BME students receive fellowships to attend NSF International Summer School

UF BME students, Olivia Lanier and Rachna Sannegowda, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship to attend the 16th NSF International Summer School (2017) on Bio-X: Biocomplexity, Biodesign and Bioinnovation.

The 2017 summer school was held in the Mediterranean city of Chania, on the island of Crete, from June 9-14. The fellowship covered all the expenses a student would incur while studying in Greece.

Lanier, a Ph.D. student co-advised by BME professors Dr. Jon Dobson and Dr. Peter McFetridge, is working on developing a remotely activated magnetic nanoparticle-based delivery platform capable of triggering the release of multiple and varying doses of a complex protein matrix derived from human placental tissues.

Sannegowda, an undergraduate student mentored by UF Department of Aging & Geriatric Research assistant professor Dr. Yenisel Cruz-Almeida, is working on understanding the relationship between age-related chronic pain and a neurological underpinning, white matter integrity, through the software analysis of fMRI images. Understanding this relationship could pave the way for successful pain management to improve both mobility and brain health.

The summer school acts as a way to expose graduate biomedical students to the new approaches of mathematical and computational challenges that researchers are currently faced with and immerses students into a cutting-edge field, all while interacting with professors and students from around the world who share similar research interests.

Congratulations, Olivia and Rachna!