1. Alex Vitkin

Photon Mayhem:  Using Light for Structural and Functional Assessment of Biological Tissues. 
Medicinal photonics (biophotonics) includes a variety of therapeutic (effects of light on tissue) and diagnostic (effects of tissue on light) applications.  In this talk, the latter category will be highlighted, with emphasis on methods actively investigated in our laboratory – optical coherence tomography for microvascular imaging and tissue polarimetry for anisotropy monitoring. Both of these approaches rely on the wave nature of light (coherence and polarization, respectively) and offer unique biophysical information on tissue structure, composition, and function.

2. Beom-Jin Lee

3. Cuie Wen

Titanium Based Shape Memory Alloy Scaffolds Fabricated by Electron Beam Melting 
Titanium and some of its alloys are widely used as load-bearing dental and orthopaedic implant materials, due to their superior biocompatibility, appropriate mechanical properties and high corrosion resistance in the physiological environment. In particular, titanium based shape memory alloys (SMAs) are fascinating materials for implant applications, as their unique shape memory property and superelasticity provide the possibility of preparing self-expanding, self-compressing and other functional implants. My research in developing new titanium based biomaterials includes the assessment of the cytotoxicity of metal alloying elements and identify the ideal biocompatible alloying elements; as well as foam the new titanium alloys into a porous structure with bone-mimicking architecture by 3D printing. The porous structure not only allow new bone tissue ingrowth and vascularisation, but also provide low elastic modulus matching that of natural bone. Furthermore, the new porous alloys offer advantages of shape memory and superelastic effects, which benefit the bone healing process.

4. Eduard Chekmenev

Parahydrogen Induced Polarization of Propane Gas for High-throughput Low-cost Pulmonary MRI
Hyperpolarization can enhance nuclear magnetic resonance signals by 4–8 orders of magnitude. This dramatic sensitivity increase enables the detection of dilute exogenous contrast media at low concentrations in vivo. The delivery of hyperpolarized (HP) contrast agents by inhalation for functional and molecular imaging is particularly attractive, because of its convenience and relative non-invasiveness. Hyperpolarized (HP) 129Xe is currently the most promising agent for HP pulmonary MRI (Fig. 2), because (i) it can be hyperpolarized to the order unity on a clinical scale, (ii) it is inert, and (iii) it has >2000 chemical shift dispersion useful for sensing the local environment. However, HP 129Xe technology has several major obstacles for widespread clinical translation: (i) low natural isotopic abundance of 129Xe (~26%), (ii) the need for high-cost hyperpolarization equipment, (iii) the requirement for a custom multinuclear capability of MRI scanner.
It was recently demonstrated that HP propane is good candidate for MRI applications. Indeed, propane is a non-toxic gas, it can be readily hyperpolarized via pairwise hydrogenation of propylene with parahydrogen (p-H2) via parahydrogen (p-H2) induced polarization (PHIP), and it has much lower cost compared to HP 129Xe (cents vs. tens of US dollars). Moreover, it can be imaged using universally available clinical MRI scanners. Here, we report on several systematic studies of propane PHIP at high (4.7 T & 9.4 T) and low magnetic fields (0.05 T). Heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts have been shown to produce PH up to several percent, and PH can be further improved through optimization of catalyst structure and hyperpolarization conditions. Propane 1H T1 is linearly dependent on the fraction of the propane in the mixture with H2 and on the total gas pressure. Moreover, PHIP hyperpolarization at low magnetic fields (i.e., under strong-coupling regime, where chemical shift difference between CH2 and CH3 protons is less than their spin-spin coupling constant JHH~7Hz), the symmetry of p-H2-nascent singlet state is partially conserved in the formed HP propane molecule, and produced in this fashion propane possesses long-lived spin states (LLSS). We investigated how spin-lock induced crossing (SLIC) technique can be used to convert these LLSS of propane into observable magnetization to detect 1H NMR signal directly at 0.05 T. The NMR signal dependence on SLIC amplitude exhibits a well-resolved dispersion, which is induced by the spin-spin couplings in the 8-proton spin system of propane. We also studied the lifetime (TS) of the propane LLSS: on average, TS is approximately 3 times greater than the corresponding T1 value under the same condition. Moreover, our recent progress towards preparation of clinically relevant quantities of HP propane gas (>1 L in 2 seconds) will be presented. These results substantiate a great potential of long-lived HP propane as an inhalable gaseous contrast agent for lung imaging and other applications using low-field (<0.4 T) NMR and MRI. Such medical exam can potentially provide 3D functional map of regional lung function using low-cost equipment (<<$1M) and consumables (cryogen free MRI and cheap contrast agent produced on demand) at a very high patient throughput (>10 patient per hour).

