Good luck to me.

Recently, I applied for the Whitaker International Fellows and Scholars program (I'd be a Fellow). It's a great opportunity for me to travel abroad and conduct biomedical engineering related research at an international institution. I don't know what my chances are of getting it, but I think I have a decent enough shot at it. I worked hard on my essays and talked with my host professor a lot too. She was very receptive towards my own ideas and seemed like she wanted me in her lab. Each applicant has to identify a host institution and write a research proposal for their application. I chose the Skeletal Tissue Engineering group at the Institute for Biomechanics at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland (ETHZ). They do a lot of interesting work with mostly bone tissue engineering and a bit with cartilage. Their research centers around scaffold design, 3D printing of structures with defined architecture, and utilization of advanced bioreactors (perfusion/compression or combination).

My proposal was titled, "Mechanobiological feedback-loops in bone tissue engineering". It was interesting to write about it and learn a different sort of approach to engineering bone than we do in our lab. It involves some of the same techniques, but this lab goes more into the mechanobiology of stem cells, osteoblasts, and bone formation. This is the type of research that I'd like to eventually work on since load-bearing tissues such as bone are able to sense and react to various types of mechanical stimuli whether from one's own physiology, natural movement, or external forces. Even if I don't get it, I'd like to try and apply again next year. It was also a good experience going through the process, writing essays, and thinking about possible avenues of research I could pursue. Anyways the project, in a nutshell, is implementing a fluid flow sensor system for a perfusion bioreactor that senses changes in culture conditions and alters flow rate accordingly. The idea is that since scaffolds are initially a porous structure, the mesenchymal stem cells that are seeded on them will eventually start to secrete extracellular matrix and mineralize the scaffold by filling in the pores. When these pore sizes shrink, this invariably alters the shear stress experienced by the cells. In order to understand how these cells are able to react to a mechanical stimuli, it is best to understand "optimal" shear stress and maintain constancy. Were an osteoblast to be subjected to a harmful shear stress regimen, cell death or tissue necrosis could occur. I will also be using micro-computed tomography (micro CT) to image the constructs temporally to visualize mineralization over time. It should be an interesting project that I can hopefully tie into my eventual dissertation research.

So that's all done with for now, just submitted it on Wednesday. I should hear back in a few months. If I don't talk about this again, it probably means I didn't get it and I'm too sad to bring up again. Also have a molecular imaging training grant interview on Tuesday that I really want to get. I may not be a traditional player in the imaging field as I think there are a lot of great imaging students and the department here is very strong. But I think I have a lot to offer and I can make a very good case for the use of imaging modalities in my research that is possibly underrated. Basically I have two chances to take big steps in my grad school life and I hope I don't strike out on both of them.