Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 23, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507931@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 23, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-23T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-23T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
LSI Seminar Series: Wen-Xing Ding, Ph.D., University of Kansas Medical Center (January 23, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70179 70179-17540934@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 23, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Abstract:
Liver cells can adapt and protect themselves in response to stress by activating cellular protective mechanisms such as autophagy, which is a lysosomal degradation pathway that degrades cellular organelles and/or proteins as well as lipids inside the autolysosomes. To meet the needs of autophagic degradation, it is critical to maintain sufficient numbers of lysosomes to fuse with autophagosomes that form autolysosomes. Lysosomal biogenesis is regulated by the transcription factor EB (TFEB), which is a master transcription regulator of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy.

Studies from our lab revealed that TFEB is impaired in alcoholic hepatitis and pancreatitis as well as in acetaminophen-induced liver injury. Overexpression of TFEB protects against alcohol and drug-induced tissue damage whereas deletion of TFEB exacerbates tissue damage. Studies from our lab also demonstrated that Nrf2, a transcription factor regulating antioxidant response, promotes liver injury and liver tumorigenesis in autophagy defective livers. More recently, our work suggests that both hyper- and hypo-activation of MTOR are detrimental to the liver resulting in the development of liver tumors. Together, our studies indicate that autophagy and lysosome play critical roles in maintaining liver homeostasis. Approaches to boost autophagy and TFEB pathways, which are often impaired in chronic liver diseases, may be promising for treating and preventing liver disease including alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases, drug-induced liver injury and liver tumorigenesis.

About the Speaker:
Wen-Xing Ding is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at The University of Kansas Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore in 2002 and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh. Ding has devoted his research career to elucidating mechanisms for regulation of cell death and the adaptive response to cellular injury in the liver. Since 2009, his laboratory has been working on the role of autophagy in alcohol- and drug-induced liver injury. They are particularly interested in how autophagy selectively removes cellular damaged/excess organelles, such as mitochondria and lipid droplets in hepatocytes. Ding has published more than 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and his work is currently supported by NIAAA and NIDDK.

In addition to research, Ding has demonstrated outstanding leadership for service. He has been a program committee member of ASIP (American Society of Investigative Pathology) and the AASLD (American Association for the Studies of Liver Disease) 2015 annual meeting. He organized several meetings and symposia for EB meeting, AASLD and GRC. He serves as an associate editor for the journal Autophagy and an editorial board member for several journals, including Hepatology, Cell and the American Journal of Pathology. He also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for NIH grants and a standing member of XNDA.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 11 Dec 2019 08:27:09 -0500 2020-01-23T12:00:00-05:00 2020-01-23T13:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Lecture / Discussion LSI Seminar Series
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 24, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507932@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, January 24, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-24T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-24T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 25, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507933@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, January 25, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-25T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-25T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 26, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507934@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, January 26, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-26T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-26T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 27, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507935@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 27, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-27T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-27T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
LSA Bonderman Fellowship Info Session (January 27, 2020 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68404 68404-17077948@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 27, 2020 5:00pm
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Center for Global and Intercultural Study

The Bonderman Fellowship offers 4 graduating University of Michigan LSA (Literature, Science and the Arts) seniors $20,000 to travel the world. They must travel to at least 6 countries in 2 regions over the course of 8 months and are expected to immerse themselves in independent and enriching explorations.

Come to a Bonderman information session to learn more about the fellowship and how to apply! Pizza will be provided!

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Presentation Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:30:00 -0400 2020-01-27T17:00:00-05:00 2020-01-27T18:00:00-05:00 Michigan League Center for Global and Intercultural Study Presentation Fellow pictured abroad
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 28, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507936@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, January 28, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-28T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-28T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 29, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507937@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-29T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-29T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
DCMB Seminar Series (January 29, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/71998 71998-17911963@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 29, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Talk Title: Experimental and computational strategies to aid compound identification and quantitation in metabolomics

Abstract: Over the past two decades, metabolomics as a technique has moved from the primary domain of analytical chemists to more widespread acceptance by biologists, clinicians and bioinformaticians alike. Metabolomics offers systems-level insights into the critical roles small molecules play in routine cellular processes and myriad disease states. However, certain unique analytical challenges remain prominent in metabolomics as compared to the other ‘omics sciences. These include the difficulty of identifying unknown features in untargeted metabolomics data, and challenges maintaining reliable quantitation within lengthy studies that may span multiple laboratories. Unlike genomics and transcriptomics data in which nearly every quantifiable feature is confidently identified as a matter of course, in typical untargeted metabolomics studies over 80% of features are frequently not mapped to a specific chemical compound. Further, although many metabolomics studies have begun to stretch over a timeframe of years, data quantitation and normalization strategies have not always kept up with the requirements for such large studies. Fortunately, both experimental and computational strategies are emerging to tackle these long-standing challenges. We will report on several techniques in development in our laboratory, ranging from chromatographic fractionation and high-sensitivity data acquisition, to computational strategies to aid in tandem mass spectrometric spectral interpretation. These developments serve to facilitate analysis for both experts and novice users, which should ultimately help improve the biological insight and impact gained from metabolomics data.

BlueJeans livestreaming link: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/rbuvycdc

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 24 Jan 2020 11:07:13 -0500 2020-01-29T16:00:00-05:00 2020-01-29T17:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion
Make It Stick - Research-Based Learning Strategies You Need to Know (January 29, 2020 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70899 70899-17735192@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 29, 2020 5:30pm
Location: Undergraduate Science Building
Organized By: Science Learning Center

The study and learning strategies students often bring to college are often insufficient to help them succeed at the university level. Particularly in challenging STEM courses, students can't simply memorize or cram their way to a good grade. This workshop will focus on the popular learning strategies to avoid, as well as the top three strategies you don't know but are shown by research to be the most effective for long-term learning.

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 15 Jan 2020 10:18:11 -0500 2020-01-29T17:30:00-05:00 2020-01-29T19:00:00-05:00 Undergraduate Science Building Science Learning Center Workshop / Seminar make it stick by Brown, Roediger III, and McDaniel
LHS Collaboratory: Applications of AI/Machine Learning in Gastroenterology (January 29, 2020 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/71218 71218-17959605@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:00pm
Location:
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

Dr. Waljee’s research focuses on tailoring treatment to the specifics of the individual (precision care) with gastrointestinal and liver diseases. He uses artificial intelligence methods such as machine learning and deep learning to improve decision-making for tailored and individualized care to facilitate the delivery of efficient, effective and equitable care, especially in costly diseases and in limited resource settings.
Discussant 1: Karandeep Singh, MD, MMSc, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Department of Learning Health Sciences and Department of Internal Medicine

Discussant 2: Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBioethics, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Chief of the Research Ethics Service in the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine.

Please register in advance, *dlhs-umi.ch/lhs-collaboratory.*

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:36:03 -0500 2020-01-29T19:00:00-05:00 2020-01-29T20:00:00-05:00 Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion LHS Collaboratory
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 30, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507938@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 30, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-30T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-30T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
LHS Collaboratory: Applications of AI/Machine Learning in Gastroenterology (January 30, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/71218 71218-17787742@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 30, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Michigan Union
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

Dr. Waljee’s research focuses on tailoring treatment to the specifics of the individual (precision care) with gastrointestinal and liver diseases. He uses artificial intelligence methods such as machine learning and deep learning to improve decision-making for tailored and individualized care to facilitate the delivery of efficient, effective and equitable care, especially in costly diseases and in limited resource settings.
Discussant 1: Karandeep Singh, MD, MMSc, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Department of Learning Health Sciences and Department of Internal Medicine

Discussant 2: Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBioethics, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Chief of the Research Ethics Service in the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine.

Please register in advance, *dlhs-umi.ch/lhs-collaboratory.*

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:36:03 -0500 2020-01-30T12:00:00-05:00 2020-01-30T13:30:00-05:00 Michigan Union Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion LHS Collaboratory
BME 500: Meghan Driscoll, Ph.D. (January 30, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70418 70418-17594468@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 30, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Signaling is governed not only by the expression levels of molecules, but by their localization via mechanisms as diverse as compartmentalization in organelles, phase separation, and directed transport by motor proteins. Cell morphology likely also modulates the localization of signaling molecules, and recent advances in high-resolution light-sheet microscopy, such as lattice light-sheet microscopy, now allow imaging at the spatiotemporal resolution needed to capture the many undulations and quick dynamics of the 3D cell surface. However, these microscopes generate large datasets with detailed 3D movies that are impossible to interpret without a dedicated computational pipeline. In this seminar, I will introduce u-shape3D, a computer graphics and machine-learning pipeline to probe molecular mechanisms underlying 3D cell morphogenesis. U-shape3D includes a generic morphological motif detector that automatically finds lamellipodia, filopodia, blebs and other motifs in order to test the intriguing possibility that morphogenesis itself affects intracellular signaling.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 23 Jan 2020 11:24:58 -0500 2020-01-30T16:00:00-05:00 2020-01-30T17:00:00-05:00 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (January 31, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507939@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, January 31, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-01-31T07:00:00-05:00 2020-01-31T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 1, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507940@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, February 1, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-01T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-01T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 2, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507941@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, February 2, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-02T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-02T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 3, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507942@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 3, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-03T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-03T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
BME Student Speaker: Xiaotian Tan (February 3, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72234 72234-17963872@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 3, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Lurie Biomedical Engineering (formerly ATL)
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Biosensors are devices or systems that can be used to detect, quantify, and analyze targets with biological activities and functions. As one of the largest subsets of biosensors, biomolecular sensors are specifically developed and programmed to detect, quantify and analyze biomolecules in liquid samples. Wide-ranging applications have made immunoassays increasingly popular for biomolecular detection and quantification. Among these, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) are of particular interest due to high specificity and reproducibility. To some extent, ELISA has been regarded as a “gold standard” for quantifying analytes (especially protein analytes) in both clinical diagnostics and fundamental biological research. However, traditional (96-well plate-based) ELISA still suffers from several notable drawbacks, such as long assay time (4–6 hours), lengthy procedures, and large sample/reagent consumption (∼100 μL). These inherent disadvantages still significantly limit traditional ELISA's applicability to areas such as rapid clinical diagnosis of acute diseases (e.g., viral pneumonia, acute organ rejection), and biological research that requires accurate measurements with precious or low abundance samples (e.g., tail vein serum from a mouse). Thus, a bimolecular sensing technology that has high sensitivity, short assay time, and small sample/reagent consumption is still strongly desired. In this dissertation, we introduce the development of a multifunctional and automated optofluidic biosensing platform that can resolve the aforementioned problems. In contrast to conventional plate-based ELISA, our optofluidic ELISA platform utilizes mass-producible polystyrene microfluidic channels with a high surface-to-volume ratio as the immunoassay reactors, which greatly shortens the total assay time. We also developed a low-noise signal amplification protocol and an optical signal quantification system that was optimized for the optofluidic ELISA platform. Our optofluidic ELISA platform provides several attractive features such as small sample/reagent consumption (<8 μL), short total assay time (30-45 min), high sensitivity (~1 pg/mL for most markers), and a broad dynamic range (3-4 orders of magnitude). Using these features, we successfully quantified mouse FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) concentration with a single drop of tail vein serum. We also successfully monitored bladder cancer progression in orthotopic xenografted mice with only <50 μL of mouse urine. More excitingly, we achieved highly-sensitive exosome quantification and multiplexed immuno-profiling with <40 ng/mL of total input protein (per assay). These remarkable milestones could not be achieved with conventional plate-based ELISA but were enabled by our unique optofluidic ELISA.

As an emerging member of the bimolecular sensor family, our optofluidic ELISA platform provides a high-performance and cost-effective tool for a plethora of applications, including endocrinal, cancer animal model, cellular biology, and even forensic science research. In the future, this technology platform can also be renovated for clinical applications such as personalized cancer diagnosis/prognosis and rapid point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 30 Jan 2020 09:19:52 -0500 2020-02-03T12:00:00-05:00 2020-02-03T13:00:00-05:00 Lurie Biomedical Engineering (formerly ATL) Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion Xiaotian Tan
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 4, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507943@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 4, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-04T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-04T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 5, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507944@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 5, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-05T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-05T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
Science as Art Contest Submission Deadline (February 5, 2020 11:55am) https://events.umich.edu/event/48786 48786-17963888@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 5, 2020 11:55am
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Arts at Michigan

Arts at Michigan, ArtsEngine and the Science Learning Center invite you to submit artwork to the 2020 Science as Art exhibition. University of Michigan undergraduate students are invited to submit artwork expressing a scientific principle(s), concept(s), idea(s), process(es), and/or structure(s). The artwork may be visual, literary, musical, video, or performance based. A juried panel using criteria based on both scientific and artistic considerations will choose winning submissions.

Deadline for submissions is Wednesday February 5th!

A number of submissions will be selected for prizes, some of which will be on display and/or performed during the Awards Ceremony and/or displayed in an online Contest Gallery. The entry selected for “Best Overall” will be awarded a cash prize, with smaller cash awards in other categories.

For full information, visit: tinyurl.com/scienceasart2020

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Exhibition Thu, 30 Jan 2020 11:47:29 -0500 2020-02-05T11:55:00-05:00 2020-02-05T23:59:00-05:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Arts at Michigan Exhibition Science as Art logo
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 6, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507945@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 6, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-06T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-06T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
BME 500: Jun Li, Ph.D. (February 6, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70419 70419-17594471@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 6, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

In today’s research we often talk about knowledge-extraction from Big Data, and integration across different scales: molecules, cells, tissues/organs, organisms and their communities. The pursuit of multi-scale synthesis has a long history. For the microscopic world we have largely succeeded in connecting the chemical properties of molecules with the facts of atoms and their constituents and interactions. In epidemiology, many are currently applying linear mixed models to quantify the genetic contribution of disease risks in the general population. By and large, we live with the tacit belief that basic principles, once found, will be simple and elegant, and that we can build Systems Biology from the ground level. This leads to a pointillistic research culture, as when we try to explain the heredity of complex traits by summing up the individual actions of millions of DNA variants, or when we look for the neural basis of behavior by the connectivity and firing patterns of millions of neurons.
I will use this talk to share some thoughts on the emerging appreciation that, in biomedical data science, perhaps the best one can learn is not widely generalizable Mechanisms, but different laws for different scales of organization. There may not be a good chance, and perhaps no need, to "know" a system by brute force accumulation of larger and larger data at the bottom level. Acknowledging the irreducibility of highly-level phenomena in biology and medicine can help us appreciate the distinct methods, norms, and compromises in traditional disciplines, and steer the society's investment towards balanced collection of good data on all levels. By giving up the blind celebration of sample size, we give more attention to new technologies that can measure what was previously inaccessible, and to the next-generation of information science that embraces messy, context-specific models.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 31 Jan 2020 15:04:28 -0500 2020-02-06T16:00:00-05:00 2020-02-06T17:00:00-05:00 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 7, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507946@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 7, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-07T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-07T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 8, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507947@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, February 8, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-08T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-08T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 9, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507948@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, February 9, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-09T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-09T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 10, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507949@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 10, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-10T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-10T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 11, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507950@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-11T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-11T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
Bioethics Discussion: Love (February 11, 2020 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/52726 52726-12974160@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 7:00pm
Location: Lurie Biomedical Engineering
Organized By: The Bioethics Discussion Group

A discussion on the chemistry of our biology.

Readings to consider:
1. The Neurobiology of Love
2. The Medicalization of Love
3. Self-Transcendence, the True Self, and Self-Love
4. Love yourself: The relationship of the self with itself in popular self-help texts

For more information and/or to receive a copy of the readings contact Barry Belmont at belmont@umich.edu or visit http://belmont.bme.umich.edu/bioethics-discussion-group/discussions/040-love/.

You might love the blog: https://belmont.bme.umich.edu/incidental-art/

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 09 Jan 2020 09:56:11 -0500 2020-02-11T19:00:00-05:00 2020-02-11T20:30:00-05:00 Lurie Biomedical Engineering The Bioethics Discussion Group Lecture / Discussion Love
Chaat Night With Project RISHI (February 11, 2020 8:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72546 72546-18037798@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 11, 2020 8:30pm
Location: Mason Hall
Organized By: Project RISHI

Come join Project RISHI as we admire Indian cuisine in the form of CHAAT! Chaat is a famous street food dish that is served all around India. The money from this fundraiser will go towards social impact and helping rural villages. This event will take place on Tuesday February 11th from 8:30- 9:30pm at 3353 Mason Hall. The entrance fee will be $3! All are welcome to join!

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Social / Informal Gathering Fri, 07 Feb 2020 18:42:18 -0500 2020-02-11T20:30:00-05:00 2020-02-11T21:30:00-05:00 Mason Hall Project RISHI Social / Informal Gathering Come join Project RISHI at their Chaat night on Tuesday February 11th from 8:30- 9:30pm at 3353 Mason Hall!
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 12, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507951@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-12T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-12T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
BME Ph.D Defense: Xiaotian Tan (February 12, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/72235 72235-17963874@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 11:00am
Location: Cooley Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Biosensors are devices or systems that can be used to detect, quantify, and analyze targets with biological activities and functions. As one of the largest subsets of biosensors, biomolecular sensors are specifically developed and programmed to detect, quantify and analyze biomolecules in liquid samples.

Wide-ranging applications have made immunoassays increasingly popular for biomolecular detection and quantification. Among these, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) are of particular interest due to high specificity and reproducibility. To some extent, ELISA has been regarded as a “gold standard” for quantifying analytes (especially protein analytes) in both clinical diagnostics and fundamental biological research. However, traditional (96-well plate-based) ELISA still suffers from several notable drawbacks, such as long assay time (4–6 hours), lengthy procedures, and large sample/reagent consumption (∼100 μL). These inherent disadvantages still significantly limit traditional ELISA's applicability to areas such as rapid clinical diagnosis of acute diseases (e.g., viral pneumonia, acute organ rejection), and biological research that requires accurate measurements with precious or low abundance samples (e.g., tail vein serum from a mouse). Thus, a bimolecular sensing technology that has high sensitivity, short assay time, and small sample/reagent consumption is still strongly desired.

In this dissertation, we introduce the development of a multifunctional and automated optofluidic biosensing platform that can resolve the aforementioned problems. In contrast to conventional plate-based ELISA, our optofluidic ELISA platform utilizes mass-producible polystyrene microfluidic channels with a high surface-to-volume ratio as the immunoassay reactors, which greatly shortens the total assay time. We also developed a low-noise signal amplification protocol and an optical signal quantification system that was optimized for the optofluidic ELISA platform.