5. Evan Snyder

USING STEM CELLS TO MODEL NEUROLOGICAL DISEASE & ADVANCE PERSONALIZED MEDICINE
Being able to model development & disease "in a dish" for a specific patient is the future of medicine ­ "personalized" or "precision" medicine. It is envisioned that every individual will someday have a "safety deposit box" of their own functional pluripotent stem cells which can be queried for molecular data or expanded for cell-based therapies when differentiated down a particular lineage) as well as an "omics" database that can be mined by health care providers and researchers lifelong. Such a resource will also be the key to drug discovery, toxicity testing, and pathway analysis, not only for the patient in question but perhaps for a given disease more broadly if a sufficient number of patients are profiled. These approaches may well be the "lowest-hanging fruit" in the stem cell field.

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have the potential to serve as in vitro models of disease for the purpose of (a) unveiling novel pathophysiological mechanisms; (b) pinpointing biomarkers, prognostics, & diagnostics; (c) elucidating the mechanisms-of-action of extant drugs; (d) revealing novel drug targets; (e) potentially discovering new drugs. These self-renewing pluripotent cells & their derivatives are particularly useful for (i) providing a range of cell types that are otherwise difficult to obtain & scale-up from a specific living patient; (ii) deciphering cellular & molecular differences between patients suffering from a given disease vs. those individuals who are unaffected or affected by another condition; (iii) discerning differences between cells treated under 1 condition vs. another. The value of hiPSCs is dramatically enhanced by being able to map the intracellular signaling pathways responsible for the disease emulating phenotypes they evince. Such maps can then help pinpoint drug targets (often novel & unanticipated), &, in turn, expedite the discovery of new drugs while avoiding drugs that may have off-target toxicities. This approach has the potential to transform the field of pharmacotherapeutics.

6. Guillaume Haiat

Biomechanical Characterization of The Bone-Implant Interface: from In Silico Approaches to The Patient’s Bed
Implants are often employed in orthopaedic and dental surgeries. However, risks of failure, which are difficult to anticipate, are still experienced and may have dramatic consequences. Failures are due to degraded bone remodeling at the bone-implant interface, a multiscale phenomenon of an interdisciplinary nature which remains poorly understood. The objective of this presentation is to provide a better understanding of the multiscale and multitime mechanisms at work at the bone-implant interface. To do so, the evolution of the biomechanical properties of bone tissue around an implant will be studied during the remodeling process. A methodology involving combined in vivo, in vitro and in silico approaches is proposed. Different aspects related to the biomechanical behaviour of the bone-implant interface in the static (contact and/or fracture problems) and in the dynamic (acoustics) regimes will be tackled. Eventually, two medical devices under development aiming at assessing the stability of dental and orthopaedic implants will be described.

7. Heragu Sunderesh

Deterministic and Stochastic Models for Health Care Systems
We present research for problems arising in emergency preparedness. We present facility location, routing and resource allocation models that can be used by personnel in the healthcare and public health (HPH) and emergency service sectors (ESS) during normal and medical surge conditions. Deterministic and stochastic models as well as optimal and heuristic algorithms are developed for important logistical problems arising in healthcare systems. These models utilize real-time data obtained from multiple sources to provide real-time decisions that can be used by HPH and ESS coordinators in a medical emergency.

