Deva Chan, Jocelyn Dunn, and Professor Eric Nauman have submitted a winning proposal to the ASME Education Committee and will be awarded LEGO Mindstorm Kits for K-12 and university level engineering outreach and education. The group is hoping to put that proposal into action immediately as representatives of Purdue University and the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.

The Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering would like to cordially invite you to our 9th semiannual senior design forum. This semester we have 8 unique device designs to be presented by the Fall 2010 senior design class.

The toxic substance acrolein, an environmental pollutant, was elevated by about 60 percent in the spinal cord tissues of mice with a disease similar to multiple sclerosis in work performed by a research team led by Weldon Professor Riyi Shi. The study suggests that acrolein may be key for disease etiology and treatment.

The Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering would like to congratulate Jonathan Bernhard, Rebecca Bercich, Kate Larson, Jason Lindsey, as well as their advisor, Dr. Pedro Irazoqui, for their third place victory in the inaugural BMEStart 2010 Competition. The award was given to the student group in recognition for their Senior Design project entitled "Handheld Plasma Isolation Device." The project was a joint collaboration with Abbott Point of Care. Winners were announced in early October at the BMES Annual Conference in Austin, Texas.

At Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Biomaterials Day meeting at Case Western, Weldon graduate student Catherine Whittington took first place for her oral presentation entitled, "Collagen oligomers modulate physical and cell-instructive properties of polymerizable collagen matrices".

George Wodicka, head of the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering, is the recipient of the 2010-2011 Outstanding Commercialization Award for Purdue University Faculty. Wodicka will be honored Nov 4th along with 50 other Purdue researchers during the annual Inventors' Recognition Reception, sponsored by Purdue Research Foundation.

Enrollment is up 75% from last year in the distance option for the Biomedical Engineering Concentration in the Purdue Master of Science in Engineering (MSE/MS). The program enters its second year engaging many new and experienced engineers from across campus and across the country in the rapidly evolving field of Biomedical Engineering.

Professor Porterfield sent us a picture of 2nd year graduate student, Kachi Odoemene experiencing zero gravity. Kachi shares his experience with us and talks about their Cell Electrophysiology Lab on Chip, or CELC 2.

Purdue University biomedical engineering professor Alyssa Panitch has been named the first faculty entrepreneur-in-residence at Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship.

Panitch, who has been involved in launching three companies, will serve as a resource for university faculty, staff and students looking to start a company from their work or research at Purdue. She also plans to create a network of faculty experts who can serve as a university-wide resource to help advance the university's commercialization efforts.