Our optofluidic ELISA platform provides several attractive features such as small sample/reagent consumption (<8 µL), short total assay time (30-45 min), high sensitivity (~1 pg/mL for most markers), and a broad dynamic range (3-4 orders of magnitude). Using these features, we successfully quantified mouse FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) concentration with a single drop of tail vein serum. We also successfully monitored bladder cancer progression in orthotopic xenografted mice with only <50 µL of mouse urine. More excitingly, we achieved highly-sensitive exosome quantification and multiplexed immuno-profiling with <40 ng/mL of total input protein (per assay). These remarkable milestones could not be achieved with conventional plate-based ELISA but were enabled by our unique optofluidic ELISA.

As an emerging member of the bimolecular sensor family, our optofluidic ELISA platform provides a high-performance and cost-effective tool for a plethora of applications, including endocrinal, cancer animal model, cellular biology, and even forensic science research. In the future, this technology platform can also be renovated for clinical applications such as personalized cancer diagnosis/prognosis and rapid point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 30 Jan 2020 09:28:04 -0500 2020-02-12T11:00:00-05:00 2020-02-12T12:00:00-05:00 Cooley Building Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion Xiaotian Tan
Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics (DCMB) Weekly Seminar (February 12, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72535 72535-18015945@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract:
Normal mechanical function of the heart requires that ATP be continuously synthesized at a hydrolysis potential of roughly -60 kJ mol-1. Yet in both the aging and diseased heart the relationships between cardiac work rate and concentrations of ATP, ADP, and inorganic phosphate are altered. Important outstanding questions are: To what extent do changes in metabolite concentrations that occur in aging and heart disease affect metabolic/molecular processes in the myocardium? How are systolic and diastolic functions affected by changes in metabolite concentrations? Does metabolic energy supply represent a limiting factor in determining physiological maximal cardiac power output and exercise capacity? Does the derangement of cardiac energetics that occurs with heart failure cause exercise intolerance?

To answer these questions, we have developed a multi-physics multi-scale model of cardiac energy metabolism and cardiac mechanics that simulates the dependence of myocardial ATP demand on muscle dynamics and the dependence of muscle dynamics on cardiac energetics. Model simulations predict that the maximal rate at which ATP can be synthesized at free energies necessary to drive physiological mechanical function determine maximal heart rate, cardiac output, and cardiac power output in exercise. Furthermore, we find that reductions in cytoplasmic adenine nucleotide, creatine, and phosphate pools that occur with aging impair the myocardial capacity to synthesize ATP at physiological free energy levels, and that the resulting changes to myocardial energetic status play a causal role in contributing to reductions in maximal cardiac power output with aging. Finally, model predictions reveal that reductions in cytoplasmic metabolite pools contribute to energetic dysfunction in heart failure, which in turn contributes to causing systolic dysfunction in heart failure.

BlueJeans Livestream Link: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/rbuvycdc

3:45 p.m. - Light Refreshments served in Forum Hall Atrium
4:00 p.m. - Lecture in Forum Hall

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 05 Feb 2020 08:41:29 -0500 2020-02-12T16:00:00-05:00 2020-02-12T17:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 13, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507952@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 13, 2020 7:00am
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-13T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-13T23:59:00-05:00 1027 E. Huron Building UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
LSI Seminar Series: Michael Birnbaum, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (February 13, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70180 70180-17540936@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 13, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Abstract:
The immune system relies on T cells to distinguish between normal cells and cells altered by infection or cancer. The T cells must integrate signals from their environment in deciding what cells to kill or to spare. This diversity can make determining exactly what is recognized during an immune response extremely challenging. My lab combines protein engineering, combinatorial biology, structural biology and immunology to better understand and then manipulate immune recognition. We aim to find what is recognized during the course of successful immune responses, what antigens should be targeted in treatments and how to better design cell-based immunotherapies.

About the Speaker:
Michael Birnbaum is an assistant professor of biological engineering at MIT. He received his bachelor's degree in chemical and physical biology from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2014. There, he worked under K. Christopher Garcia and studied the molecular mechanisms of T cell receptor recognition, cross-reactivity and activation. After postdoctoral work in Carla Shatz’s group at Stanford, supported by a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship, Professor Birnbaum joined MIT and the Koch Institute in 2016. During his tenure at the Koch Institute, Birnbaum has received the AACR-TESARO Career Development Award for Immuno-oncology Research, a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and a V Scholar Grant from the Jimmy V Foundation.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 10 Dec 2019 15:53:15 -0500 2020-02-13T12:00:00-05:00 2020-02-13T13:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Lecture / Discussion LSI Seminar Series
BME 500: Leyuan Ma, Ph.D. (February 13, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70420 70420-17594472@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 13, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has shown dramatic clinical responses in hematologic malignancies, with a high proportion of durable complete remissions elicited in leukemia and lymphomas. However, achieving the full promise of CAR T-cell therapy, especially in solid tumors, will require further advances in this form of cellular therapy. A key challenge is maintaining a sufficient pool of functional CAR T cells in vivo. We recently developed a strategy to target vaccines to lymph nodes, by linking peptide antigens to albumin-binding phospholipid-polymers. Constitutive trafficking of albumin from blood to lymph makes it ideal chaperone to concentrate these “amphiphile-vaccine” molecules in lymph nodes that would otherwise be rapidly dispersed in the bloodstream following parenteral injection. These lipid-polymer conjugates also exhibit the property that they insert in cell membranes on arrival in lymph nodes. Here, we generated amphiphile CAR T ligand (amph-ligand) vaccine by exploiting these dual lymph node targeting and membrane-decorating properties to repeatedly expand and rejuvenate CAR T cells through the chimeric receptor in native lymph node microenvironment. We evaluated this approach in the presence of a complete host immune system. Amph-ligand vaccine boosting triggered massive CAR T expansion, increased donor cell polyfunctionality, and enhanced anti-tumor efficacy in multiple immunocompetent tumor models. We demonstrate two approaches to generalize this strategy to any CAR, enabling this simple HLA-independent vaccination approach to enhance CAR T functionality to be applied to existing CAR T cell designs. Taken together, our amph-ligand vaccine provides a simple engineering solution to augment CAR T-cell therapy.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 07 Feb 2020 13:11:56 -0500 2020-02-13T16:00:00-05:00 2020-02-13T17:00:00-05:00 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Ace Your Courses: Metacognition is Key! (February 13, 2020 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70903 70903-17735208@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 13, 2020 5:00pm
Location: Undergraduate Science Building
Organized By: Science Learning Center

Have you ever found yourself putting forth a great deal of effort into your courses, but not feeling like you are actually learning or are left unsatisfied with your grade? This workshop, based on the work of Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire, will enable you to analyze your current learning strategies, understand exactly what changes you need to implement to earn an A in your courses, identify concrete strategies to use during the remainder of your semester, and become a more efficient learner.

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 15 Jan 2020 10:19:28 -0500 2020-02-13T17:00:00-05:00 2020-02-13T18:30:00-05:00 Undergraduate Science Building Science Learning Center Workshop / Seminar Teach Yourself How to Learn by Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 14, 2020 6:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-17507953@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 14, 2020 6:00am
Location:
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-14T06:00:00-05:00 2020-02-14T17:00:00-05:00 UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 17, 2020 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-18120894@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 17, 2020 11:00am
Location:
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-17T11:00:00-05:00 2020-02-17T23:00:00-05:00 UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
The cell biology of lipid homeostasis: From lipid droplets to lipotoxicity (February 17, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72190 72190-17955063@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 17, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Speaker:

James Olzmann, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:45:44 -0500 2020-02-17T14:00:00-05:00 2020-02-17T15:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Workshop / Seminar LSI Cancer Genetics Seminar, Feb. 17
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 18, 2020 7:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-18120895@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 7:00am
Location:
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-18T07:00:00-05:00 2020-02-18T23:00:00-05:00 UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
Seminar: Dissecting mechanisms that govern cellular plasticity (February 18, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72743 72743-18070547@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Speaker:

Bruno Di Stefano, Ph.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Stem Cell Institute

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:48:43 -0500 2020-02-18T14:00:00-05:00 2020-02-18T15:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Workshop / Seminar Life Sciences Institute logo
Genetics Training Program / CMB Short Course (630) (February 18, 2020 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72320 72320-17974673@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 3:00pm
Location: Medical Science Unit II
Organized By: Department of Human Genetics

Welcome to the Exciting World of Tandem and Interspersed DNA Repeat Elements
Presented By Jayakrishnan Nandakumar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology University of Michigan Medical School
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
3:00 p.m.
West Lecture Hall, Med Sci II

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 31 Jan 2020 13:25:19 -0500 2020-02-18T15:00:00-05:00 2020-02-18T16:00:00-05:00 Medical Science Unit II Department of Human Genetics Lecture / Discussion Nandakumar GTP / CMB Short Course Flyer
Professional Autobiography (February 18, 2020 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72925 72925-18094771@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 18, 2020 7:00pm
Location: Couzens Hall
Organized By: HSSP

Have you ever wondered how health care professionals end up in their careers? Professional Autobiographies are excellent opportunities for students to hear directly from health care professionals in an informal setting. During these talks, students will learn about speakers' motivations for their career choices, how their interests and experiences influenced their career trajectories, and how they’ve worked to align their passion(s) with their work. These sessions provide an excellent opportunity to connect with professionals who may be able to provide valuable advice during your Michigan career.

All HSSP-sponsored Professional Autobiographies are open to the public.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 14 Feb 2020 11:41:54 -0500 2020-02-18T19:00:00-05:00 2020-02-18T20:00:00-05:00 Couzens Hall HSSP Lecture / Discussion Leon Golson
UROP Summer Research Fellowship Deadline Extended (February 19, 2020 1:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/70080 70080-18120896@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 19, 2020 1:00am
Location:
Organized By: UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Extended Deadline Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 at 5pm
Apply today at: http://myumi.ch/lxmbp

UROP sponsors several summer research opportunities designed for University of Michigan undergraduate students seeking an intense research experience in traditional laboratory settings and in the community. These fellowships provide students with the chance to undertake and complete individual research projects; learn firsthand about the life of an academic researcher; think about academic and post graduate careers; and develop strong mentor relationships.

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Careers / Jobs Mon, 17 Feb 2020 11:17:33 -0500 2020-02-19T01:00:00-05:00 2020-02-19T17:00:00-05:00 UROP - Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Careers / Jobs UROP Summer Application Graphic
No Defense: The U.S. Government's War on Water (February 19, 2020 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72213 72213-17957434@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 19, 2020 7:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center

In conjunction with the Feb 20 symposium, "From PBB to PFAS: Research and Action to Address Michigan’s Large-Scale Chemical Contaminations" this FREE event is sponsored by the National Wildlife Foundation and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.

"No Defense" is a documentary that tells the story of the Americans who are fighting against one of the largest-known polluters in the country — the United States government. Since the 1990s, it’s been documented that a category of chemicals known as perfluorinated compounds (PFAS) are harmful to life, yet the government continues to mandate its use at hundreds of sites across the country, contaminating surface water and drinking water, with no plan in place to clean it up. This film highlights the people who are suffering, who are blowing the whistle, and who are fighting the United States military’s war on water.

The film focuses on the PFAS contamination problem in Oscoda, Michigan, as a case study into how the U.S. military has failed to protect human health and the environment around the nation and the world. The PFAS contamination in Oscoda was discovered nearly 10 years ago, making it the first PFAS site in Michigan and the first PFAS military site in the world. The film's director, Sara Ganim, is a former CNN correspondent who won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State; she also has done extensive reporting on water issues in other communities in the U.S, including Flint.

Documentary. 270 min. Including Filmmaker Q&A. NR.

No Defense is directed by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Sara Ganim. Produced by Emmy-award winning journalist Lennart Bourin. Executive Producer Robert P. Ufer.

Film will be followed by a Filmmaker Q&A.

*Admission is free, but you're encouraged to reserve tickets at this link: https://bit.ly/2RUYYWU

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Film Screening Thu, 30 Jan 2020 15:29:58 -0500 2020-02-19T19:00:00-05:00 2020-02-19T21:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center Film Screening No Defense: The US Government's War on Water (PFAS documentary)
Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment (MUSE) Conference 2020 (February 20, 2020 8:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68682 68682-17136739@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 20, 2020 8:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment Initiative (MUSE)

The 4th MUSE Conference will be held February 20-22, 2020 at the UM Rackham building in Ann Arbor.

The purpose of the conference is to foster connections and new collaborations across the broad suite of sustainability and environment-related research at the University of Michigan. We welcome participation from those advancing knowledge through work in the humanities and the social, physical, natural, and engineering sciences.

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 23 Oct 2019 15:54:45 -0400 2020-02-20T08:00:00-05:00 2020-02-20T18:00:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment Initiative (MUSE) Conference / Symposium MUSE 2020 logo
From PBB to PFAS: Research and Action to Address Michigan’s Large Scale Chemical Contaminations (February 20, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68807 68807-17153411@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 20, 2020 9:00am
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center

The PBB to PFAS Symposium will provide a unique venue for fostering collaboration between researchers and community members with:

• Keynote address by Dr. Linda Birnbaum (Director NIEHS, retired);

• Presentations by community residents and academic researchers working on PBB and PFAS health impacts;

• Breakout groups focused on strategies for building effective community-academic collaborations;

• Organized by UM's Center on Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease (M-LEEaD), Central Michigan University's Dept of History, Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, Emory University’s HERCULES Exposome Research Center;

• ADDITIONAL SPEAKERS: Michele Marcus, PhD, Emory University’s Michigan PBB Registry; Jane Keon, Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force; Francis Spaniola, former Michigan State Representative; Tony Spaniola, JD, creator Michigan Cancer Registry; Courtney Carignan, PhD, Michigan State University; Monica Lewis-Patrick, President & CEO, River Network and We The People of Detroit

• COMMUNITY PANELISTS: Sandy Wynn-Stelt, Rockford; Theresa Landrum, Detroit; Lawrence Reynolds, Flint; Donele Wilkins, Detroit; Tim Neyer, Mt. Pleasant

• MORE SPEAKERS AND BREAKOUT SESSIONS TO BE ANNOUNCED

• Keynote address by Dr. Birnbaum will be livestreamed.

• Registration (free) is required.

• Register for the IN-PERSON Event in Ann Arbor: http://mleead.umich.edu/Event_FromPBBtoPFAS_Register.php?Attendance=InPerson
OR
• Register for the Keynote LIVESTREAM: http://mleead.umich.edu/Event_FromPBBtoPFAS_Register.php?Attendance=LiveStream

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Conference / Symposium Fri, 24 Jan 2020 16:21:01 -0500 2020-02-20T09:00:00-05:00 2020-02-20T16:00:00-05:00 Michigan League Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center Conference / Symposium PBB to PFAS symposium Feb 20 2020
BME Ph.D. Defense: Lauren L. Zimmerman (February 20, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/72566 72566-18018159@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 20, 2020 10:00am
Location: Lurie Robert H. Engin. Ctr
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Department of Biomedical Engineering Final Oral Examination

Lauren L. Zimmerman

Investigating Neuromodulation as a Treatment for Female Sexual Dysfunction

Female sexual dysfunction (FSD) affects millions of women worldwide. FSD has a significant impact on quality of life and interpersonal relationships. The prevalence of at least one form of sexual dysfunction is 40-45% of adult women with 12% of women experiencing sexually related personal distress, yet there is no clear treatment option for a wide range of FSD deficits with high efficacy and low side effects.

Neuromodulation techniques using electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves have the potential to treat some forms of FSD. In clinical trials of sacral neuromodulation (SNM) and percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation (PTNS) for bladder dysfunction, women have reported that their sexual dysfunction symptoms improved as well. Even though this effect has been observed clinically, very little research has been done to examine the mechanisms or the optimal method of treatment specifically for women with FSD. This thesis aims to bridge that gap by investigating neuromodulation as a treatment for FSD through both preclinical and clinical studies.

The first aim of this thesis is to investigate a possible mechanism of the improvement to sexual functioning in response to tibial nerve stimulation by evaluating vaginal blood flow responses in rats. In 16 ketamine-anesthetized female rats, the tibial nerve was stimulated for 30 minutes while vaginal blood perfusion was recorded with laser Doppler flowmetry. A novel signal analysis and quantification metric was developed for this analysis. I found that tibial nerve stimulation could drive prolonged increases in vaginal blood perfusion, typically after 20-30 minutes of stimulation. This result suggests that clinical neuromodulation may be improving FSD symptoms by increasing genital blood flow.

One question yet to be investigated by neuromodulation studies is whether tibial nerve stimulation could be an on-demand treatment for FSD, such as Viagra is for men, or is more appropriate as a long-term treatment with improvements over time, such as PTNS for bladder dysfunction. In this thesis I address this question by evaluating the sexual motivation and receptivity of female rats both immediately after a single stimulation session as well as after long-term, repeated stimulation sessions. I found that tibial nerve stimulation led to modest increases in sexual motivation in the short term, and larger increases in sexual receptivity in the long-term.

Lastly, this thesis evaluates a pilot clinical study of transcutaneous stimulation of the dorsal genital and posterior tibial nerves in nine women with FSD. The women received stimulation once a week for 12 weeks and their sexual functioning was measured using the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) at baseline, after 6 weeks of stimulation, after 12 weeks of stimulation, and at 18 weeks (6 weeks after the last stimulation session). The average total FSFI score across all subjects significantly increased from baseline to each of the time points in the study. Significant FSFI increases were seen in the sub-domains of lubrication, arousal, and orgasm, each of which is related to genital arousal.

This thesis provides evidence that peripheral neuromodulation can be an effective treatment for FSD. The stimulation is likely driving increases in genital blood flow, with greater effects observed when stimulation is repeatedly applied over time. This treatment has the potential to help millions of women worldwide.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:00:05 -0500 2020-02-20T10:00:00-05:00 2020-02-20T11:00:00-05:00 Lurie Robert H. Engin. Ctr Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Seminar: Targeting tumor-immune interplays (February 20, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72744 72744-18070548@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 20, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Speaker
Peiwen Chen, Ph.D.
University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:50:46 -0500 2020-02-20T14:00:00-05:00 2020-02-20T15:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Workshop / Seminar Life Sciences Institute logo
BME 500: Ruixuan Gao (February 20, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70421 70421-17594473@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 20, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Investigation of the molecular basis of a complex biological system, such as the brain, can lead to fundamental understanding of its composition and function, and to a new strategy to repair it. Such investigation, however, requires a tool that can capture biological structures and their molecular constituents across multiple orders of magnitude—from nanometers to centimeters—in length. Electron microscopy offers nanoscopic resolution but lacks molecular information to differentiate endogenous biomolecules as well as imaging speed to cover millimeter-scale specimens. Light microscopy provides molecular contrast but is limited by optical diffraction and the tradeoff between imaging speed and photobleaching.