8. Jeff W. M. Bulte

Clinically Applicable MR Tracking of Naked, Scaffolded and Encapsulated Cells
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has entered the clinical arena of immunotherapy and regenerative medicine based on the administration of (engineered) cells. In order to further improve the translation of these therapies into the clinic, it is highly desirable to monitor the immediate cellular engraftment, subsequent cell biodistribution and migration, and cell survival non-invasively over time. MRI cell tracking, with its superior spatial resolution and excellent soft tissue anatomical detail, is emerging as the technique of choice to monitor in real-time image-guided cell delivery and engraftment. Up until now, 10 clinical MRI cell tracking studies have been published, either using superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle (SPIO) contrast agents or perfluorocarbon tracers. In order to immunoprotect enhance the survival of transplanted cells, semi-permeable alginate capsules have been used to encapsulate pancreatic islet cells and form a host-guest immunological barrier. Composite hydrogels have also been used to scaffold transplanted stem cells and create a microenvironment that is favorable for successful cell engraftment. Both these capsules and scaffolds can now be imaged by adding multimodal contrast agents and fluorine tracers. In addition, chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI has been applied to enhance contrast for certain chemical groups that are abundant in the hydrogel scaffolds. With MR imaging being so versatile, it is expected to become a mainstay imaging technique in regenerative medicine.

9. Masahiro Takei

Electrical impedance spectroscopy tomography and its medical engineering application 

The Process Tomography (PT) Method is one computerized tomography technology. Generally, sensors with multiple electrodes are placed around the cross section of pipes. By measuring the electrical impedance signal between each electrode, the image of the pipe’s cross section is obtained immediately. Compared with other tomography methods, such as X-ray, MRI and ultrasonic, PT method has higher time resolution and much lower price, and it is quite suitable for the measurement of multiphase flow.
Takei laboratory is conducting research on the development of visualization and measurement by Process Tomography (PT) Method on Solid-Liquid-Gas Flow (Multiphase Flow) and aiming to its medical applications. As a basic development research, we are developing hard wares with higher spatial-temporal resolution and soft wares (reverse resolution and feature extraction) with higher accuracy. In addition, based on the basic development, we are conducting researches in various medical applications by several research teams in our laboratory: (1) early detection of thrombus in extracorporeal blood flow devices; (2) ultra-high speed label-free stem cell 4D sensing and manipulation based on multi-layer micro channels; (3) visualization detection for lymphedema based on electrical impedance spectroscopy tomography. Massive invitro and in-vivo experiments, multiphase flow calculation, and multiple physics simulation have been carried out, and confirm the feasibility of process tomography’s applications in clinical science, which has become a revolutionary technology for future medical science.

10. Nam-Trung Nguyen

Micro Magnetofluidics for Tissue Engineering and Rapid Disease Detection 
Micro magnetofluidics is an emerging technology for fluid handling in point-of-care devices that is low-cost, non-contact, free of induced heat and independent of ion concentration. The technology utilises magnetism and magnetic nanoparticles dispersed in a carrier fluid. The unique fluid system with magnetic nanoparticles allows for the enhancement of mixing and separation with magnetism. Thus, micro magnetofluidics provides novel and unique fluid handling capabilities, which allows for the development of point-of-care diagnostic approaches that integrate magnetic mixing, separation and detection on a single device. This talk will introduce our recent results on basic transport phenomena as well as the use of porous magnetic nanoparticles for the detection of circulating biomarkers.

