In a stiff competition held on Friday, April 29th, sophomore BME student Melissa Linker of Waterloo, IL, was named one of two drum majors to lead the Purdue "All-American" Marching Band for the 2005-2006 season. She will be only the fifth female in the history of Purdue Bands to hold this position.

Each year, more than 11,000 Americans join the more than 250,000 people suffering a debilitating spinal cord injury. The loss of mobility and productivity in individual lives is devastating on many levels, and until recently little could be done for these people and fellow sufferers world wide.

Purdue biomedical engineers Saba Choudhary, Professor Tom Webster and Professor Karen Haberstroh are presenting results today at the Society for Biomaterials 2005 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Memphis, Tennessee, that show vascular stents used to repair arteries might perform better if their surfaces contained "nano-bumps" that mimic tiny features found in living tissues.

Professor Karen Haberstroh has been selected to serve on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biomaterials Research Part B.

Ganesh Balasundrum was selected as a finalist in the outstanding poster competition at the recent Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, held in San Francisco.

The Purdue Board of Trustees approved faculty promotions at their April 8th meeting.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant of $75,000 to the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue for a project entitled "Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory for Quantitative Analysis and Design of Molecular and Cellular Systems."

The Board of Trustees of Purdue University approved the nomination of the University Committee on Faculty Promotions and the recommendation of the President of the University to promote Tom Webster to the rank of Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University.

Professor Tom Webster has just received notification that he has been appointed the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Nanomedicine.

Professor Albena Ivanisevic and graduate student Joe Kinsella have attached magnetic "nanoparticles" to DNA and then cut these "DNA wires" into pieces, offering the promise of creating low-cost, self-assembling devices for future computers.