In this talk, I will first introduce an optical imaging pipeline named expansion lattice light-sheet microscopy (ExLLSM) and its application to multiplexed, volumetric imaging of molecular constituents in cells and intact tissues. Using ExLLSM, our study has revealed molecular-specific structures of organelles, synapses, myelin sheaths, and neurites in rodent and insect brains at ∼60 by 60 by 90 nm effective resolution across dimensions that span millimeters. Next, I will present two recently developed methods that further extend the resolution and throughput of ExLLSM: (1) a non-radical hydrogel chemistry that forms a homogenous polymer network and physically separates biomolecules or fluorescent labels up to 40-fold linearly, and (2) a multi-modal optical microscopy that enables rapid, high-resolution imaging of both expanded and live tissues. Lastly, I will discuss the significance of these imaging methods in the context of microanatomy and functional omics.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 13 Feb 2020 10:34:18 -0500 2020-02-20T16:00:00-05:00 2020-02-20T17:00:00-05:00 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
"United States of Single Cells" (February 20, 2020 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72663 72663-18035617@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 20, 2020 5:00pm
Location: Frankel Cardiovascular Center
Organized By: A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute

"The United States of Single Cells"

Technological developments have enabled high-throughput profiling of single-cell gene expression, epigenetic regulation, and spatial position within complex tissues, providing an opportunity to define the features that delineate cell types and states.

However, this task requires sophisticated computational methods for integrating diverse single-cell datasets from multiple experiments and biological contexts. This talk will cover how metagene factors inferred by integrative nonnegative matrix factorization provide quantitative definition of cellular identity and its variation across biological contexts, allowing robust and scalable integration of highly heterogeneous single-cell datasets.

Joshua Welch, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics and Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan.

He received dual undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Piano Performance from Ohio University. After completing his PhD in Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017, he performed postdoctoral research with Evan Macosko at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Dr. Welch's research focuses on developing computational approaches for single-cell genomics and applying these approaches to understand cellular differentiation and reprogramming, cancer and the brain. His work has been funded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the National Institutes of Health.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 07 Feb 2020 15:25:51 -0500 2020-02-20T17:00:00-05:00 2020-02-20T18:00:00-05:00 Frankel Cardiovascular Center A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute Lecture / Discussion Joshua Welch, PhD
Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment (MUSE) Conference 2020 (February 21, 2020 8:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68682 68682-17136740@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 21, 2020 8:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment Initiative (MUSE)

The 4th MUSE Conference will be held February 20-22, 2020 at the UM Rackham building in Ann Arbor.

The purpose of the conference is to foster connections and new collaborations across the broad suite of sustainability and environment-related research at the University of Michigan. We welcome participation from those advancing knowledge through work in the humanities and the social, physical, natural, and engineering sciences.

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 23 Oct 2019 15:54:45 -0400 2020-02-21T08:00:00-05:00 2020-02-21T18:00:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment Initiative (MUSE) Conference / Symposium MUSE 2020 logo
Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment (MUSE) Conference 2020 (February 22, 2020 8:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/68682 68682-17136741@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, February 22, 2020 8:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment Initiative (MUSE)

The 4th MUSE Conference will be held February 20-22, 2020 at the UM Rackham building in Ann Arbor.

The purpose of the conference is to foster connections and new collaborations across the broad suite of sustainability and environment-related research at the University of Michigan. We welcome participation from those advancing knowledge through work in the humanities and the social, physical, natural, and engineering sciences.

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 23 Oct 2019 15:54:45 -0400 2020-02-22T08:00:00-05:00 2020-02-22T18:00:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Michigan University-wide Sustainability and Environment Initiative (MUSE) Conference / Symposium MUSE 2020 logo
Seminar: CRISPR tools for studying and engineering the three-dimensional genome (February 24, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72745 72745-18070549@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 24, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Palmer Commons
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Speaker
Haifeng Wang, PH.D.
Stanford University, Department of Bioengineering

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 11 Feb 2020 13:52:58 -0500 2020-02-24T14:00:00-05:00 2020-02-24T15:00:00-05:00 Palmer Commons Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Workshop / Seminar Life Sciences Institute logo
CEW+Inspire Workshop: Who Speaks for Seeds? Respectful Listening – Meaningful Actions (February 27, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/69928 69928-17483065@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 27, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Center for the Education of Women
Organized By: CEW+

The workshop is from 2-3:30, followed by a networking reception until 4:00.

The concept of Rematriation as Reconciliation is simple. It is the return of living seeds to their Community of Origin. But issues of trust soon emerge. Who is involved in conceptually framing and prioritizing critical thought and action? Who/what Community Members have both standing and agency to be engaged—ethically, spiritually, and legally? Who speaks for Indigenous Nation’s seeds in museum diaspora? What is “listening” when contributing parties’ paradigms of reality are not fully congruent?

This workshop, co-led by Tribal Partner Mede (Elder) Shannon Martin, will address deep listening skills as a key to trust-building. Shannon is the Director of the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The Heritage Seeds Project and how it grew into the Indigenous Collaborative Garden will be one trust-building example. The challenges of deep listening from an academic perspective are real. Participants should become aware that Reconciliation is about fundamental change – in one’s self.

Dr. David C. Michener is the curator at the U-M Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum. Best known to the public for his co-authored book Peony, which made the New York Times 2018 Summer Reading List, his research addresses understanding the complex cross-cultural heritages of ornamental peonies and conserving key living specimens. He has an active program in molecular-evidence of peony relationships with colleagues and students here at U-M and in Belarus. His work with Indigenous Seeds in museum collections is an unanticipated intersection of deep engagement with U-M’s Museum Studies Program (Rackham Graduate School) and an ethical concern with the ‘Voice’ of Indigenous Communities in interpreting native plant collections and landscapes stewarded by the Botanical Gardens & Arboretum. Before coming to Michigan, David earned his BA in Botany (UNC-Chapel Hill), and his PhD (Claremont Graduate School) was followed by a NSF-funded postdoc at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum.

RSVP requested at: cew.umich.edu/events/cewinspire-workshop-who-speaks-for-seeds-respectful-listening-meaningful-actions/

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:58:42 -0500 2020-02-27T14:00:00-05:00 2020-02-27T15:30:00-05:00 Center for the Education of Women CEW+ Workshop / Seminar White man with full beard wearing a brown hat, suit and tie
BME 500: Kelly Stevens (February 27, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70067 70067-17505693@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 27, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

The notion of building artificial human organs has moved from a far-fetched concept to the forefront of regenerative medicine research. While progress is being made, most tissues created to date are simply not large enough to support clinically meaningful functions, and their structural features remain an magnitude coarser in resolution than native tissues. Few organs better represent this challenge than the liver – the largest visceral organ in the human body, in which hepatocytes are aligned in single cell-width structures entangled with vascular and biliary networks. To address this challenge, we are working to develop a portfolio of tools that integrate 3D printing, synthetic biology, and the innate capacity of cells to self-assemble. We are applying these tools to decode the signals that drive tissue assembly during development, and using this information to build scaled artificial tissues that replicate the features of native tissues.

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Workshop / Seminar Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:04:16 -0500 2020-02-27T16:00:00-05:00 2020-02-27T17:00:00-05:00 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building Biomedical Engineering Workshop / Seminar BME Event
BME 500: Ruobo Zhou (March 5, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/73399 73399-18214945@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 5, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Industrial and Operations Engineering Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Biomolecular interactions are at the root of all biological processes and define the molecular mechanisms of how these processes are accomplished in both physiological and pathological conditions. Recent advances in single molecule detection and super-resolution fluorescence microcopy have uncovered previously unknown properties of biomolecular interactions, including multivalency, transiency, and heterogeneity, and revealed the organizational principles governing the compartmentalization of functional biomolecular interactions in cells and how such compartmentalization and organizations become dysregulated in diseases. In this talk, I will first discuss my postdoctoral work, where I used mass-spectrometry-based analysis and super-resolution imaging to dissect the protein-protein interactions at the plasma membrane of neurons, and discovered that a newly identified membrane-associated periodic skeleton (MPS) structure can function as a signaling platform that coordinates the interactions of signaling proteins at the plasma membrane of neurons. In response to extracellular stimuli, G-protein coupled receptors, cell-adhesion molecules, receptor tyrosine kinases can be recruited to the MPS to form signaling complexes at the plasma membrane, and such recruitment is required for downstream intracellular signaling. This work not only reveals an important, previously unknown function of the newly discovered MPS structure, but also provides novel mechanistic insights into signal transduction in neurons. I will then discuss my graduate work, where I developed a hybrid single molecule technique combining single molecule FRET and optical tweezers, and applied this technique to probe the sub-molecular dynamics of protein-DNA interactions in various biological systems involved in DNA replication, repair and recombination.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:07:38 -0500 2020-03-05T16:00:00-05:00 2020-03-05T17:00:00-05:00 Industrial and Operations Engineering Building Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Forum on "Climate Change and Health: Readiness and Resilience" (March 10, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72763 72763-18070598@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Towsley Center for Cont. Med Ed
Organized By: Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center

*Please register by going to http://mleead.umich.edu/Event_Climate_Change_and_Health_2020.php*

Our climate is our planet’s life support system. Climate change influences human health and disease in numerous ways, including impacts from increased extreme weather events, wildfire, decreased air quality, and illnesses transmitted by food, water, and disease carriers such as mosquitoes and ticks. As described in the Lancet Countdown report, some existing health threats will intensify and new health threats will emerge. Not everyone is equally at risk, and children are especially at risk. Preventive and adaptive actions are needed.

The keynote speaker is an emergency medicine physician who co-authored the U.S. portion of the Lancet Countdown report and Health and Care Delivery in the New England Journal of Medicine. A panel of experts will present solutions from a variety of other universities who are reducing their carbon footprint in response to the urgent public health need.

Welcome: Joseph C. Kolars, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Education and Global Initiatives, UM Medical School

Keynote: "Climate Action: Children’s Health Drives Need for Urgent Action" Renee N. Salas, MD, MPH, MS, Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and emergency medicine physician, Massachusetts General Hospital

Schedule
11:00-11:45 am | Registration outside of Dow Auditorium, Towsley Center for Continuing Medical Education, Michigan Medicine
11:00-11:45 am | Lunch in Towsley Center Dining Room for registered guests
12:00-1:30 pm | Program in Dow Auditorium, Towsley Center (also will be live streamed)
1:30-2:00 pm | Reception in Towsley Center Dining Room

*Please register by going to http://mleead.umich.edu/Event_Climate_Change_and_Health_2020.php*

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Conference / Symposium Fri, 21 Feb 2020 13:52:24 -0500 2020-03-10T12:00:00-04:00 2020-03-10T13:30:00-04:00 Towsley Center for Cont. Med Ed Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center Conference / Symposium Climate Change and Health: Readiness and Resilience
DCMB Weekly Seminar (March 11, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/73002 73002-18123077@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 4:00pm
Location:
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract:

In this talk, some major challenges are reviewed of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address the needs of medicine and healthcare. These challenges include technical issues such as data-related and/or algorithmic challenges that the use of AI for medicine would present. The speaker then presents some potential solutions in form of novel algorithmic approaches that may at least partially address some of these challenges.

BlueJeans livestream: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/rbuvycdc

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:49:28 -0400 2020-03-11T16:00:00-04:00 2020-03-11T17:00:00-04:00 DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion
BME 500: Rebecca Wachs (March 12, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/70068 70068-17505695@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 12, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

The majority of the population will experience low back pain in their lifetime. Degeneration of the intervertebral disc is highly correlated with low back pain, however, not all disc degeneration is painful. One of the most common forms of low back pain is disc-associated low back pain in which pain originates from intervertebral disc. In disc-associated low back pain, nerve fibers penetrate the previously aneural disc, where they are then thought to be stimulated by the harsh catabolic environment. Repetitive stimulation of these nerve fibers can cause sensitization and chronic pain. The overarching goal of our work is to engineer biomaterials that target these two key areas of disc-associated low back pain: nerve growth and stimulation. Current clinical treatments for chronic low back pain have limited efficacy or are highly invasive. The majority of research to date focuses on regenerating a young healthy disc. We believe our approach to target nerve growth and stimulation independent of disc regeneration has the potential shift the paradigm in the treatment of low back pain.

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Workshop / Seminar Tue, 10 Mar 2020 11:43:59 -0400 2020-03-12T16:00:00-04:00 2020-03-12T17:00:00-04:00 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building Biomedical Engineering Workshop / Seminar BME Event
CANCELED - Alumni Connections: Derek Meisner (March 20, 2020 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/73331 73331-18199515@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 20, 2020 3:00pm
Location: LSA Building
Organized By: LSA Opportunity Hub

**Due to our commitment to ensuring the safety of our students and the broader U-M community, the LSA Opportunity Hub has decided to cancel this event.**

General Counsel of X4 Pharmaceuticals, Derek Meisner

Derek Meisner serves as the General Counsel at X4 Pharmaceuticals, a publicly-traded biotechnology company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He brings more than two decades of experience providing counsel to public and private companies across key legal and operational functions. Prior to X4, Derek held the role of General Counsel of another biotechnology company, Genocea Biosciences. Prior to Genocea, he served as General Counsel at multiple Boston-based financial services firms. He was previously a partner at the international law firm, K&L Gates, and the Branch Chief in the Division of Enforcement as part of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Derek holds a Psychology B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University. Come and hear directly from Derek about his personal experiences and unique career path and leverage these actionable insights to your own career exploration.

You should attend this workshop if you are:
- A liberal arts and/or sciences student
- Interested in learning about Derek’s experience having held senior legal and operational positions in financial services, life sciences, and the U.S. Government
-Interested in exploring and defining your passions and talents and breaking into any of the above industries, in legal or non-legal roles

What you’ll gain by attending:
- Opportunity to connect with an LSA graduate
- Advice on the skills and competencies needed to pursue a career in both life sciences and financial services
- A better understanding of how to be adaptive and pivot into different industries over the course of your future career

RSVP now to save your spot.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 16 Mar 2020 14:38:07 -0400 2020-03-20T15:00:00-04:00 2020-03-20T16:00:00-04:00 LSA Building LSA Opportunity Hub Workshop / Seminar Derek Meisner Headshot
LHS Collaboratory Webinar "Mobilizing Computable Biomedical Knowledge at Michigan Medicine" (March 24, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72652 72652-18035599@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, March 24, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

Presentation 1:
"Electronic Health Record (EHR)-Integration for Learning Health Systems"

Michael Lanham, MD
Associate Chief Medical Information Officer
Clinical Assistant Professor of Learning Health Sciences
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology; Fertility and Reproductive Health
University of Michigan

Presentation 2:
“Machine Learning Infrastructure in a Learning Health System”

Karandeep Singh, MD, MMSc
Assistant Professor of Learning Health Sciences
Assistant Professor of Medicine
University of Michigan


Please register in advance, *dlhs-umi.ch/lhs-collaboratory. *
Email: *LHScollaboratory-info@umich.edu*

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 18 Mar 2020 10:04:19 -0400 2020-03-24T12:00:00-04:00 2020-03-24T13:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion LHS Collaboratory
Zhen Xu, PhD: Histotripsy Webinar (March 25, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/73931 73931-18426654@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This will be held online. Click the link below to register.

https://fusfoundation.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Hj_R2DMOT8SlOAp0WRLV3A

Oftentimes when we think of focused ultrasound, we imagine using it to heat and kill tissue. Unlike thermal ablation, histotripsy uses focused ultrasound to mechanically disrupt the target tissue without heating. Histotripsy turns the tissue into liquid-appearing acellular debris – which is absorbed by the body over one to two months – resulting in effective tissue removal.

Histotripsy has been shown to stimulate a powerful immune response in cancer treatment studies. In the treatment of neurological diseases, transcranial histotripsy can produce well-confined focal treatment in a wide range of locations and volumes in the brain, offering the potential to increase the treatment envelope while decreasing treatment time.

Please register to join us at 10:00 AM Eastern on Wednesday, March 25, when Zhen Xu, PhD, will discuss the basic mechanism, instrumentation, bioeffects, and applications of histotripsy. She will also cover the latest preclinical and clinical trial results of developing histotripsy for the treatment of cancer and neurological diseases.

About the Speaker

Zhen Xu, PhD, is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan and a primary inventor and pioneer in histotripsy.

She has received many notable awards, including:
IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society Outstanding Paper Award (2006)
American Heart Association Outstanding Research in Pediatric Cardiology (2010)
National Institutes of Health (NIH) New Investigator Award at the First National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Edward C. Nagy New Investigator Symposium (2011)
The Federic Lizzi Early Career Award from The International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound (ISTU) (2015)
Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (2019)
Dr. Xu is currently an associate editor for three notable journals: IEEE Transactions on Ultrasound, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control (UFFC); Frontiers in Bioengineering; and BME Frontiers. She is an elected board member of ISTU, a charter member of the US NIH study section, and a principal investigator of grants funded by the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, NIH, American Cancer Association, Office of Naval Research, The Hartwell Foundation, and The Coulter Foundation.

She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in 2005.

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Livestream / Virtual Mon, 23 Mar 2020 14:42:17 -0400 2020-03-25T10:00:00-04:00 2020-03-25T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Livestream / Virtual BME Logo
Ph.D. Defense: Brittany Rodriguez (March 26, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/73840 73840-18339520@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 26, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: Will be held via BlueJeans.

BlueJeans Link: https://umich.bluejeans.com/478989984

Volumetric muscle loss (VML) is the traumatic or surgical loss of skeletal muscle comprising 20-30% or more of the total muscle volume. By definition, VML exceeds the muscle’s capacity for self-repair and results in persistent functional deficits. Significantly, no treatment options exist that can fully restore native structure and function. To address the limitations of current treatments, our laboratory has developed tissue-engineered skeletal muscle units (SMUs) as a novel treatment for VML repair. SMUs have shown promising regenerative potential in a rat VML model; however, limitations of rodent models necessitated transitioning our technology to a large animal (sheep) model.



