The Guidant Foundation established the scholarship in late 2005 to honor Mr. Ronald Dollens in recognition of his leadership and professional ingenuity. Over the course of his career, Ron Dollens' leadership in industry and the life sciences has served as a catalyst for many of the advances in cardiovascular research and development. Before assuming his present role at Guidant, he served as president of the Medical Devices and Diagnostics Division of Eli Lilly and Company and President and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. The scholarship is designed to support outstanding Biomedical Engineering and Industrial Pharmacy students.

Silas Leavesley is focusing his research on developing ways to detect and image cancer using visible light. Under the direction of Professor Paul Robinson, he is developing a multispectral imaging system to achieve higher imaging depth of fluorescent cancer probes in small animals. Silas is also building a novel endoscope (patent applied for) for simultaneous macroscopic (traditional endoscopic) imaging and microscopic, cellular imaging for histological identification of cancer cells in vivo. Development of these diagnostic technologies will provide less invasive or less damaging alternatives to some of the current cancer detection methods.

Maia Mahoney is using a systems biology approach to modeling the T-cell signaling pathways. By understanding the regulation and roles of the individual and the combined elements of the pathways, she and her advisor, Professor Ann Rundell, hope to develop insight into how cells control the complexity of their environment to generate different outcomes, such as T-cell activation or anergy. A quantitative analysis of how the T-cell mediates its response to both foreign and self antigens is particularly important for the design of new pharmaceutical drug targets to treat allergies, various forms of cancer, and mediating the immune response to organ transplants.

Congratulations to you both on this prestigious honor!