School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
July/August 2019

Engineered vessels evolve into living tissue

In one of the longest follow-up studies of its kind, a team of researchers led by Laura E. Niklason, professor of anesthesiology and biomedical engineering, found that their specially bioengineered blood vessels evolved into living tissue after human implantation. The results showed that these vessels—originally devoid of any cells—had taken on cells, transforming the structures into living tissues that could transport blood and self-heal after injury. They had, essentially, become the patients’ own blood vessels. The vessels were implanted in patients with end-stage kidney disease, who typically receive hemodialysis three times a week. The results were published in Science Translational Medicine.

Concussion-treating device wins Rothberg Catalyzer Prize

OnTrackRehab, a project that grew out of Medical Device Design and Innovation (MENG/BENG 404), won the $15,000 Rothberg Catalyzer Prize at StartUpYale, a three-day event sponsored in part by the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY). The system, designed to help doctors better diagnose and rehabilitate patients with concussions, employs virtual reality, motion detection, and a balance board. It was designed in the medical design course taught by Joe Zinterat the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design (CEID), by the team of Holly Zhou and Brian Beitler, Mrinal Kumar, and Pong Trairatvoraku, all of whom graduated last year.

Undergraduate receives research scholarship

Valerie Chen ’20 has been selected as a 2019 Snap Research Scholar. As part of the award, Chen will receive $10,000 and an offer for a full-time paid internship with Snap. Chen’s application for the Snap Research Scholarship focused on research that she has been involved in at Yale and during previous summer internships, both of which are related to computer vision and machine learning. Snap Inc. selected outstanding students carrying out research in areas of computer science relevant to the company, such as computer graphics, computer vision, machine learning, data mining, computational imaging, human-computer interaction, and other related fields.