Despite substantial heterogeneity of muscle progenitor cell populations obtained from craniofacial, trunk, and limb muscle, engineered skeletal muscle tissues are almost exclusively fabricated from cells derived from hindlimb muscle, making the effects of cell source on engineered muscle tissue unknown. Thus, we conducted a comparison of SMUs fabricated from muscle cells isolated from both craniofacial and hindlimb muscle sources and evaluated the effects of these cell sources on SMU structure and function. Specifically, we showed that the semimembranosus muscle was the most clinically relevant muscle source for the fabrication of SMUs.

We also sought to develop a method to scale our SMUs to clinically relevant sizes. We developed a modular fabrication method that combines multiple smaller SMUs into a larger implantable graft. Consequently, we successfully fabricated of one of the largest engineered skeletal muscle tissues to date while avoiding the formation of a necrotic core. To treat peripheral nerve injuries that often accompany VML, we also developed engineered neural conduits (ENCs) to bridge gaps between healthy native nerve and the injury site. We used scaled-up SMUs and ENCs to treat a 30% VML in the ovine peroneus tertius muscle. After a 3-month recovery, SMU-treated groups restored muscle mass and force production to a level that was statistically indistinguishable from the uninjured contralateral muscle.

Lastly, we evaluated the efficacy of SMUs in repairing craniofacial VML. Despite reported differences in the regenerative capacity of craniofacial muscle compared to limb muscle, prior to my thesis there were no models of craniofacial VML in either large or small animal models. Thus, we introduced the first model of craniofacial VML and evaluated the ability of SMUs to treat a 30% VML in the zygomaticus major muscle. Despite using the same injury and repair model in both implantation studies, results showed differences in pathophysiology between craniofacial and hindlimb VML. The fibrotic response was increased in the facial muscle model, and there was tissue tethering and intramuscular fat deposition that was not observed in the hindlimb study. The craniofacial model was also confounded by concomitant denervation and ischemia injuries which was too severe for our SMUs to repair. This study highlighted the importance of balancing the use of a clinically realistic model while also maintaining control over variables related to the severity of the injury.

Overall, this work significantly contributed to the field of skeletal muscle tissue engineering by evaluating the effects of muscle source on the structure and function of SMUs, created a modular fabrication method for tissue scale-up, and introduced a new large animal model, and a craniofacial model of VML. The success of this technology demonstrates its potential for treating clinical VML in the future.

Chair: Dr. Lisa Larkin

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:49:10 -0400 2020-03-26T10:00:00-04:00 2020-03-26T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion U-M BME Event
Ph.D. Defense: Tyler Gerhardson (March 26, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/73025 73025-18129601@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 26, 2020 10:00am
Location: Lurie Robert H. Engin. Ctr
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: Will be held via BlueJeans.

Link: https://umich.bluejeans.com/924142541

Brain pathologies including stroke and cancer are a major cause of death and disability. Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) accounts for roughly 12% of all strokes in the US with approximately 200,000 new cases per year. ICH is characterized by the rupture of vessels resulting in bleeding and clotting inside the brain. The presence of the clot causes immediate damage to surrounding brain tissue via mass effect with delayed toxic effects developing in the days following the hemorrhage. This leads ICH patients to high mortality with a 40% chance of death within 30 days of diagnosis and motivates the need to quickly evacuate the clot from the brain. Craniotomy surgery and other minimally invasive methods using thrombolytic drugs are common procedures to remove the clot but are limited by factors such as morbidity and high susceptibility to rebleeding, which ultimately result in poor clinical outcomes.

Histotripsy is a non-thermal ultrasound ablation technique that uses short duration, high amplitude rarefactional pulses (>26 MPa) delivered via an extracorporeal transducer to generate targeted cavitation using the intrinsic gas nuclei existing in the target tissue. The rapid and energetic bubble expansion and collapse of cavitation create high stress and strain in tissue at the focus that fractionate it into an acellular homogenate. This dissertation presents the role of histotripsy as a novel ultrasound technology with potential to address the need for an effective transcranial therapy for ICH and other brain pathologies.

The first part of this work investigates the effects of ultrasound frequency and focal spacing on transcranial clot liquefaction using histotripsy. Histotripsy pulses were delivered using two 256-element hemispherical transducers of different frequency (250 and 500 kHz) with 30-cm aperture diameters. Liquefied clot was drained via catheter and syringe in the range of 6-59 mL in 0.9-42.4 min. The fastest rate was 16.6 mL/min. The best parameter combination was λ spacing at 500 kHz, which produced large liquefaction through 3 skullcaps (~30 mL) with fast rates (~2 mL/min). The temperature-rise through the 3 skullcaps remained below 4°C.

The second part addresses initial safety concerns for histotripsy ICH treatment through investigation in a porcine ICH model. 1.75-mL clots were formed in the frontal lobe of the brain. The centers of the clots were liquefied with histotripsy 48 h after formation, and the content was either evacuated or left within the brain. A control group was left untreated. Histotripsy was able to liquefy the core of clots without direct damage to the perihematomal brain tissue. An average volume of 0.9 ± 0.5 mL (~50%) was drained after histotripsy treatment. All groups showed mild ischemia and gliosis in the perihematomal region; however, there were no deaths or signs of neurological dysfunction in any groups.

The third part presents the development of a novel catheter hydrophone method for transcranial phase aberration correction and drainage of the clot liquefied with histotripsy. A prototype hydrophone was fabricated to fit within a ventriculostomy catheter. Improvements in focal pressure of up to 60% were achieved at the geometric focus and 27%-62% across a range of electronic steering locations. The sagittal and axial -6-dB beam widths decreased from 4.6 to 2.2 mm in the sagittal direction and 8 to 4.4 mm in the axial direction, compared to 1.5 and 3 mm in the absence of aberration. The cores of clots liquefied with histotripsy were readily drained via the catheter.

The fourth part focuses on the development of a preclinical system for translation to human cadaver ICH models. A 360-element, 700 kHz hemispherical array with a 30 cm aperture was designed and integrated with an optical tracker surgical navigation system. Calibrated simulations of the transducer suggest a therapeutic range between 48 – 105 mL through the human skull with the ability to apply therapy pulses at pulse-repetition-frequencies up to 200 Hz. The navigation system allows real-time targeting and placement of the catheter hydrophone via a pre-operative CT or MRI.

The fifth and final part of this work extends transcranial histotripsy therapy beyond ICH to the treatment of glioblastoma. This section presents results from an initial investigation into cancer immunomodulation using histotripsy in a mouse glioblastoma model. The results suggest histotripsy has some immunomodulatory capacity as evidenced by a 2-fold reduction in myeloid derived suppressor cells and large increases in interferon-γ concentrations (3500 pg/mL) within the brain tumors of mice treated with histotripsy.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 16 Mar 2020 13:26:52 -0400 2020-03-26T10:00:00-04:00 2020-03-26T11:00:00-04:00 Lurie Robert H. Engin. Ctr Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Master's Thesis Defense: Mingyang Wang (April 10, 2020 10:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/73990 73990-18460430@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, April 10, 2020 10:30am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Blue Jeans. It will be linked before.

BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/315155702

Objectives
We have developed a novel anti-vascular technique, termed photo-mediated ultrasound therapy (PUT), which utilizes nanosecond duration laser pulses synchronized with ultrasound bursts to remove microvasculature through cavitation. The objective of the current study is to explore the potential of PUT in removing cutaneous microvessels.

Methods
The auricular blood vessels of two New Zealand white rabbits were treated by PUT with a peak negative ultrasound pressure of 0.45 MPa at 0.5 MHz, and a laser fluence of 0.056 J/cm2 at 1064 nm for 10 minutes. Blood perfusion in the treated area was measured by a commercial laser speckle imaging (LSI) system before and immediately after treatment, as well as at one hour, three days, two weeks, and four weeks post treatment. Perfusion rates of 38 individual vessels from 4 rabbit ears were tracked during this time period for longitudinal assessment.

Results
The measured perfusion rates of the vessels in the treated areas, as quantified by the relative change in perfusion rate (RCPR), showed a statistically significant decrease for all time points post treatment (p<0.001). The mean decrease in perfusion is 50.79% immediately after treatment and is 32.14% at four weeks post treatment. Immediately after treatment, the perfusion rate decreased rapidly. Following this, there was a partial recovery in perfusion rate up to 3 days post treatment, then followed by a plateau in the perfusion from 3 days to 4 weeks.

Conclusions
The study demonstrated that a single PUT treatment could significantly reduce blood perfusion by 32.14% in the skin for up to 4 weeks. With unique advantages such as low laser fluence as compared with photothermolysis and agent-free treatment as compared with PDT, PUT holds potential to be developed into a new tool for the treatment of microvessels in the skin.

Keywords: laser; ultrasound; anti-vascular treatment; skin microvessels; photo-mediated ultrasound therapy

Chair: Dr. Xueding Wang

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 27 Mar 2020 13:53:59 -0400 2020-04-10T10:30:00-04:00 2020-04-10T11:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Joel Tan (April 14, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/73953 73953-18443421@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 14, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This PhD defense will be taking place via Blue Jeans. Link below.

Blue Jeans: https://bluejeans.com/304616213
Chair: Dr. Xueding Wang

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is an emerging biomedical imaging modality that combines optical and ultrasound imaging technologies. PA imaging relies on the absorption of electromagnetic energy (usually in the form of visible or near-infrared light) leading to the generation of acoustic waves by thermoelastic expansion, which can be detected with an ultrasound detector. PA imaging can be used to detect endogenous chromophores such as deoxyhemoglobin and oxyhemoglobin, or can be used together with external nanosensors for added functionality. The former is used to measure things like blood oxygenation, while the latter opens up many possibilities for PA imaging, limited only to the availability of optical nanosensors. In this dissertation, I employ the use of PA nanosensors for contrast enhancement and molecular imaging in in vivo small animal cancer models.

In the first section, I introduce a novel PA background reduction technique called the transient triplet differential (TTD) method. The TTD method exploits the fact that phosphorescent dyes possess a triplet state with a unique red-shifted absorption wavelength, distinct from its ordinary singlet state absorption profile. By pumping these dyes into the triplet state and comparing the signal to the unpumped dyes, a differential signal can be obtained which solely originates from these dyes. Since intrinsic chromophores of biological tissue are not able to undergo intersystem crossing and enter the triplet state, the TTD method can facilitate “true” background free molecular imaging by excluding the signals from every other chromophore outside the phosphorescent dye. Here, I demonstrate up to an order of magnitude better sensitivity of the TTD method compared to other existing contrast enhancement techniques in both in vitro experiments and in vivo cancer models.

In the second section, I explore the use of a nanoparticle formulation of a repurposed FDA-approved drug called clofazimine for diagnosis of prostate cancer. Clofazimine nanoparticles have a high optical absorbance at 495 nm and has been known to specifically accumulate in macrophages as they form stable crystal-like inclusions once they are uptaken by macrophages. Due to the presence of tumor associated macrophages, it is expected that clofazimine would accumulate in much higher quantities in the cancerous prostate compared to normal prostates. Here, I show that there was indeed a significantly higher accumulation of clofazimine nanoparticles in cancerous prostates compared to normal prostates in a transgenic mouse model, which was detectable both using histology and ex vivo PA imaging.

In the third and final section, I explore the use of a potassium (K+) nanosensor together with PA imaging in measuring the in vivo K+ distribution in the tumor microenvironment (TME). K+ is the most abundant ion in the body and has recently been shown to be at a significantly higher concentration in the tumor. The reported 5-10 fold elevation (25-50 mM compared to 5 mM) in the tumor has been shown to inhibit immune cell efficacy, and thus immunotherapy. Despite the abundance and importance of K+ in the body, few ways exist to measure it in vivo. In this study, a solvatochromic dye K+ nanoparticle (SDKNP) was used together with PA imaging to quantitatively measure the in vivo distribution of K+ in the TME. Significantly elevated K+ levels were found in the TME, with an average concentration of approximately 29 mM, matching the values found by the previous study. The results were then verified using mass spectrometry.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 25 Mar 2020 13:19:15 -0400 2020-04-14T14:00:00-04:00 2020-04-14T15:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Master's Defense: Jonathan Primeaux (April 21, 2020 2:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/74331 74331-18633862@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 2:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

Zoom Link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/7013698675

Children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) must undergo multiple surgical stages to reconstruct the anatomy to a sustainable single ventricle system. Stage I palliation, or the Norwood procedure, enables circulation to both pulmonary and systemic vasculature. The aorta is reconstructed and attached to the right ventricle and a fraction of systemic flow is redirected to the pulmonary arteries (PAs) through a systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt. Despite abundant hemodynamic data available 4-5 months after palliation, data is very scarce immediately following stage I. This data is critical in determining post-operative success. In this work, we combined population data and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to characterize hemodynamics immediately following stage I (post-stage I) and prior to stage II palliation (pre-stage II). A patient-specific model was constructed as a baseline geometry, which was then scaled to reflect population-based morphological data at both time-points. Population-based hemodynamic data was also used to calibrate each model to reproduce blood flow representative of HLHS patients.

The post-stage I simulation produced a mean PA pressure of 22 mmHg and high-frequency oscillations within the flow field indicating highly disturbed hemodynamics. Despite mean PA pressure dropping to 14 mmHg, the pre-stage II model also produced high-frequency flow components and PA wall shear stress increases. These suboptimal conditions result from the need to ensure adequate PA flow throughout the pre-stage II period, as the shunt becomes relatively smaller compared to the growing patient size. In the future, CFD can be used to optimize shunt design and minimize these suboptimal conditions.

Chair: Dr. Alberto Figueroa

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 17 Apr 2020 13:05:00 -0400 2020-04-21T14:30:00-04:00 2020-04-21T15:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Master's Defense: Xijia Quan (April 21, 2020 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/74183 74183-18559840@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 3:00pm
Location:
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Blue Jeans. The link will be posted below.

Blue Jeans link: https://bluejeans.com/6788336326

We propose a novel optimization algorithm for radiofrequency (RF) pulse design in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), that regularizes the magnitude and phase of the target (desired) magnetization pattern separately. This approach may be useful across applications where the relative importance of achieving accurate magnitude or phase excitation varies; for example, saturation pulses "care" only about the magnitude excitation pattern. We apply our new design to the problem of spin "prephasing" in 3D functional MRI using blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast; spin prephasing pulses can mitigate the signal loss observed near air/tissue boundaries due to the presence of local susceptibility gradients. We show that our algorithm can improve the simulation performance and recover some signal in some regions with steep susceptibility gradients. In all cases, our algorithm shows better phase correction than a conventional design based on minimizing the complex difference between the target and realized patterns. The algorithm is open-source and the computation time is feasible for online applications. In addition, we evaluate the impact of the choice of (initial) excitation k-space trajectories, both in terms of trajectory type (SPINS vs extended KT points) and overall pulse duration.

Chair: Dr. Jon-Fredrik Nielsen

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 09 Apr 2020 14:11:30 -0400 2020-04-21T15:00:00-04:00 2020-04-21T16:00:00-04:00 Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Richard Youngblood (April 29, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/74358 74358-18666222@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Blue Jeans. The link will be posted below.

BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/855683101

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) differentiated into complex three-dimensional (3D) structures, referred to as ‘organoids’ due to their organ-like properties, offer ideal platforms to study human development, disease and regeneration. However, studying organ morphogenesis has been hindered by the lack of appropriate culture systems that can spatially enable cellular interactions that are needed for organ formation. Many organoid cultures rely on decellularized extracellular matrices as supportive scaffolds, which are often poorly chemically defined and allow only limited tunability and reproducibility. By contrast, engineered synthetic matrices can be tuned and optimized to mimic the embryo environment in order to enhance development and maturation of organoid cultures. Herein, this work primarily focuses on using synthetic polymer matrices to investigate how the design of biomaterials can guide key interactions guiding stem-cell decisions for the reproducible generation and control of organoid cultures.
Microporous biomaterials comprised of synthetic polymer materials were shown to guide the assembly of pancreatic progenitors into insulin-producing clusters that further developed into islet organoids. The scaffold culture facilitated cell-cell interactions enabled by the scaffold design and supported cell-mediated matrix deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins associated with the basement membrane of islet cells. Furthermore, when compared to suspension cultures, the scaffold culture showed increased insulin secretion in response to glucose stimulus indicating the development of functional β-cells. By modifying the stage that cells were seeded on scaffolds from pancreatic progenitor to pancreatic endoderm, islet organoids showed increased amounts of insulin secreted per cell. In addition, seeding scaffolds with dense clusters instead of a single suspension minimized cell manipulation during the differentiation, which was shown to be influential to the development of the islet organoids. An engineered insulin reporter further identified how mechanistic changes in vitro influenced function within individual cells by measuring insulin storage and secretion through non-invasive imaging.
hPSC-derived lung organoids (HLOs) were also evaluated for in vivo maturation on biomaterial scaffolds, where HLOs were shown improved tissue structure and cellular differentiation. Investigative studies demonstrated that scaffold pore interconnectivity and polymer degradation contributed to in vivo maturation, the size of the airway structures and the total size of the transplanted tissue. Polymer biomaterials were also developed to modulate local tissue and systemic inflammation through local delivery of human interleukin 4 (hIL-4)-expressing lentivirus. Microporous scaffold culture strategies improve organoid complexity and exert fine control over the system using engineering solutions, thus, allowing the community to build more realistic organoid tools. Taken together, the microporous scaffold culture demonstrates the feasibility to translate organoid culture to the clinic as a biomanufacturing platform.

Chair: Dr. Lonnie Shea

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 21 Apr 2020 13:21:55 -0400 2020-04-29T14:00:00-04:00 2020-04-29T15:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Master's Defense: Manan Parag Anjaria (April 30, 2020 1:15pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/74435 74435-18714559@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, April 30, 2020 1:15pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Blue Jeans. The link will be provided below.