11. Nigel Culkin

Entrepreneurial universities in the region: A consensus for change?
I will use this opportunity to explore an alternative approach to local economic and community development. An approach that has been brought about, in part, by a crisis in development studies and a loss of faith in key paradigms and ‘grand narratives’ in development theory and strategy. 
The dislocation of a grand narrative implies that economic transformation is essentially a process of ‘self-discovery’ with no fixed directionality in growth trajectories. For example, policy makers who focus attention on the question, is Artificial Intelligence (AI) the biggest threat to future employment, appear to ignore the more pressing question, is financialization a bigger threat to employment than automation?
There is also limited opportunity to transplant a successful development strategy from one setting to another. Economic development is, therefore, fundamentally a process characterised by experimentation and learning; a principle in the nascent field of ‘entrepreneurial innovation. All economies are laboratories for growth, both in terms of how it occurs and how it can be made “balanced” and “healthy”. However, innovation policies remain wedded to the linear model of innovation and the competitiveness framework, which continues to be the dominant paradigm. However, it has been argued elsewhere that entrepreneurial innovation is the true source of national competitive advantage. Although, the question of context has received little attention, entrepreneurial innovation itself, involves the disruption of existing industries and creation of new ones through multi-level processes and stakeholders, multiple actors and multiple contexts that constitute different entrepreneurial ecosystems. Such ecosystems help regulate the direction and quality of entrepreneurial innovation by shaping the direction and potential rewards of alternative courses of technological development and even the types of organisational forms that will be accepted as legitimate. Universities play a crucial and highly complex role in enriching these ecosystems that goes way beyond technology transfer indicators.  Alternative value measures allow us to consider the needs of micro and small businesses through the lens of the entrepreneurial university, as a regional anchor institution.  Here, the term ‘anchor institution’ can be used to describe an organisation that has an important presence in the local community and makes a strategic contribution to the local economy. I will seek to highlight the way universities can take a lead role as an anchor institution within its region. With the anchor institution at its heart, entrepreneurial ecosystems, could be seen as a more inclusive alternative, to the Washington Consensus (aka Shock Therapy) for many countries. An approach that delivers a more healthy and balanced economy to the after-shocks of the global financial crisis and the rise of nationalist movements.

12. Paul Milgram

Augmenting the Field of View for Minimally Invasive Surgery 
One of the well known challenges facing surgeons performing minimally invasive surgery is coping with the limited field of view provided by such remote sensing devices as laparoscopes.  In the talk a number of our research projects carried out to mitigate this problem will be reviewed. These will include our investigations, from the point of view of not only the respective technologies but also user performance issues, into the use of dynamic viewpoint (virtual) image interpolation from multiple camera sources, visual momentum enhancement using real-time mosaicking and image interpolation, and dynamic multi-focal filtering for effective field of view expansion (in particular to facilitate the task of instrument insertion). A related project will be presented that involves expanding operational visual field depth by means of stereoscopic augmented reality, in order to facilitate presentation of computer generated images behind real tissue surfaces.

13. Ping Xue

Ultrahigh Speed 3D Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging 

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has attracted much attention after it was introduced in the 1990s. This cross-sectional imaging technique may provide depth-resolved information of bio-tissues with micron-scale resolution in a non-invasive manner and therefore has been widely used in clinic. Nowadays, there is an increasing need for real-time volumetric imaging in OCT-based clinical diagnosis. However, the slow data acquisition of early time-domain OCT systems in the range of ~1 kHz A-scan rate limited the imaging speed to only several frames per second. The introduction of frequency-domain or Fourier-domain (FD) detection techniques, categorized in two main classes as spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) and swept-source OCT (SS-OCT), has led to a dramatic increase in imaging speed and sensitivity.
However, to realize real time 3D optical coherence tomography imaging, there are still several challenges in optical source, detection scheme, data processing and etc., due to the acquisition and processing of massive data of >10 GB/s required by real time 3D display. It is implied that the road to real time 3D optical coherence tomography imaging may rely on the innovations of both the fast swept light sources and the data processing techniques including compressed sensing and optical computing. In this talk, I will discuss and demonstrate some new progress on the solutions related to these challenges:
A direct linear-in-wavenumber swept laser based on AOD filter for SS-OCT with 2MHz linear scan rate will be demonstrated. Because of avoiding data resampling and recalibration that are generally required in conventional FD-OCT, this new laser source enables ultrahigh imaging speed and is more favorable and promising for future applications.
Furthermore, I will talk about a novel all-optical swept-source based on the buffered optical time-stretch technique utilizing LCFBG as the dispersive medium that achieves linear-in-wavenumber tuning range of 40nm at an A-scan rate of as high as 40MHz, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest speed swept-source to date at 1545nm for SS-OCT.
To process big data of > 10 Gb/second in real time 3D OCT imaging, we propose an all-optical Fourier transformation system for real-time massive data processing. In the so-called optical computing OCT, fast Fourier transformation (FFT) of A-scan signal is optically processed in real time before being detected by photoelectric detector. Therefore, the processing time for interpolation and FFT in traditional Fourier domain OCT can be dramatically eliminated. A processing rate of 10 mega-A-scans/second was experimentally achieved, which is, to our knowledge, the highest speed to date for OCT imaging. Some clinical OCT imaging with a tiny endoscopic probe will be also demonstrated.

