SLU Biomedical Engineering

The Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Lab had some fun a few weeks ago as they presented their work at the World Congress of Biomechanics in Vancouver, Canada!

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Charlie Minerd, Fuad Al Hasan Bin Enam, Fisher Adkisson, and Trent Hardwick gave podium presentation talks.

Trent & Lindsay Rehme presented posters.

This week's seminar speaker is Isaac Nkrumah, a PhD candidate in Computer Science who collaborates with the Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Lab. Isaac will discuss, "Integrating Histology and Morphometrics for Deep Learning-Based Assessment of Skeletal Muscle Injury." See you there! 🖥️🦴🤖

Meet us tomorrow in McDonnell Douglas Hall to hear PhD. candidate Rebecca Sheetz discuss, "Combined Regenerative Rehabilitation Improves Functional Recovery Following Composite Musculoskeletal Trauma"! 🔬💪🧫

Two weeks ago Jamshid Tadiwala successfully defended his dissertation! Jamshid's dissertation was completed under the guidance of Dr. Koyal Garg and the Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Lab. Congratulations Jamshid!🍾 🎓

Our first seminar of the year is tomorrow in Lecture Halls (Baer-Fuller Lecture Hall, LH 2)! Join us to hear from Dr. Anthony Anzell as he discusses, "Investigating the Cellular Mechanisms Underlying Arteriovenous Malformations (AVMs) in Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT)".

🌟BME Student Summer 2026 Internships 🌟

Swipe to see how three of our BME students spent their summers putting engineering into practice!

Martin Mazur - Lab Technician in the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Department at SLU 👨‍🔬
Julia Vitale - Associate Clinical Expert in Cardiac Rhythm Management at Medtronic 🫀
Ellie Smith - Intern at the Center for Women’s Health Engineering at WashU 🔬

Congratulations to Amelia Ridolofo who defended her master's thesis with distinction on June 18th titled, "Bioengineered Extracellular Vesicles for Tissue Repair Following Composite Trauma." BME Professor Dr. Koyal Garg was Amelia's advisor. Amelia will be attending Duke University in the fall to pursue a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. We wish her the best! 👏

Congratulations to Koyal Garg, Ph.D., who was recently promoted to Full Professor in BME effective July 1st. Over the past decade at SLU, Dr. Garg has driven both scientific and commercial innovation through the work in her Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Lab. SLU BME is excited to see what Dr. Garg and her students accomplish in the next 10 years! 👏

Dr. Samuel Stealey, a postdoc in Dr. Zustiak’s lab, published a new article titled, "Platelet-Rich Plasma-Loaded Hydrogels: Diffusivity and Release of Individual Proteins in Multicomponent Complex Environments” in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics (Elsevier, IF: 6.0). The study demonstrated a framework for the utility of fluorescent correlation spectroscopy in characterizing hindered diffusion within complex, multicomponent biological systems, thereby guiding the rational design of hydrogel-based platelet-rich plasma delivery platforms. Drs. Zustiak and Stealey are grateful to their collaborators Drs. Muhammad F. Rai (Khalifa University), Robert Brophy (Washington University in St Louis), and Muruhan Rathinam (University of Maryland Baltimore County) for providing samples and expertise for the successful completion of the study! To read the full article, click here: https://loom.ly/aZYdIvI

Researchers from Dr. Garg's Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Lab and Dr. Zustiak's Lab Soft Tissue Engineering Lab had a strong showing at the 15th Annual Musculoskeletal Research Center Symposium held at WashU on May 20th. Rebecca Sheetz, Amelia Ridolfo, and Samuel Stealey presented podium talks and posters while Jamshid Tadiwala, Avantika Jain, Kevin Sekerak, and Hanieh Shokrani presented posters. Rebecca, Jamshid, and Amelia were also selected to present in the 3 minute style Science Slam. Also in attendance from Garg’s MTE Lab were Justin Terry, Saarth Sh*tole, Kristina Pinkham, and Seoyeon Kim.