Blue Jeans Link: https://bluejeans.com/126133694

Individual muscle contributions to facilitate limb motion are altered in people with transtibial amputation. Specifically, proximal muscles on the residual limb and muscles on the intact limb compensate for the lack of plantarflexor muscles on the residual limb. Powered ankle prostheses have been developed to replace the function of the ankle plantarflexor muscles. As powered prostheses can help people with amputation walk faster, and replicate local ankle joint mechanics similar to biological ankles, we expect that muscle activity would also differ when using powered prostheses compared to unpowered prosthesis. Exploring muscle synergies, or the patterns of co-activation of muscles recruited by a single neural command signal, can provide insight into the neural control strategies used to walk with different types of prostheses. The goal of this study was to determine if the use of a powered ankle prosthesis affected muscle coordination and coactivation in comparison to the use of unpowered prosthesis. Nine people with unilateral transtibial amputation and 9 age-matched, non-amputee controls walked on a treadmill while muscle activity from 16 lower limb muscles were collected. Participants with amputation performed two trials, one with an unpowered and one with a powered prosthesis, on the same day. People with transtibial amputation had higher thigh muscle co-contraction when walking with powered prostheses. They also had the same number of synergies in both prostheses as the non-amputee group, which suggests that the complexity of the motor control strategy is not affected by amputation or prosthesis type. The first three synergies in the intact limb were similar, however, the contribution of different muscles to the fourth synergy varied in people with amputation as they used more knee flexors than ankle dorsiflexors in the late swing phase. We also explored the time-varying pattern of the synergies across the gait cycle. There were some phases of the gait cycle where activation profiles for all the synergies were significantly different between the groups with and without amputation. However, there were strong correlations between muscle weightings for each synergy between the groups with and without amputation, with both prostheses. This indicates that they used a similar muscle recruitment strategy. The use of powered prosthesis reduced the compensatory activity of the proximal muscles making the intact limb synergies muscle weightings more similar to healthy individuals with prolonged or delayed activation profiles. The study could not offer any interpretations of the synergies of the residual limb due to lesser muscle activity data available. Future work should be focused including a larger set of muscles including the lumbar muscles and residual leg muscles to get a better look at the muscle synergy.

Chair: Dr. Deanna Gates

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 27 Apr 2020 13:44:40 -0400 2020-04-30T13:15:00-04:00 2020-04-30T14:15:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
VIRTUAL EVENT: Confronting our Climate Grief in the time of COVID-19 (May 7, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/68154 68154-17018328@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, May 7, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: CEW+

This workshop will be held via Zoom (link to follow via email prior to the event). For safety and privacy, you must be registered to receive the link.

In 2017, the American Psychological Association, Climate for Health, and ecoAmerica published, “Mental Health and our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance.” In October 2018, the U.N. released a report warning that without “unprecedented” political actions, we will likely see catastrophic conditions by 2040. Globally, most communities are already experiencing effects of climate change, and the poorest members of society remain most vulnerable. In this uncertain context, climate grief is real, particularly as the crisis is largely beyond any individual’s ability to control. As a scholar studying climate change, Sampson has sought emerging evidence-based strategies in hopes of coping and building resiliency. In this workshop, together we will: 1) confront our sometimes silent, biggest fears related to climate change, 2) identify ways our community or current professional work may be climate-affected, and 3) create a personal climate resiliency plan that may include household or community action or policy advocacy strategies.

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Livestream / Virtual Thu, 30 Apr 2020 16:22:57 -0400 2020-05-07T14:00:00-04:00 2020-05-07T15:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location CEW+ Livestream / Virtual Natalie Sampson
Ph.D. Defense: Kevin Hughes (May 8, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/74436 74436-18714560@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, May 8, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Blue Jeans. The link will be provided below.

Blue Jeans Link: https://bluejeans.com/302652230

A variety of immunological disorders are characterized by inappropriate responses to innocuous protein. This is particularly relevant in autoimmune disease, allergy, and transplant rejection. For these, the therapeutic options that exist are minimal or involve broadly immunosuppressive regimens which are often characterized by undesirable side effects. This dissertation highlights advances in the design of a biodegradable poly-lactide-co-glycolide (PLG) nanoparticle (NP) platform to provide antigen-specific tolerance in these disease models.

Strategies to incorporate multiple antigens conjugated to bulk PLG were investigated in a murine model of multiple sclerosis with the observation that a minimum antigen loading of 8µg of antigen per mg of nanoparticle was sufficient to induce maximally observed efficacy. Insights gathered from development of these particles were critical to the design of experiments related to food allergy in mice. Importantly, we demonstrate that it is possible to delivery peanut extract via nanoparticles intravenously without induction of anaphylactic response. Prophylactic and therapeutic administration of particles resulted in improved clinical outcomes and reduction in Th2 markers, including IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13. Interestingly, administration of PLG NPs to deliver allergen did not induce skewing of immunological responses towards Th1/Th17, which is a common approach to treat allergy in pre-clinical models and certain clinical immunotherapy regimens. Studies in a murine model of allogeneic skin transplant rejection demonstrated that the method of incorporation of antigen into the PLG NP resulted in statistically significant delay in graft rejection. These studies also demonstrated shortcomings in the platform’s ability to completely prevent rejection, which we hypothesize is the result of an inability to prevent direct rejection.

Development of FasL-conjugated implantable polymeric discs provided an immunologically privileged site on which to transplant islet cells, which may represent an opportunity to supplement tolerogenic therapies like our PLG NPs. A similar polymeric, implantable technology was designed to enable analysis of the function of inflammatory immune cells, a novel finding which has provided a method to monitor disease progression and response to therapy in a murine model of multiple sclerosis. Collectively, this work has provided several novel strategies to improve polymeric nanoparticle therapies and an implantable, biodegradable platform that shows promise as a companion diagnostic for therapies that impact immune function, including PLG NPs.

Chair: Dr. Lonnie Shea

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 27 Apr 2020 13:54:09 -0400 2020-05-08T10:00:00-04:00 2020-05-08T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Virtual Seminar - "Metabolic engineering strategies: from static to dynamic rewiring of microbial metabolic networks” (June 1, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/74728 74728-18952538@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, June 1, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Filipa Pereira, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Link to attend: https://umich.zoom.us/j/93168574796

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 27 May 2020 10:54:07 -0400 2020-06-01T10:00:00-04:00 2020-06-01T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Lecture / Discussion
Webinar: Learning Health Systems in the Time of COVID-19 (June 2, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/74564 74564-18825099@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, June 2, 2020 2:00pm
Location:
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

This 90-minute webinar is designed to introduce individuals to the overall concept of learning health systems, focusing on core components of learning cycles and infrastructure. It is appropriate for anyone interested in how health systems function, and particularly for individuals working within health systems. We will use examples that span countries and clinical problems, with special emphasis on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 11 May 2020 11:05:21 -0400 2020-06-02T14:00:00-04:00 2020-06-02T15:30:00-04:00 Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion Corona virus and Collaboratory logo
RNA Innovation Seminar, Jeffery Twiss, MD, PhD, Professor, Interim Departmental Chair, SmartState Chair in Childhood Neurotherapeutics, University of South Carolina (June 15, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/73583 73583-18263274@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, June 15, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Taubman Biomedical Science Research Building
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

Jeffery Twiss, MD, PhD, Professor, Interim Departmental Chair, SmartState Chair in Childhood Neurotherapeutics, University of South Carolina

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 05 Mar 2020 08:43:23 -0500 2020-06-15T16:00:00-04:00 2020-06-15T17:00:00-04:00 Taubman Biomedical Science Research Building Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion lecture
PhD Defense: Matthew S. Willsey (June 29, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/74994 74994-19128257@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, June 29, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/j/91278019863

Many diseases and injuries irreparably harm the brain or spinal cord and result in motor paralysis, widespread sensory deficits, and pain. Often, there are no treatments for these injuries, and therapies revolve around rehabilitation and adapting to the acquired deficits. In this work, we investigate brain machine interfaces (BMIs) as a future therapy to restore sensorimotor function, use BMIs to understand sensorimotor circuits, and use novel imaging algorithms to assess structural damage of somatosensory inputs into the brain.

Brain-controlled robotic arms have progressed rapidly from the first prototype devices in animals; however, these arms are often slow-moving compared to normal hand and arm function. In the first study, we attempt to restore higher-velocity movements during real-time control of virtual fingers using a novel feedforward neural network algorithm to decode the intended motor movement from the brain. In a non-human primate, the neural network decoder was compared with a linear decoder, the ReFIT Kalman filter (RFKF), that we believe represents the state-of-the-art in real-time finger decoding. The neural network decoder outperformed RFKF by acquiring more targets at faster velocities. This neural network architecture may also provide a blueprint for additional advances.

Somatosensory feedback from robotic arms is an important step to improve the realism and overall functioning. The use of somatosensory thalamus was investigated as a site of implantation for a sensory prosthesis in subjects undergoing awake deep brain stimulation surgery (DBS). In this study, electrical stimulation of the thalamus was performed using different stimulation patterns and the evoked sensations were compared. We found that the sensations evoked by bursting (a burst of pulses followed by a rest period) and tonic (regularly repeating pulses) stimulation were often in different anatomic regions and often with differing sensory qualities. These techniques for controlling percept location and quality may be useful in not only in BMI applications but also in DBS therapies to better relieve symptoms and avoid unwanted side effects.

Given the importance of sensory integration in motor functioning, the third study investigated the impact of a pharmacological perturbation on somatosensory content in primary motor cortex measured with Utah arrays implanted in two NHPs. Specifically, during continuous administration of nitrous oxide (N2O), somatosensory content was assessed by using the neural activity in primary motor cortex to classify finger brushings with a cotton-tip applicator. N2O degraded but did not eliminate somatosensory content in motor cortex. These findings provide insight into N2O mechanisms and may lead to further study of somatosensory afferents to motor cortex.

A debilitating facial pain syndrome, called trigeminal neuralgia (TN), is thought to be caused by vascular compression of the sensory root that provides somatosensory feedback from the face. In this final study, magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging was used to assess the structural damage of this sensory root. In a retrospective manner, we developed and tested an algorithm that predicted the likelihood of pain relief after surgical treatment of TN. This algorithm could help select patients for surgery with the best chance for pain relief.

Together, these studies advance BMI technologies that attempt to restore realistic function to those with irreparable damage to sensorimotor pathways. Furthermore, using BMIs and novel imaging, this work provides a better understanding of sensorimotor circuits and how sensory pathways can be damaged in disease states.

Co-Chairs: Parag G. Patil and Cynthia A. Chestek

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 18 Jun 2020 15:24:23 -0400 2020-06-29T10:00:00-04:00 2020-06-29T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Daniel Quevedo (July 1, 2020 9:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/74977 74977-19118435@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 9:30am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held digitally via Blue Jeans. The link will be placed below.

BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/863787871

Nanomedicine- where a therapeutic is loaded into nanoparticles to increase therapeutic efficiency and improve patient outcomes- has long had the potential to revolutionize medicine. With all of their promise, nanoparticle carrier technologies have yet to make a significant clinical impact, emphasizing the need for new technologies and approaches. In this dissertation, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) co-jetting was used to develop various methods to create novel Synthetic Protein Nanoparticles (SPNPs), which were then applied to the delivery of therapeutic enzymes, and characterized using a microfluidic technique. It was found that SPNPs can be made from various proteins, such as Human Transferrin, Hemoglobin, and others, and that various macromers can be selected, such as a stimuli responsive NHS-Ester based macromer that can detect oxidative environments and show signs of degradation within 30 minutes of being taken up by HeLa cells. SPNPs were then loaded with medically relevant enzymes, such as the antioxidant enzyme catalase. The enzymes showed high activity retention rates, with catalase SPNPs maintaining up to 82% of their original enzymatic activity. Additionally, antibody-targeted catalase SPNPs were able to protect up to 80% of REN cells in an inflammatory disease model. Next, an electrokinetic microfluidic system was adapted for the characterization of SPNPs based on their protein composition and anisotropy, and was able to differentiate bicompartmental particles made from two different proteins from single compartment SPNPs made of an equivalent isotropic mixture of the same two proteins, with a voltage difference of 900 V between the two particle types, in contrast to the 50 V step sizes possible in these systems. Finally, preliminary work was conducted on using a small targeting molecule, meta-acetylenbenzylguanidine (MABG), for the treatment of neuroblastoma, and a system for validating MABG targeting in SK-N-BE(2) cells (a neuroblastoma cell line) was developed. Work done in this dissertation presents the development of multifunctional protein nanocarriers and lays the groundwork for the targeted delivery of active therapeutics using these particles.

Chair: Dr. Joerg Lahann

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 18 Jun 2020 15:24:54 -0400 2020-07-01T09:30:00-04:00 2020-07-01T10:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Kate A. Fitzgerald, PhD, Vice Chair, Research, Department of Medicine, (July 13, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/74621 74621-18880949@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, July 13, 2020 4:00pm
Location:
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

Registration link: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_25jkEySCT6q3UWjxfRU13Q

Keywords: lncRNA, Inante Immunity, Interferon, Antiviral

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 01 Jul 2020 11:22:18 -0400 2020-07-13T16:00:00-04:00 2020-07-13T17:00:00-04:00 Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion speaker photo
NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Mini Symposium: Complications of COVID -19 (July 14, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75202 75202-19330333@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, July 14, 2020 9:00am
Location:
Organized By: NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies

Join Eva L. Feldman, MD, PhD, Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies, who will moderate a Michigan Medicine all-star mini symposium on Zoom to discuss the systemic complications of COVID-19 in the kidneys, cardiovascular system, metabolism and nervous system. The 30-minute webinar will feature nephrologist Matthias Kretzler, MD; endocrinologist Rodica Pop-Busui, MD, PhD; and cardiologist Salim Hayek, MD.
Join this virtual event at:
https://umich-health.zoom.us/webinar/register/7515947331247/WN_45JRnLCcQgeLWMBMILSFvQ

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Conference / Symposium Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:50:35 -0400 2020-07-14T09:00:00-04:00 2020-07-14T10:00:00-04:00 NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Conference / Symposium Complications of COVID -19 Mini Symposium
NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Mini Symposium: Complications of COVID -19 (July 14, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75202 75202-19330334@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, July 14, 2020 9:00am
Location:
Organized By: NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies

Join Eva L. Feldman, MD, PhD, Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies, who will moderate a Michigan Medicine all-star mini symposium on Zoom to discuss the systemic complications of COVID-19 in the kidneys, cardiovascular system, metabolism and nervous system. The 30-minute webinar will feature nephrologist Matthias Kretzler, MD; endocrinologist Rodica Pop-Busui, MD, PhD; and cardiologist Salim Hayek, MD.
Join this virtual event at:
https://umich-health.zoom.us/webinar/register/7515947331247/WN_45JRnLCcQgeLWMBMILSFvQ

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Conference / Symposium Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:50:35 -0400 2020-07-14T09:00:00-04:00 2020-07-14T10:00:00-04:00 NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Conference / Symposium Complications of COVID -19 Mini Symposium
BioArtography Virtual Art Fair Sale through July 21! (July 16, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75240 75240-19342129@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, July 16, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: BioArtography

BioArtography is having a Virtual Art Fair through July 21! An exciting collection of new images for 2020 will be launched & returning favorites are still available!

Specials will be offered on our website bioartography.com including 15% off and free U.S. shipping on note cards, prints, framed art, gallery wrap canvas and frameless glass!

Follow @bioartography on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the details!

Proceeds from the sale of this work help support the training of our next generation of researchers!

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Exhibition Mon, 20 Jul 2020 12:13:02 -0400 2020-07-16T00:00:00-04:00 2020-07-16T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location BioArtography Exhibition BioArtography 2020 Collection
BioArtography Virtual Art Fair Sale through July 21! (July 17, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75240 75240-19342130@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, July 17, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: BioArtography

BioArtography is having a Virtual Art Fair through July 21! An exciting collection of new images for 2020 will be launched & returning favorites are still available!

Specials will be offered on our website bioartography.com including 15% off and free U.S. shipping on note cards, prints, framed art, gallery wrap canvas and frameless glass!

Follow @bioartography on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the details!

Proceeds from the sale of this work help support the training of our next generation of researchers!

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Exhibition Mon, 20 Jul 2020 12:13:02 -0400 2020-07-17T00:00:00-04:00 2020-07-17T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location BioArtography Exhibition BioArtography 2020 Collection
BioArtography Virtual Art Fair Sale through July 21! (July 18, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75240 75240-19342131@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, July 18, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: BioArtography

BioArtography is having a Virtual Art Fair through July 21! An exciting collection of new images for 2020 will be launched & returning favorites are still available!

Specials will be offered on our website bioartography.com including 15% off and free U.S. shipping on note cards, prints, framed art, gallery wrap canvas and frameless glass!

Follow @bioartography on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the details!

Proceeds from the sale of this work help support the training of our next generation of researchers!

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Exhibition Mon, 20 Jul 2020 12:13:02 -0400 2020-07-18T00:00:00-04:00 2020-07-18T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location BioArtography Exhibition BioArtography 2020 Collection
BioArtography Virtual Art Fair Sale through July 21! (July 19, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75240 75240-19342132@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, July 19, 2020 12:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: BioArtography

BioArtography is having a Virtual Art Fair through July 21! An exciting collection of new images for 2020 will be launched & returning favorites are still available!

Specials will be offered on our website bioartography.com including 15% off and free U.S. shipping on note cards, prints, framed art, gallery wrap canvas and frameless glass!

Follow @bioartography on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the details!

Proceeds from the sale of this work help support the training of our next generation of researchers!

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Exhibition Mon, 20 Jul 2020 12:13:02 -0400 2020-07-19T00:00:00-04:00 2020-07-19T23:59:00-04:00 Off Campus Location BioArtography Exhibition BioArtography 2020 Collection
BioArtography Virtual Art Fair Sale through July 21! (July 20, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75240 75240-19379434@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, July 20, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: BioArtography

BioArtography is having a Virtual Art Fair through July 21! An exciting collection of new images for 2020 will be launched & returning favorites are still available!

Specials will be offered on our website bioartography.com including 15% off and free U.S. shipping on note cards, prints, framed art, gallery wrap canvas and frameless glass!

Follow @bioartography on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the details!

Proceeds from the sale of this work help support the training of our next generation of researchers!

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Exhibition Mon, 20 Jul 2020 12:13:02 -0400 2020-07-20T00:00:00-04:00 2020-07-20T23:59:00-04:00 BioArtography Exhibition BioArtography 2020 Collection
BioArtography Virtual Art Fair Sale through July 21! (July 21, 2020 12:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75240 75240-19379435@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, July 21, 2020 12:00am
Location:
Organized By: BioArtography

BioArtography is having a Virtual Art Fair through July 21! An exciting collection of new images for 2020 will be launched & returning favorites are still available!

Specials will be offered on our website bioartography.com including 15% off and free U.S. shipping on note cards, prints, framed art, gallery wrap canvas and frameless glass!

Follow @bioartography on Twitter , Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the details!

Proceeds from the sale of this work help support the training of our next generation of researchers!