14. Ruth Nussinov

Oncogenic K-Ras signaling and drug discovery
Ras proteins are small GTPases that act as signal transducers between cell surface receptors and intracellular signaling cascades. KRAS is among the most frequently mutated oncogenes in human tumors. To date it is still undruggable. Ras proteins consist of highly homologous catalytic domains, and flexible C-terminal hypervariable regions (HVRs) that differ significantly across Ras isoforms. We have been focusing on key mechanistic questions in oncogenic Ras biology from the structural and signaling standpoints. We ask: How do Ras isoforms attain oncogenic specificity at the membrane? How they selectively activate effectors and why is KRas4B the most prevalent are highly significant questions. We merge functional data with a conformational view to provide mechanistic insight. Cell-specific expression levels, pathway cross-talk and distinct interactions are the key; but conformational trends can modulate selectivity. There are two major pathways in oncogenic Ras-driven proliferation: MAPK (Raf/MEK/ERK) and PI3Kα/Akt/mTOR. All membrane-anchored, proximally-located, oncogenic Ras isoforms can promote Raf dimerization and fully activate MAPK signaling. So why the differential statistics of oncogenic isoforms in distinct cancers and what makes KRas so highly oncogenic? Many cell-specific factors may be at play. As a key factor, we suggest that because only KRas4B binds calmodulin, only KRas can fully activate PI3Kα/Akt signaling. We propose that full activation of both MAPK and PI3Kα/Akt proliferative pathways by oncogenic KRas4B – but not by HRas or NRas – may help explain why the KRas4B isoform is especially highly populated in certain cancers. We further discuss pharmacological implications. This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, National Institutes of Health, under contract HHSN261200800001E.

15. Wellington  Pham

Molecular Imaging in The Era of Precision Medicine 

This talk will describe a multidisciplinary approach integrating medicinal chemistry with nanotechnology and molecular imaging for targeted imaging of biomarkers from bench to bedside. Particularly, the sensitivity and specificity enhancements available with multimodal characteristics of nanotechnology combined with high resolution molecular imaging, provide a powerful tool for the identification of biomarkers. During this presentation, I will discuss the development of imaging probes, methods of surface fabrication, quantification and the translation of these probes for cancer imaging and vaccine delivery in preclinical animal models and clinical work. Further, an innovative highthroughput screening assay to diversify the chemical genetics of Abeta-binding analogs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease will also be discussed. 

16. Yuncang Li

Development of Biocompatible Magnesium-Zirconium-Strontium Alloys for Biodegradable Implant Materials 

Magnesium (Mg) based alloys have been extensively considered for their use as biodegradable implant materials. However, controlling their corrosion rate in the physiological environment of the human body is still a significant challenge. One of the most effective approaches to address this challenge is to strategically design new Mg alloys with enhanced corrosion resistance, biocompatibility, and mechanical properties. Our research has developed new series of Mg-zirconium (Zr)-strontium (Sr)-rare earth element (REE) alloys for biodegradable implant applications. Research results indicate that Sr and Zr additions can refine the grain size and enhance the corrosion and biological behaviors of the Mg alloys. Furthermore, the addition of holmium (Ho) and dysprosium (Dy) to Mg-Zr-Sr alloys resulted in enhanced mechanical strength and decreased degradation rate. In addition, less than 5 wt.% Ho and Dy additions to Mg-Zr-Sr alloys led to enhancement of cell adhesion and proliferation of osteoblast cells on the Mg-Zr-Sr-Ho/Dy alloys.