Biomedical Fellowships Awarded To Spur Inter-Institutional Research

Two joint proposals from faculty members of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) and Purdue University were selected for the program Collaboration in Biomedical Engineering Research (CIBER): Graduate Student Fellowship Grant, as part of the partnership among both institutions for developing educational and investigation strategies in biomedical engineering.

Each grant provides a total of  $100,000 over a period of two years, with $50,000 going to UPRM and the same amount to Purdue, to support graduate students.

The first project will be developed by professors Rubén E. Díaz-Rivera of UPRM and Marshall Porterfield from Purdue. They will collaboratively explore the limitations of the electroporation technology in biological cells for measuring electrophysiological and metabolic recovery.

For the second project, professors Paul A. Sundaram of UPRM and Ozan Akkus and Eric Nauman of Purdue, will jointly develop tissues able to replace hard tissues, such as bone, in the body. Professor Nanette Diffoot-Carlo from UPRM will also collaborate in the project.

More than 100 graduate students undertake research projects in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue.  The UPRM Mayagüez Campus is in process of developing a new bioengineering graduate program that will be in directed by Eduardo J. Juan, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

The projects began on July 1, 2008.