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Exhibition Mon, 20 Jul 2020 12:13:02 -0400 2020-07-21T00:00:00-04:00 2020-07-21T23:59:00-04:00 BioArtography Exhibition BioArtography 2020 Collection
PhD Defense: Charles Lu (July 23, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75199 75199-19324453@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, July 23, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

Zoom: https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/95667535536

Therapeutic neuromodulation has an established history for clinical indications, such as deep brain stimulation for movement disorders and spinal cord stimulation for pain, despite an incomplete understanding of its mechanism of action. Novel neuroprosthetics have the potential to enable wholly new therapies, including sensory restoration and treatment of affective disorders. In order to fully realize the potential of these interventions, precise parameterization of stimulation, informed by better understanding of underlying processes, is required. This dissertation explores the temporal and spatial determinants of outcomes for stimulation within the context of clinical and experimental sensorimotor neuromodulation.

The first study of the dissertation defines a new functional target for subthalamic deep brain stimulation for Parkinson disease treatment. While optimal sites of stimulation are often analyzed as discrete points in space, therapeutic tissue activation is known to activate entire volumes of surrounding tissue. To identify markers of these volumes, we used machine learning tools to identify associations between features of wideband neural recordings and regions of clinically validated stimulation regions derived from patient-specific tissue activation models. The study identified several electrophysiological markers of therapeutic activation regions, providing a tool for efficient optimization of stimulation programming.

Despite the importance of spatially precise stimulation, conventional stereotactic methods are limited by intrinsic sources of error. The second study assessed a novel form of lead localization utilizing local impedance at deep brain sites. We demonstrated that in vivo impedance measurements generally match patterns observed in electrostatic simulations and showed that these values can be efficiently estimated using diffusion tensor data. Impedances measured using a clinical macroelectrode provided spatial information at the resolution of millimeters and could be used to roughly localize deep brain trajectories, presenting a prototype method to complement existing targeting technologies.

The final study evaluated a novel form of deep brain stimulation for modulation of pain. Previous rodent studies show that stimulation of zona incerta can provide analgesic effect, and clinical evidence suggests that stimulation of a nearby nucleus, nominally used to treat motor manifestations of Parkinson disease, often also results in improvement of pain symptoms. We directly tested the analgesic effect of zona incerta stimulation in humans and demonstrated that stimulation at the physiological spiking frequency of zona incerta selectively reduces perceived heat pain.

Chair: Dr. Parag G. Patil

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:30:00 -0400 2020-07-23T14:00:00-04:00 2020-07-23T15:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Benjamin Juliar (July 28, 2020 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75205 75205-19330337@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via BlueJeans. The link will be placed below.

BlueJeans Link: https://bluejeans.com/358462383

Engineering large viable tissues requires techniques for encouraging rapid capillary bed formation to prevent necrosis. A convenient means of creating this micro-vascular network is through spontaneous neovascularization, which occurs when endothelial cells (ECs) and supportive stromal cells are co-encapsulated within a variety of hydrogel-based extracellular matrices (ECM) and self-assemble into an interconnected network of endothelial tubules. Although this is a robust phenomenon, the environmental and cell-specific determinants that affect the rate and quality of micro-vascular network formation still require additional characterization to improve clinical translatability. This thesis investigates how the proteolytic susceptibility of engineered matrices effects neovascular self-assembly in poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels and provides characterization of changes to matrix mechanics that accompany neovascular morphogenesis in fibrin and PEG hydrogels.

Proteolytic ECM remodeling is essential for the process of capillary morphogenesis. Pharmacological inhibitor studies suggested a role for both matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)- and plasmin-mediated mechanisms of ECM remodeling in an EC-fibroblast co-culture model of vasculogenesis in fibrin. To further investigate the potential contribution of plasmin mediated matrix degradation in facilitating capillary morphogenesis we employed PEG hydrogels engineered with proteolytic specificity to either MMPs, plasmin, or both. Although fibroblasts spread in plasmin-selective hydrogels, we only observed robust capillary morphogenesis in MMP-sensitive matrices, with no added benefit in dual susceptible hydrogels. Enhanced capillary morphogenesis was observed, however, in PEG hydrogels engineered with increased susceptibility to MMPs without altering proteolytic selectivity or hydrogel mechanical properties. These findings highlight the critical importance of MMP-mediated ECM degradation during vasculogenesis and justify the preferential selection of MMP-degradable peptide crosslinkers in the design of synthetic hydrogels used to promote vascularization.

Matrix stiffness is a well-established cue in cellular morphogenesis, however, the converse effect of cellular remodeling on environmental mechanics is comparatively under characterized. In fibrin hydrogels, we applied traditional bulk rheology and laser tweezers-based active microrheology to demonstrate that both ECs and fibroblasts progressively stiffen the ECM across length scales, with the changes in bulk properties dominated by fibroblasts. Despite a lack of fibrillar architecture, a similar stiffening effect was observed in MMP-degradable PEG hydrogels. This stiffening tightly correlated with degree of vessel formation and critically depended on active cellular contractility. To a lesser degree, deposition of ECM proteins also appeared to contribute to progressive hydrogel stiffening. Blocking cell-mediated hydrogel degradation abolished stiffening, demonstrating that matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-mediated remodeling is required for stiffening to occur. EC co-culture with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in PEG resulted in reduced vessel formation compared to fibroblast co-cultures and no change in hydrogel mechanics over time. The correlation between matrix stiffening and enhanced vessel formation, and dependence on cellular contractility, suggests differences in vessel formation between fibroblasts and MSCs may be partially mediated by differences in cellular contractility. Collectively, these findings provide a deeper understanding of mechanobiological effects during capillary morphogenesis and highlight the dynamic reciprocity between cells and their mechanical environment.

Chair: Dr. Andrew Putnam

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:02:36 -0400 2020-07-28T13:00:00-04:00 2020-07-28T14:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
LHS Collaboratory Webinar - Global LHS for COVID-19 (July 29, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75087 75087-19214577@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

Please join us for this special webinar session on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 from 10:00 am - 11:30 pm EDT.  Registration: https://umich-health.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wVDWLBm5QYK79DVK8Tb7_w

This 90-minute webinar is designed to share the work of an international collaboration to develop the foundation for a global Learning Health System addressing COVID-19 and future public health crises. Presenters will share lessons learned from Italy, Spain and the United States, including describing a proposed international comprehensive systemic framework for collection, management, and
analysis of high-quality data to inform decisions in managing the clinical response and social measures to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, presenters will discuss how the results of a pilot project currently under development may illuminate a collaborative path forward for local, regional, and national public health stakeholders worldwide.

Perspectives from Italy:  Paolo Stocco

Perspectives from Spain: Borja Sanchez Garcia, Pablo Rivero, Francisco Ros, Esther Gil Zorzo 

Perspectives from the USA: Charles P. Friedman, Rebecca Kush, Joshua C. Rubin, Douglas Van Houweling

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 29 Jun 2020 15:22:14 -0400 2020-07-29T10:00:00-04:00 2020-07-29T11:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion LHS Collaboratory Logo-globe
PhD Defense: Katy Norman (July 30, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75267 75267-19395124@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, July 30, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via BlueJeans. The link will be posted below.

BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/516255948

Mucosal surfaces in the lung interface with the outside environment for breathing purposes, but also provide the first line of defense against invading pathogens. The intricate balance of effective immune protection at the pulmonary epithelium without problematic inflammation is not well understood, but is an important consideration in complex lung diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Although IPF is a fibrotic interstitial lung disease of unknown origin and COPD is an obstructive lung disease, they do share some similarities. Both are heterogeneous and progressive in nature, have no cure and few treatment options, advance through unknown mechanisms, and involve an aberrant immune response. As research has focused into the role the immune system plays in IPF and COPD, it has become clear that disease progression is caused by a complex dysregulation of immune factors and cells across the tissue compartments of the lungs and blood.

Data-driven modeling approaches offer the opportunity to infer protein interaction networks, which are able to identify diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and also serve as the basis for new insight into systems-level mechanisms that define a disease state. Additionally, these approaches are able to integrate data from across multiple tissue compartments, allowing for a more holistic picture of a disease to be formed. Here, we have applied data-driven modeling approaches including partial least squares discriminant analysis, principal component analysis, decision tree analysis, and hierarchical clustering to high-throughput cell and cytokine measurements from human blood and lung samples to gain systems-level insight into IPF and COPD.

Overall we found that these approaches were useful for identifying signatures of proteins that differentiated disease state and progression better than current classifiers. We also found that integrating protein and cell measurements across tissue compartments generally improved classification and was useful for generating new mechanistic insight into progression and exacerbation events. In evaluating IPF progression, we showed that the blood proteome of progressors, but not of non-progressors, changes over time, and that our data-driven modeling techniques were able to capture these changes. Curiously, our models showed that complement system components may be associated with both COPD and IPF disease progression. Lastly, though our analysis suggested that circulating blood cytokines were not useful for differentiating disease state or progression, preliminary work suggested that cell-cell communication networks arising from stimulated peripheral blood proteins may be more useful for classification and gaining mechanistic insight from minimally invasive blood samples. Overall, we believe that this approach will be useful for studying the mucosal immune response present in other diseases that are also progressive or heterogeneous in nature.

Chair: Dr. Kelly Arnold

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 22 Jul 2020 16:19:44 -0400 2020-07-30T10:00:00-04:00 2020-07-30T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Josiah Simeth (August 5, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75278 75278-19402991@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

Notice: This event will be held via BlueJeans. The link will be placed below.

BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/715371816

Measures of regional and global liver function are critical in guiding treatments for intrahepatic cancers, and liver function is a dominant factor in the survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Global and regional liver function assessments are important for defining the magnitude and spatial distribution of radiation dose to preserve functional liver parenchyma and reduce incidence of hepatotoxicity from radiation therapy (RT) for intrahepatic cancer treatment. This individualized liver function-guided RT strategy is critical for patients with heterogeneous and poor liver function, often observed in cirrhotic patients treated for HCC. Dynamic gadoxetic-acid enhanced (DGAE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows investigation of liver function through observation of the uptake of contrast agent into the hepatocytes.

This work seeks to determine if gadoxetic uptake rate can be used as a reliable measure of liver function, and to develop robust methods for uptake estimation with an interest in the therapeutic application of this knowledge in the case of intrahepatic cancers. Since voxel-by voxel fitting of the preexisting nonlinear dual-input two-compartment model is highly susceptible to over fitting, and highly dependent on data that is both temporally very well characterized and low in noise, this work proposes and validates a new model for quantifying the voxel-wise uptake rate of gadoxetic acid as a measure of regional liver function. This linearized single-input two-compartment (LSITC) model is a linearization of the pre-existing dual-input model but is designed to perform uptake quantification in a more robust, computationally simpler, and much faster manner. The method is validated against the preexisting dual-input model for both real and simulated data. Simulations are used to investigate the effects of noise as well as issues related to the sampling of the arterial peak in the characteristic input functions of DGAE MRI.

Further validation explores the relationship between gadoxetic acid uptake rate and two well established global measures of liver function, namely: Indocyanine Green retention (ICGR) and Albumin-Bilirubin (ALBI) score. This work also establishes the relationships between these scores and imaging derived measures of whole liver function using uptake rate. Additionally, the same comparisons are performed for portal venous perfusion, a pharmacokinetic parameter that has been observed to correlate with function, and has been used as a guide for individualized liver function-guided RT. For the patients assessed, gadoxetic acid uptake rate performs significantly better as a predictor of whole liver function than portal venous perfusion.
This work also investigates the possible gains that could be introduced through use of gadoxetic uptake rate maps in the creation of function-guided RT plans. To this end, plans were created using both perfusion and uptake, and both were compared to plans that did not use functional guidance. While the plans were generally broadly similar, significant differences were observed in patients with severely compromised uptake that did not correspond with compromised perfusion.

This dissertation also deals with the problem of quantifying uptake rate in suboptimal very temporally sparse or short DGAE MRI acquisitions. In addition to testing the limits of the LSITC model for these limited datasets (both realistic and extreme), a neural network-based approach to quantification of uptake rate is developed, allowing for increased robustness over current models.

Chair: Dr. Yue Cao

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 23 Jul 2020 17:51:41 -0400 2020-08-05T14:00:00-04:00 2020-08-05T15:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Defense: Building the Biofilm Matrix: Gene Regulation and Cell Organization (August 6, 2020 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75482 75482-19505243@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, August 6, 2020 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Mentor: Matt Chapman

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 05 Aug 2020 14:08:34 -0400 2020-08-06T13:00:00-04:00 2020-08-06T15:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Workshop / Seminar Yellow initials MCDB and cartoon of a microscope on a blue background
NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Mini Symposium: Complications of COVID -19 (August 6, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75202 75202-19330332@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, August 6, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies

Join Eva L. Feldman, MD, PhD, Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies, who will moderate a Michigan Medicine all-star mini symposium on Zoom to discuss the systemic complications of COVID-19 in the kidneys, cardiovascular system, metabolism and nervous system. The 30-minute webinar will feature nephrologist Matthias Kretzler, MD; endocrinologist Rodica Pop-Busui, MD, PhD; and cardiologist Salim Hayek, MD.
Join this virtual event at:
https://umich-health.zoom.us/webinar/register/7515947331247/WN_45JRnLCcQgeLWMBMILSFvQ

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Conference / Symposium Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:50:35 -0400 2020-08-06T14:00:00-04:00 2020-08-06T14:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Conference / Symposium Complications of COVID -19 Mini Symposium
PhD Defense: Ziwen Zhu (August 26, 2020 9:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75720 75720-19576537@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, August 26, 2020 9:30am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

Zoom: umich.zoom.us/j/92149340369

Branched Chain amino acids (BCAAs) play an essential role in cell metabolism supplying both carbon and nitrogen in pancreatic cancers, and their increased levels have been associated with increased risk of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs). It remains unclear how stromal cells regulate BCAA metabolism in PDAC cells and how mutualistic determinants control BCAA metabolism in the tumor milieu. In chapter 1, we present an overview of PDAC biology, tumor microenvironment (TME), altered cancer metabolism and BCAA metabolism. In chapter 2, we uncover differential gene expression of enzymes involved in BCAA metabolism accompanied by distinct catabolic, oxidative, and protein turnover fluxes between cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and cancer cells with a marked branched-chain keto acids (BCKA)-addiction in PDAC cells. In chapter 3, we showed that cancer-induced stromal reprogramming fuels this BCKA-addiction. We then show the functions of BCAT2 and DBT in the PDAC cells in chapters 3 and 4. We identify BCAT1 as the BCKA regulator in CAFs in chapter 5. In chapter 6, we dictated the internalization of the extracellular matrix from the tumor microenvironment to supply amino acid precursors for BCKA secretion by CAFs. We also showed that the TGF-β/SMAD5 axis directly targets BCAT1 in CAFs in chapter 7. In chapter 8, we validate the in vitro results in human patient-derived circulating tumor cells (CTCs) model. Furthermore, the same results were also validated in PDAC tissue slices, which recapitulate tumor heterogeneity and mimic the in vivo microenvironment in chapter 9. We conclude this manuscript with chapter 10 in which we propose future studies and present directions towards pancreatic cancer research. In summary, our findings reveal therapeutically actionable targets in stromal and cancer cells to regulate the symbiotic BCAA coupling among the cellular constituents of the PDAC microenvironment.

Chair: Dr. Deepak Nagrath

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 14 Aug 2020 12:02:15 -0400 2020-08-26T09:30:00-04:00 2020-08-26T10:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
NSF GRF Webinar (September 3, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/76148 76148-19669618@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 3, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships (ONSF)

REGISTER HERE: https://myumi.ch/wlKOk

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships provides $138,00 for research-based masters and PhD students in STEM and Social Science fields (three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees paid to the graduate institution).

This webinar is for undergraduate seniors, 1st and 2nd year graduate students in NSF-approved fields (see the NSF-GRFP webpage for a list of fields). Rising juniors who may apply in the future are also welcome. Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents. Applicants from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in their fields are especially encouraged to apply. For more information about eligibility, please see this NSF video: https://vimeo.com/361402315

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 26 Aug 2020 12:25:59 -0400 2020-09-03T16:00:00-04:00 2020-09-03T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships (ONSF) Livestream / Virtual NSF Webinar
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar Series (September 9, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/76946 76946-19780535@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: Birth defects that interfere with craniofacial development can result in cognitive, neurosensory, and neuroendocrine defects that create life-long burdens for care. The forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, five facial prominences, and pituitary gland develop between the first and second month of gestation in humans. Genetic defects that disrupt these processes cause a spectrum of disorders that range from holoprosencephaly (HPE) and septo-optic dysplasia (SOD) to pituitary hormone deficiencies. We screened a large cohort of Argentinean patients with congenital hypopituitarism and related disorders for mutations in known genes and identified novel pathogenic variants and examples of digenic disease. However, the majority of patients did not receive a molecular diagnosis, indicating the high degree of genetic complexity underlying these disorders and the need for additional gene discovery. The majority of known hypopituitarism genes were discovered through basic research in pituitary cell lines and mutant mice. To identify novel regulatory genes for pituitary organogenesis we analyzed differential binding of a key pituitary-specific transcription factor, POU1F1, in cell lines that represent pituitary progenitors and differentiated cells. We discovered that POU1F1 binding is associated with bZIP transcription factors in progenitors and with bHLH factors in differentiated cells. We also applied single cell RNA sequencing technology to analyze gene expression during pituitary organogenesis and discovered novel transcription factors that are candidates for driving cell specification as well as unique, rare cell types that are likely differentiation intermediates. Bioinformatic analyses have played key roles in advancing our knowledge of neuroendocrine birth defects and normal pituitary organogenesis.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 09 Sep 2020 08:26:42 -0400 2020-09-09T16:00:00-04:00 2020-09-09T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion Sally Camper, Ph.D., Margery Shaw Distinguished University Professor of Human Genetics, Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan
RNA Collaborative Seminar featuring: Sue Hammoud, Human Genetics & Justin Colacino, Environmental Health Sciences (September 9, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75865 75865-19615931@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GjVNcoWtRG6OkzxSDmfb8A

"Same Same Different: Single cell RNAseq identifies conserved and divergent features of mammalian spermatogenesis"
Sue Hammoud, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Human Genetics
Website: https://hammoud.lab.medicine.umich.edu/

~and~

"Single cell transcriptomic profiling to understand breast stem cell heterogeneity in development and cancer disparities"
Justin Colacino. Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
Website: https://www.colacinolab.com/

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 26 Aug 2020 11:44:32 -0400 2020-09-09T16:00:00-04:00 2020-09-09T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion RNA Collaborative
Identifying Emergency Funds and How to Advocate for Making Room in Your Financial Aid Package (September 11, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75507 75507-19513173@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 11, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: CEW+

Advance registration is required; look for the Zoom link at the bottom of your confirmation email after registering.

