 2008 edition of the peer reviewed journal, LabAnimal. A PDF of the article can be found here.

June 25, 2008

Dr. Athanasiou received the The Thomas A. Edison Patent Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers “for addressing the significant health problem of articular cartilage repair through the invention of a patented technology, the only implant used worldwide to treat focal cartilage lesions in the knee.”

April 14, 2008

Chris Revell successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Characterization of Chondrocytic Differentiation and Optimization of a Self-Assembling Process for Tissue Engineering of Articular Cartilage.” Great job Dr. Revell!

February 21, 2008

Dr. Athanasiou was awarded the prestigious Marshall R. Urist Award for Excellence in Tissue Regeneration Research by the Orthopaedic Research Society. For the news article, please click here.

December 14, 2007

Gidon Ofek successfully defended his Ph.D dissertation proposal. Huzzah!

December 7, 2007

Eugene Koay successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Chondrocyte Biomechanics and Chondrogenesis.” Congratulations Dr. Koay!

December 3, 2007

Gwendolyn Hoben successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Self assembly of fibrochondrocytes and human embryonic stem cells for tissue engineering of fibrocartilage.” Excellent work Dr. Hoben!

September 19, 2007

The lab’s research on using stem cells to grow cartilage was written up in ISTOE, Brazil’s equivalent of Newsweek. Click here for the article.

September 10, 2007

An article about the lab featuring the use of embryonic stem cells to tissue engineer cartilage was published on MyFox Houston. Click here for the link. For the video interview with Dr. Athanasiou, click here.

September 6, 2007

A Rice news release of the labs achievements to grow cartilage using embyronic stem cells can be accessed here.

August 29, 2007

Benjamin Elder successfully defended his thesis proposal entitled “Optimizing a ‘scaffold-less’ approach to articular cartilage tissue engineering”. Congrats!

August 1, 2006

An article about skeletal tissue engineering featuring some of our lab’s research appeared in the August 2006 issue of the American Airlines magazine, AmericanWay. To read this article, click here.

July 28, 2006

Benjamin Elder tied the knot with Bernadetta Maira. Congratulations to the married couple!

June 1, 2006

Najmuddin Gunja successfully passed his thesis proposal examination. Good job!

May 31, 2006

Adam Aufderheide successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Mechanical stimulation toward tissue engineering the knee meniscus.” Well done Dr. Aufderheide!

May 17, 2006

Roman Natoli successfully passed his dissertation proposal examination. Excellent work!

May 11, 2006

Dr. Athanasiou was one of two recipients of Rice’s Presidential Award for Mentoring this year! An article pertaining to this award can be found here.

May 10, 2006

Kyle Allen successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Mechanical characterization, gene expression, and biosynthesis of the porcine TMJ disc for the purposes of tissue engineering.” Excellent work Dr. Allen!

May 6, 2006

Kyle Allen, senior TMJ member, tied the knot with Stephanie Farrell. Congrats to Kyle and Stephanie!

May 3, 2006

Deirdre Johns successfully passed her dissertation proposal. Good job!

May 1, 2006

Gwendolyn Hoben successfully passed her dissertation proposal. Good work Gwen!

April 19, 2006

Dr. Athanasiou and Dr. Jerry Hu won the Hershel M. Rich Invention Award for their invention entitled “Self-assembling process.” This award was established by Mr. Hershel M. Rich and is presented annually to a Rice faculty or student who have developed or invented an original invention.

April 12, 2006

Nic Leipzig successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Growth factor effects on single chondrocyte biomechanics and gene expression.” Well done Dr. Leipzig!

April 7, 2006

Dr. Adrian Shieh received the Whitaker International Scholar Grant! He will use this grant as a post-doctoral fellow at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland under the supervision of Dr. Melody Swartz, who runs the Laboratory of Morphogenesis and Mechanobiology. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Shieh!

April 6, 2006

Adrian Shieh successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Mechanobiology of Single Chondrocytes.” Excellent work Dr. Shieh!