This session will provide information about how you can seek emergency funds should you experience an emergency situation or one-time, unusual, unforeseen expense while in school. Information about the types of situations that qualify for emergency funds and where to seek funding will be covered during this presentation.

RSVP HERE: http://www.cew.umich.edu/events/identifying-emergency-funds-and-how-to-advocate-for-making-room-in-your-financial-aid-package

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Livestream / Virtual Tue, 18 Aug 2020 14:02:34 -0400 2020-09-11T14:00:00-04:00 2020-09-11T15:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location CEW+ Livestream / Virtual A jar of spilled change
LHS Collaboratory Seminar Series Virtual Kick-Off: Academic Medical Centers as Learning Health Systems (September 17, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75856 75856-19615923@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 17, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

Learning Health Systems (LHS) methods are now being implemented in interesting and varying ways by academic health centers and their clinical and translational science institutes across the country.
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the following are key attributes of Learning Health
Systems:

• Having leaders who are committed to a culture of continuous learning and improvement
• Systematically gathering and applying evidence in real-time to guide care
• Employing IT methods to share new evidence with clinicians to improve decision-making
• Promoting the inclusion of patients as vital members of the learning team
• Capturing and analyzing data and care experiences to improve care
• Continually assessing outcomes, refining processes and training to create a feedback cycle for learning and improvement

The LHS Collaboratory's fall seminar series virtual kick-off event will showcase the LHS experiences of three research-intensive academic centers that have been promoting LHS methods. We will be joined by distinguished senior colleagues from Duke,Vanderbilt, and Washington University, who will describe and discuss their institutions' work in this area. They will discuss strategies employed, investments made, challenges encountered, and successes achieved.

Panelists:
Kevin B. Johnson, MD, MS, FAAP, FACMI, Vanderbilt University
Christopher J. Lindsell, PhD, Vanderbilt University
Philip Payne, PhD, FACMI, Washington University
Michael Pencina, PhD, Duke University
Eric G. Poon, MD, MPH, Duke University

Discussant:
Carol R. Bradford, MD, MS, Executive Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, University of Michigan Medical School, Chief Academic Officer, Michigan Medicine, Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 20 Aug 2020 09:45:31 -0400 2020-09-17T09:00:00-04:00 2020-09-17T11:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion LHS Collaboratory Logo-blocks
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Virtual Seminar featuring Gioele La Manno, Ph.D. (EPFL Life Sciences Early Independent Research Scholar (ELISIR) (September 18, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77057 77057-19836073@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 18, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

I will present our comprehensive single-cell transcriptome atlas of mouse brain development spanning from gastrulation to birth. In this atlasing effort, we identified almost a thousand distinct cellular states, including the initial emergence of the neuroepithelium, different glioblasts, and a rich set of region-specific secondary organizers that we localize spatially. In this context, I will provide an example of how the spatially-resolved transcriptomic data can be particularly useful to interpret the complexity of such complex atlases.

Continuing in this direction, I will show the approach that we recently proposed as a general way to spatially resolve different types of next-generation sequencing data. We designed an imaging-free framework to localize high throughput readouts within a tissue by combining compressive sampling and image reconstruction. Our first implementation of this framework transformed a low-input RNA sequencing protocol into an imaging-free spatial transcriptomics technique (STRP-seq).

Finally, I will showcase the technique with the profiling of the brain of the Australian bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps. With this analysis, we revealed the molecular anatomy of the telencephalon of this lizard and provided evidence for a marked regionalization of the reptilian pallium and subpallium.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 16 Sep 2020 11:27:53 -0400 2020-09-18T12:00:00-04:00 2020-09-18T13:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion Gioele La Manno, Ph.D. (EPFL Life Sciences Early Independent Research Scholar (ELISIR) École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne ‐ EPFL Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne)
RNA Seminar featuring: Andrey Krasilnikov, Penn State (September 21, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75802 75802-19608017@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 21, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_obckKUCLT4mXI7kPskzc-Q

KEYWORDS: Ribozymes, RNase P, RNase MRP, ribonucleoprotein complexes, RNA-driven protein remodelling

ABSTRACT: Ribonuclease (RNase) P is a ribozyme-based catalytic ribonucleoprotein complex involved primarily in the maturation of tRNA in all three domains of life. In the course of evolution, the size and complexity of RNase P grew as the catalytic RNA moiety recruited additional protein components. In eukaryotes, the RNase P lineage has split, giving rise to a related RNP enzyme called RNase MRP, which shares multiple structural features (including most of the protein components) with the eukaryotic RNase P, but has a distinct and non-overlapping specificity. We report the recently solved cryo-EM structure of the 450 kDa yeast RNase MRP holoenzyme and compare it with the structure of its progenitor RNP, RNase P. We show that, surprisingly, several of the proteins shared by RNase MRP and RNase P undergo RNA-driven structural remodeling, allowing the same proteins to function in distinct structural contexts. This remodeling, combined with altered peripheral RNA elements, results in the functional diversification of the two closely related RNPs, in spite of the structural conservation of the nearly identical catalytic cores, demonstrating structural underpinnings of the acquisition of new functions by catalytic RNPs.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 17 Sep 2020 07:12:03 -0400 2020-09-21T16:00:00-04:00 2020-09-21T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion Andrey Krasilnikov, Penn State
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Virtual Seminar (September 23, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77143 77143-19798542@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Talk title: Decision Support System Applications in Dentistry

Dr. Lucia Cevidanes is the Thomas and Doris Graber Professor of Dentistry and Associate Professor at the Department of Orthodontics at the University of Michigan, and a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics. She is a practicing clinician who has published over 150 manuscripts on 3D imaging for which she has received research grants from the American Association of Orthodontics Foundation and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Her work has been recognized by the American Association of Orthodontists Thomas M. Graber Award, the B F Dewel Award, Milo Hellman Award, and the Wuehrmann award from the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology. Her interests include Artificial Intelligence and 3D Imaging to solve difficult clinical problems in dentistry, studying current and new treatment approaches and technical procedures, and understanding treatment outcomes for craniofacial anomalies and dentofacial deformities.

Zoom Link: https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 11 Sep 2020 15:27:53 -0400 2020-09-23T16:00:00-04:00 2020-09-23T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion Dr. Lucia Cevidanes is the Thomas and Doris Graber Professor of Dentistry and Associate Professor at the Department of Orthodontics at the University of Michigan
RNA Seminar featuring: Hiroaki Suga, University of Tokyo (September 28, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75805 75805-19608020@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 28, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PBHPayAvR8WobaSf3z0AUA

ABSTRACT: Macrocyclic peptides possess a number of pharmacological characteristics distinct from other well-established therapeutic molecular classes, resulting in a versatile drug modality with a unique profile of advantages. Macrocyclic peptides are accessible by not only chemical synthesis but also ribosomal synthesis. Particularly, recent inventions of the genetic code reprogramming integrated with an in vitro display format, referred to as RaPID (Random non-standard Peptides Integrated Discovery) system, have enabled us to screen mass libraries (>1 trillion members) of non-standard peptides containing multiple non-proteinogenic amino acids, giving unique properties of peptides distinct from conventional peptides, e.g. greater proteolytic stability, higher affinity (low nM to sub nM dissociation constants similar to antibodies), and superior pharmacokinetics. The field is rapidly growing evidenced by increasing interests from industrial sectors, including small start-ups as well as mega-pharmas, toward drug development efforts on macrocyclic peptides, which has led to several de novo discovered peptides entering clinical trials. This lecture discusses the aforementioned screening technology involving the method of “genetic code reprogramming” powered by flexizymes, and several showcases of therapeutic potentials of macrocyclic peptides.

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Lecture / Discussion Sun, 20 Sep 2020 13:22:07 -0400 2020-09-28T09:00:00-04:00 2020-09-28T10:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion Hiroaki Suga, University of Tokyo
Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium 2020 (September 29, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/72207 72207-19655364@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

The 2020 Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium will explore innovative and creative research already taking place using unique model systems, and consider all we have yet to learn from the innumerable unexplored model systems — many of which are disappearing at alarming rates as a result of global climate change.

Schedule: Tuesday, September 29

2:00 p.m. | Welcome

Talk Session 1: Human Adaptation and Evolution
2:10 p.m. | Mary Sue and Kenneth Coleman Life Sciences Lecture — Genomic evolution and adaptation in Africa: Implications for health and disease
Sarah A. Tishkoff, Ph.D.
David and Lyn Silfen University Professor, Departments of Genetics and Biology; Director, Center for Global Genomics & Health Equity, Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Talk Session 2: Social Biomimicry
3:10 p.m. | Towards living robots: Using biology to make better machines (full lecture)
Barry A. Trimmer, Ph.D.
Henry Bromfield Pearson Professor of Natural Sciences; Director, Neuromechanics and Biomimetic Devices Laboratory, Tufts University

4:05 p.m. | How the physics of slithering can teach multilegged robots to walk (short talk)
Shai Revzen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan

4:25 p.m. | What wasps can teach us about the evolution of animal minds (full lecture)
Elizabeth Tibbetts, Ph.D.
Professor, Associate Chair for Research Facilities, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan

5:20 p.m. | Day 1 Closing Remarks


Schedule: Wednesday, September 30

9:00 a.m. | Welcome

Talk Session 3: Biological Control of Disease Vectors
9:05 a.m. | Breaking up Anopheles-Plasmodium interactions for malaria control (full lecture)
Flaminia Catteruccia, Ph.D.
Professor, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Harvard University

10:00 a.m. | Cryopreservation of multicellular animals: Lessons from extreme insects (short talk)
Nicholas Teets, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky

10:20 a.m. | Break

10:35 a.m. | Transgenic fungi for mosquito control (full lecture)
Raymond St. Leger, Ph.D.
Professor, Entomology, University of Maryland

11:30 a.m. | Recombination versus mutation as the fuel for rapid evolution across the fungal tree of life (short talk)
Timothy James, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Lewis E. Wehmeyer and Elaine Prince Wehmeyer Professor in the Taxonomy of Fungi, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan

11:50 a.m. | Building a moving wall: Maintaining cell wall polarity during tip growth (short talk)
Cora MacAlister, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan

12:10 p.m. | Closing remarks

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:23:00 -0400 2020-09-29T14:00:00-04:00 2020-09-29T17:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Conference / Symposium Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium: Biodiversity in Biological Research
Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium 2020 (September 30, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/72207 72207-17957294@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

The 2020 Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium will explore innovative and creative research already taking place using unique model systems, and consider all we have yet to learn from the innumerable unexplored model systems — many of which are disappearing at alarming rates as a result of global climate change.

Schedule: Tuesday, September 29

2:00 p.m. | Welcome

Talk Session 1: Human Adaptation and Evolution
2:10 p.m. | Mary Sue and Kenneth Coleman Life Sciences Lecture — Genomic evolution and adaptation in Africa: Implications for health and disease
Sarah A. Tishkoff, Ph.D.
David and Lyn Silfen University Professor, Departments of Genetics and Biology; Director, Center for Global Genomics & Health Equity, Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Talk Session 2: Social Biomimicry
3:10 p.m. | Towards living robots: Using biology to make better machines (full lecture)
Barry A. Trimmer, Ph.D.
Henry Bromfield Pearson Professor of Natural Sciences; Director, Neuromechanics and Biomimetic Devices Laboratory, Tufts University

4:05 p.m. | How the physics of slithering can teach multilegged robots to walk (short talk)
Shai Revzen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan

4:25 p.m. | What wasps can teach us about the evolution of animal minds (full lecture)
Elizabeth Tibbetts, Ph.D.
Professor, Associate Chair for Research Facilities, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan

5:20 p.m. | Day 1 Closing Remarks


Schedule: Wednesday, September 30

9:00 a.m. | Welcome

Talk Session 3: Biological Control of Disease Vectors
9:05 a.m. | Breaking up Anopheles-Plasmodium interactions for malaria control (full lecture)
Flaminia Catteruccia, Ph.D.
Professor, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Harvard University

10:00 a.m. | Cryopreservation of multicellular animals: Lessons from extreme insects (short talk)
Nicholas Teets, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky

10:20 a.m. | Break

10:35 a.m. | Transgenic fungi for mosquito control (full lecture)
Raymond St. Leger, Ph.D.
Professor, Entomology, University of Maryland

11:30 a.m. | Recombination versus mutation as the fuel for rapid evolution across the fungal tree of life (short talk)
Timothy James, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Lewis E. Wehmeyer and Elaine Prince Wehmeyer Professor in the Taxonomy of Fungi, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan

11:50 a.m. | Building a moving wall: Maintaining cell wall polarity during tip growth (short talk)
Cora MacAlister, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan

12:10 p.m. | Closing remarks

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:23:00 -0400 2020-09-30T09:00:00-04:00 2020-09-30T12:15:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Conference / Symposium Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium: Biodiversity in Biological Research
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Virtual Seminar - Xiaotian Zhang, Ph.D. (September 30, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77549 77549-19883820@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: The human genome is organized into small compartments to allow for the proper gene expression regulation in the physiological process. With the advance of next-generation sequencing and imaging technologies, we can now investigate how the genome is folded into 3D space and how the 3D genomic organization regulates gene expression in development and disease. Currently, most of the studies are focusing on CTCF and cohesion complex which partner together to facilitate the formation of topological associated domains (TAD). The presenter will mainly discuss his recently published work on the DNA methylation -3D genomics cross-talk. Unpublished work on the 3D genomics in AML will be discussed as well.

Short bio: Xiaotian Zhang obtained his Ph.D. at Baylor College of Medicine with Dr. Margaret Goodell on the role of DNA methylation synergy in leukemia development. He was previously the Van Andel special postdoc fellow in Gerd Pfeifer lab working on the 3D genomics in normal hematopoietic stem cell and leukemia. He is now a Research track faculty (Research Investigator) in Pathology Department under Tomek Cierpicki working on the HOXA regulation in leukemia development. Xiaotian's research focuses on the epigenetic regulation of key pathogenic genes in leukemia, particularly on high order chromatin structure in disease. He published on Nature Genetics, Molecular Cell and Blood as the first author and corresponding authors.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:31:31 -0400 2020-09-30T16:00:00-04:00 2020-09-30T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Lecture / Discussion Xiaotian Zhang, Ph.D., Research Investigator in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan
RNA Seminar featuring: Chase Weidmann, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (October 5, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/76147 76147-19665691@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 5, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_y9HTFl5RSOSJTJ5qtlhVcw

Keywords: mRNA regulation, noncoding RNA, RNA Structure, RNP granules

Abstract:
Chase Weidmann, Ph.D. has contributed broadly to the field of RNA Biology during his career, studying mechanisms of codon bias during translation, post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs by RNA-binding proteins, the folding of long non-coding RNAs, and how RNA-protein interaction networks contribute to the function and assembly of functional RNP particles. Chase developed a chemical probing strategy and next-gen sequencing technology, called RNP-MaP, that maps the location of and cooperation between multi-protein networks on RNAs in live cells. Going forward, Chase is interested in understanding how alterations in RNA-binding protein profiles, a cell’s “RBPome”, confer deleterious activities onto noncoding RNAs in human disease, especially in cancer. To further empower this work and his future research program, Chase is now generating and integrating protein mass spectrometry data into his RBPome projects.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 16 Sep 2020 09:01:52 -0400 2020-10-05T16:00:00-04:00 2020-10-05T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion photo
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (October 7, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78232 78232-19996937@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: The chromosomes of the human genome are organized in three-dimensions by compartmentalizing the cell nucleus and different genomic loci also interact with each other. However, the principles underlying such nuclear genome organization and its functional impact remain poorly understood. In this talk, I will introduce some of our recent work in developing machine learning methods by utilizing whole-genome mapping data to study the higher-order genome organization. Our methods reveal the spatial localization of chromosome regions and exploit chromatin interactome patterns within the cell nucleus in different cellular conditions, across mammalian species, and also in single-cell resolution. We hope that these algorithms will provide new insights into the principles of nuclear spatial organization.

Bio: Jian Ma is an Associate Professor in the Computational Biology Department within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He was previously on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His lab develops algorithms to study the structure and function of the human genome with a focus on nuclear organization, gene regulation, comparative genomics, and single cell biology. He received several awards, including an NSF CAREER award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the Contact PI of a UM1 Center project in the NIH 4D Nucleome Program (Phase 2; 2020-2025). https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jianma/

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Tue, 06 Oct 2020 12:47:39 -0400 2020-10-07T16:00:00-04:00 2020-10-07T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual
CGIS Virtual Study Abroad Fair (October 8, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77893 77893-19943564@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 8, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Global and Intercultural Study

Study abroad is not just for juniors. It's not just for language and international studies majors. It's not just for students from certain communities or socioeconomic backgrounds. No matter who you are, where you come from, or what you’re studying, a study abroad experience is available to you during your time at Michigan.

Whether you want to develop the skills you’ll need to compete in a global economy, cultivate your language competencies, or build meaningful connections with people from around the world, this is the best time in your life for a global experience.

Studying abroad often proves to be a pivotal experience, but deciding which program is the best fit can be daunting as you consider questions such as: How will this enhance my course of study? When should I go? For how long? Where? Can I afford it? How do I prepare? Will my credits transfer? The CGIS Study Abroad Virtual Fair is the best time to get all of your questions answered!

During the day of the virtual fair, you'll have instant access to academic advisors, education abroad advisors, Office of Financial Aid & LSA Scholarship Office representatives, and program representatives as well as scheduled events throughout the fair!

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Fair / Festival Tue, 29 Sep 2020 22:20:17 -0400 2020-10-08T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-08T16:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for Global and Intercultural Study Fair / Festival Image300
Science Success Series | Overcoming the Fear of Failure in Personal and Academic Pursuits (October 12, 2020 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/76330 76330-19687523@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 12, 2020 3:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Science Learning Center

In this workshop, we'll build on the lessons of growth mindset and put failure into practice, with activities that allow us to focus on the learning that goes along with mistakes. This way, we can create environments that allow for innovation, personal, and professional growth.

Register on Sessions: https://sessions.studentlife.umich.edu/track/event/session/29116

Email ScienceSuccessSeries@umich.edu with any questions.

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Workshop / Seminar Fri, 28 Aug 2020 17:08:58 -0400 2020-10-12T15:00:00-04:00 2020-10-12T16:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Science Learning Center Workshop / Seminar
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (October 14, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78234 78234-19996940@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 14, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: Gaussian processes provide flexible non-parametric models of data and we are using them to model temporal and spatial patterns in gene expression. Single-cell omics measurements are destructive and one cannot follow the high-dimensional dynamics of genes across time in one cell. Similarly, the spatial context of cells is often lost or only known with reduced resolution. Computational methods are widely used to infer pseudo-temporal orderings of cells or to infer spatial locations. We show how Gaussian processes (GPs) can be used to model temporal and spatial relationships between genes and cells in these datasets. As examples I will show how we use Bayesian GPLVMs with informative priors to infer pseudo-temporal orderings for single-cell time course data [1] and branching GPs to identify gene-specific bifurcation points across pseudotime [2]. Gene expression data are often summarized as counts and there may be many zero values in the data due to limited sequencing depth. We therefore recently extended these methods to use negative binomial or zero-inflated negative binomial likelihoods and we show that this can lead to much improved performance over standard Gaussian noise models when identifying spatially varying genes from spatial transcriptomics data [3].

[1] Ahmed, S., Rattray, M., & Boukouvalas, A. (2019). GrandPrix: scaling up the Bayesian GPLVM for single-cell data. Bioinformatics, 35(1), 47-54.

[2] Boukouvalas, A., Hensman, J., & Rattray, M. (2018). BGP: identifying gene-specific branching dynamics from single-cell data with a branching Gaussian process. Genome biology, 19(1), 65.

[3] BinTayyash, N., Georgaka, S., John, S. T., Ahmed, S., Boukouvalas, A., Hensman, J., & Rattray, M. (2020). Non-parametric modelling of temporal and spatial counts data from RNA-seq experiments. Bioarxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.29.227207

Short bio: Magnus Rattray is Professor of Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Manchester and Director of the Institute for Data Science & AI. He works on the development of methods for machine learning and Bayesian inference with applications to large-scale biological and medical datasets. He has a long-standing interest in longitudinal data analysis and a more recent interest in modelling single-cell, spatial omics and live cell imaging microscopy data. He is a Fellow of the ELLIS Health Programme and the Alan Turing Institute and his research is funded by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Tue, 06 Oct 2020 13:35:21 -0400 2020-10-14T16:00:00-04:00 2020-10-14T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual Magnus Rattray, PhD (Professor of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Manchester)
NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Mini Symposium Series: Climate Change, the Environment & Health (October 15, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/77387 77387-19846079@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 15, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies

It is impossible to ignore the evidence of the past decade - wildfires have made air on the west coast incredibly hazardous and children have been poisoned by drinking water at crucial ages of development. The environment we have created for ourselves is a serious threat to our health.

Eva Feldman, MD, PhD, Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies, will moderate the 30-minute mini symposium that discusses both global and local impacts that the environment has on our health. Along with Dr. Feldman, presentations will be made by Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability, who will address climate change and environmental justice; Stuart Batterman, PhD, a professor from the U-M School of Public Health, who will discuss how contaminants in the air affect your health; and Stephen Goutman, MD, MS, director of the Pranger ALS Clinic, who will talk about the association between environmental pollution and ALS.

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Conference / Symposium Thu, 17 Sep 2020 17:26:08 -0400 2020-10-15T14:00:00-04:00 2020-10-15T14:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies Conference / Symposium Climate Change, the Environment & Health Mini Symposium
RNA Seminar featuring: Gene Yeo, University of California, San Diego (October 19, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75807 75807-19608023@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 19, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CcI2trSATJy47aGtwrzhew

Abstract: The life-cycle of RNA from transcription to translational regulation is mediated by a diverse (>2000) set of proteins called RNA binding proteins. My lab studies the many roles that RNA binding proteins have in affecting RNA expression, splicing, transport and translation. Through our studies on RNA processing, we have introduced therapeutic strategies to treat neurodegenerative and muscular diseases, built cellular models of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases and developed experimental and computational tools that enable the community to probe RNA binding protein-RNA interactions at scale. I will discuss (1) our established and new technologies to identify RNA targets of human RBPs at scale, (2) systematic assays to assign molecular roles to RBPs and (2) functional screens to identify RBPs implicated in cancer / RNA granule formation.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 16 Sep 2020 09:57:16 -0400 2020-10-19T16:00:00-04:00 2020-10-19T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion Gene Yeo, University of California, San Diego
LHS Collaboratory-LHS as a Driver of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (October 20, 2020 11:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/77545 77545-19879862@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 11:30am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

Healthcare and health remain unconscionably inequitable. This year, the disproportionate toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on those historically least well-served by our health system, has highlighted the pressing societal challenge of health disparities.

Beyond simply striving to do no harm, Learning Health Systems (LHSs) have the potential to serve as forces for justice in healthcare and health; indeed, they can be powerful drivers of diversity, equity, and inclusion. LHSs are anchored in multi-stakeholder consensus Core Values that explicitly incorporate principles such as inclusiveness, transparency, and accessibility. Their proximal goal is "to efficiently and equitably serve the learning needs of all participants, as well as the overall public good."

The October 2020 LHS Collaboratory will share lessons from health advocates working on the front lines to make healthcare and health more equitable. These thought leaders and do-ers will illuminate the transformative power of LHSs - and the diverse and inclusive communities of interest that are collaborating to realize them.

Moderator:
Joshua C. Rubin, JD, MBA, MPP, MPH
Program Officer, Learning Health System Initiatives, Department of Learning Health Sciences, University of Michigan

Panelists:
Luis Belén
Chief Executive Officer of the National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved (NHIT Collaborative)

Danielle Brooks, JD
Director of Health Equity, Amerihealth Caritas

Melissa S. Creary, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
School of Public Health, University of Michigan

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Lecture / Discussion Sun, 27 Sep 2020 21:18:37 -0400 2020-10-20T11:30:00-04:00 2020-10-20T13:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion LHS Collaboratory Logo puzzle pieces
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (October 21, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78531 78531-20058232@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract
Although machine learning applications are now pervasive to every industry, adoption into healthcare remains a challenging and arduous process. Barriers to implementation include clinician trust, algorithm credibility and actionability, promoting clinician literacy in machine learning methods, and mitigating unintended consequences.

In the high-risk operating room setting, anesthesiologists are recognized leaders in patient safety, and manage uncertainty through careful considerations of risk and benefit based upon a thorough understanding of disease processes and treatment mechanisms. In this talk, the speaker highlights how obstacles to implementation of machine-learning based healthcare applications can be mitigated, and how an understanding of such applications can be promoted among clinically-minded anesthesiologists who may not necessarily be expert data scientists.

Short Bio:
Dr. Mathis has research interests in improving perioperative care for patients with advanced cardiovascular disease, particularly for patients with heart failure. As part of the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group (MPOG), an international consortium of perioperative databases for which U-M serves as the coordinating center, he serves as Associate Research Director and plays a lead role in integration of MPOG data with data from national cardiac and thoracic surgery registries. He also has interests in leveraging novel data science methods to understand patterns within highly granular intraoperative physiologic data, studying hemodynamic responses to surgical and anesthetic stimuli as a means for early detection of cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 14 Oct 2020 11:43:15 -0400 2020-10-21T16:00:00-04:00 2020-10-21T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual Image which promotes the content of Dr. Mathis' talk (https://jamanetwork.com/collections/5584/critical-care-medicine)
RNA Seminar featuring: Aleksandra Filipovska, University of Western Australia (October 26, 2020 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/75809 75809-19608025@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 26, 2020 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED:https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f8wC8rrJQzuhYzTEXoW69Q

ABSTRACT:Mitochondria produce more than 90% of the energy required by our bodies and thereby have a fundamental role in cell and energy metabolism. Mitochondria are composed of proteins encoded by both the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes and the coordinated expression of both genomes is essential for energy production. Impaired energy production leads to mitochondrial dysfunction that causes or contributes significantly to a variety of diseases including metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Mitochondrial dysfunction is caused by mutations in nuclear or mitochondrial genes that encode proteins or regulatory RNAs essential for mitochondrial biogenesis. How uncoordinated gene expression causes mitochondrial dysfunction and compromised energy production in heart and metabolic diseases is poorly understood, making it difficult to develop effective treatments. To unravel how mitochondrial function fails and to identify therapeutic targets it is necessary (i) to understand how gene expression is regulated between mitochondria and the nucleus and (ii) how this regulation is disrupted in disease. We have created new and unique models of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases caused by mutations or loss of nuclear encoded RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) that regulate mitochondrial RNA metabolism and protein synthesis. These new models have identified that energy dysfunction can differentially affect specific organs such as the heart or liver, or multiple organs leading to heart failure or metabolic diseases that can be devastating, such as mitochondrial diseases, or may be as common as insulin resistance and obesity. I will discuss the mechanisms behind these diverse pathologies caused by impaired gene expression and energy dysfunction in heart and metabolic disease.

KEYWORDS: mitochondria, RNA, ribosomes, translation

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 20 Oct 2020 14:16:54 -0400 2020-10-26T09:00:00-04:00 2020-10-26T10:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion photo
Special Joint Seminar - Hosted by DCMB, Department of Mathematics, and the Smale Institute (October 26, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78673 78673-20099541@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 26, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Dr. Leland Hartwell won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for the discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle.

“We want our students to have an authentic experience of science. Nearly all science activities designed for schools require the students to demonstrate an established scientific principle by getting the right answer. Getting the “right” answer is not authentic science. Science is the exploration of the unknown – the answer cannot be known.“
- Leland Hartwell

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Livestream / Virtual Mon, 19 Oct 2020 13:04:27 -0400 2020-10-26T12:00:00-04:00 2020-10-26T13:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual Dr. Leland Hartwell, Nobel Laureate
DCMB / CCMB Seminar (October 28, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78528 78528-20058229@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) allows researchers to examine the transcriptome at the single-cell resolution and has been increasingly employed as technologies continue to advance. Due to technical and biological reasons unique to scRNA-seq data, clustering and batch effect correction are almost indispensable to ensure valid and powerful data analysis. Multiple methods have been proposed for these two important tasks. For clustering, we have found that different methods, including state-of-the-art methods such as Seurat, SC3, CIDR, SIMLR, t-SNE + k-means, yield varying results in terms of both the number of clusters and actual cluster assignments. We have developed ensemble methods, SAFE-clustering and SAME-clustering, that leverages hyper-graph partitioning algorithms and a mixture model-based approach respectively to produce more robust and accurate ensemble solution on top of clustering results from individual methods. For batch effect correction, we have developed methods based on supervised mutual nearest neighbor detection to harness the power of known cell type labels for certain single cells. We benchmarked all methods in various scRNA-seq datasets to demonstrate their utilities.

Short bio: Yun Li, PhD is an Associate professor of Genetics and Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Li is a statistical geneticist with extensive experiences with method development and application on genotype imputation (developer of MaCH and MaCH-admix), genetic studies of recently admixed population, design and analysis of sequencing-based studies, analyses of multi-omics data including mRNA expression, DNA methylation and chromatin three dimensional organization. Dr. Li has been playing an active role in genetic studies of complex human traits resulting many GWAS and meta-analysis publications, including >30 in Nature, Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics. Dr. Li has been leading multiple R01 projects on statistical method development for complex trait genetics. Dr. Li has also been the Director for the Data Science Core of IDDRC (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center). Dr. Li has received many awards and became the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher due to her high impact scientific work. Specifically, her work has been cited >60,000 times with h-index of 64 and i10-index of 113.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 14 Oct 2020 10:41:20 -0400 2020-10-28T16:00:00-04:00 2020-10-28T17:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual Yun Li, PhD (Associate Professor of Genetics & Biostatistics; Adjunct Associate Professor, Applied Physical Sciences at School of Medicine, Genetics at University of North Carolina)
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (November 4, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78770 78770-20121164@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: Metabolomics is a powerful approach to characterize small molecules produced in cells, tissues, and other biological systems. Metabolites are direct products of enzymatic reactions and provide a snapshot of cellular activities. Metabolomics-based research has already had a profound impact on biomarker discovery, nutritional analysis, and other biomedical and biological discoveries. The most pressing problem in metabolomics however is identifying compounds in the sample-under-study from the metabolomics measurements. Current analysis tools are capable of annotating only a small portion of sample measurements.

In this talk, we present machine learning solutions to three challenges related to the interpretation of metabolomics data. To mimic the function of a mass spectrometer in generating a mass spectrum, we use graph neural networks to translate a molecular structure into its respective spectral signature. To interpret the biological measurements in the context of the biological sample, we use Bayesan learning to deduce the likelihood of pathway activities. To suggest putative candidate molecules that are biologically relevant matches to the measured spectra, we explore several methods for predicting possible enzymatic products. We discuss several results, highlighting the value of using machine learning for advancing metabolomics analysis.

Short bio: Soha Hassoun is Professor and Past Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University. Soha received her undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota State University, the Master's degree from MIT, and the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington in Seattle. Soha’s lab uses Machine Learning to develop analysis and discovery tools for synthetic and systems biology, with a focus on enzyme promiscuity prediction and metabolomics analysis. Soha was a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, and several technical and service awards from various professional societies. She provided technical leadership for several conferences including ICCAD and DAC. She co-founded the International Workshop on Bio-Design Automation in 2009. Soha serves on the board of the Computing Research Association's Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Thu, 22 Oct 2020 11:33:23 -0400 2020-11-04T16:00:00-05:00 2020-11-04T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual
LSI Seminar Series: Yves Chiswili Chabu, Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia (November 5, 2020 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78701 78701-20107391@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 5, 2020 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Abstract:

Oncogenic RAS mutations are associated with tumor resistance to radiation therapy. The underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Emergent cell-cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment (TME) profoundly influence therapy outcomes. The nature of these interactions and their role in Ras tumor radioresistance remain unclear. Using Drosophila and human Ras cancer cells we discovered that oncogenic Ras co-opts genotoxic stress-induced p53 function to drive tumor recurrence via paracrine JAK/STAT signaling in the TME.
p53 is heterogeneously activated in Ras tumor tissues in response to irradiation. This mosaicism allows high p53-expressing Ras clones to stimulate JAK/STAT cytokines, which activate JAK/STAT in the nearby low p53-expressing resistant Ras clones, leading to robust tumor re-establishment. Blocking any part of this cell-cell communication loop re-sensitizes Ras tumor cells to irradiation. This finding suggests that coupling STAT inhibitors to radiotherapy might improve clinical outcomes for Ras cancer patients.

Speaker:
Yves Chiswili Chabu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Division of Biological Sciences
University of Missouri-Columbia

Yves Chiswili Chabu received his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. He did his postdoctoral work and Fellowship at Yale University where he used Drosophila and human tissue culture models to understand how intercellular RAS signaling evolves in the tumor microenvironement. Chabu is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia and the scientific director of the Cancer Research Center in Columbia Missouri. His research interests at the University of Missouri includes delineating therapy resistance mechanisms in EGFR/RAS-driven tumors and understanding how these signals emerge and support disease progression.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 20 Oct 2020 13:51:21 -0400 2020-11-05T13:00:00-05:00 2020-11-05T14:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Lecture / Discussion LSI Seminar Series
BME PhD Defense: Zhonghua (Aileen) Ouyang (November 6, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/78398 78398-20022735@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 6, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be provided below.

Zoom: https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/94734899583?pwd=MDNEMjE3QU5xVGgwZzNQajE4UlJQUT09

Overactive bladder (OAB) is a highly prevalent condition which negatively affects the physical and mental health of millions of people worldwide. Sacral neuromodulation (SNM), currently serving ~300,000 patients worldwide, is a promising third-line therapy that provides improved efficacy and minimum adherence issue compared to conventional treatments. While current SNM is delivered in an open-loop fashion, the therapy could have improved clinical efficacy by adopting a closed-loop stimulation paradigm that uses objective physiological feedback. Therefore, this dissertation work focuses on using sacral level dorsal root ganglia neural signals to provide sensory feedback for adaptive SNM a feline model.

This work began with exploring machine learning algorithms and feature selection methods for bladder pressure decoding. A Kalman filter delivered the highest performance based on correlation coefficient between the pressure measurements and algorithm estimation. Additionally, firing rate normalization significantly contributed to lowering the normalized error, and a correlation coefficient-based channel selection method provided the lowest error compared to other channel selection methods.

Following algorithm optimization, this work implemented the optimized algorithm and feature selection method in real-time in anesthetized healthy and simulated OAB feline models. A 0.88 ± 0.16 correlation coefficient fit was achieved by the decoding algorithm across 35 normal and simulated OAB bladder fills in five experiments. Closed-loop neuromodulation was demonstrated using the estimated pressure to trigger pudendal nerve stimulation, which increased bladder capacity by 40% in two trials.

Finally, closed-loop SNM stimulation with DRG sensory feedback was performed in a series of anesthetized experiments. It increased bladder capacity by 13.8% over no stimulation (p < 0.001). While there was no statistical difference in bladder capacity between closed-loop and continuous stimulation (p = 0.80), closed-loop stimulation reduced stimulation time by 57.7%. Interestingly, bladder single units had a reduced sensitivity during stimulation, suggesting a potential mechanism of SNM.

Overall, this work demonstrated that sacral level DRG are a viable sensory feedback target for adaptive SNM. Validation in awake and chronic experiments is a crucial step prior to clinical translation of this method.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 09 Oct 2020 22:08:12 -0400 2020-11-06T10:00:00-05:00 2020-11-06T11:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Of Moms and Microbes: Pregnancy and the Microbiome (November 10, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79039 79039-20178452@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center

Kimberly McKee, PhD, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the UM Medical School will present a seminar, with Q&A, on "Of Moms and Microbes: Pregnancy and the Microbiome".

ZOOM link:
https://umich.zoom.us/j/97328685723

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 29 Oct 2020 13:13:13 -0400 2020-11-10T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-10T12:50:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center Lecture / Discussion Environmental Research Seminar
Agent-Based Modeling and Systemic Racism (November 10, 2020 2:45pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79217 79217-20231458@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 2:45pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Institute for Data Science

In this workshop, participants will gain a better understanding of systemic bias and how algorithms may continue to promote inequity. Participants will learn about agent based methods, a tool which can be used to examine algorithmic fairness. There will be opportunities to brainstorm ideas for new research projects within the participants’ fields.

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Workshop / Seminar Thu, 05 Nov 2020 10:39:43 -0500 2020-11-10T14:45:00-05:00 2020-11-10T16:15:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Institute for Data Science Workshop / Seminar Mini-Workshop
Funded Summer Research! (November 10, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78017 78017-19955538@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 10, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships (ONSF)

REGISTER: https://myumi.ch/bvnN2

Attend this session to explore fully-funded summer research programs available to U-M undergraduates! Examples include the Amgen Scholars Program, NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates, DAAD Research Internships in Science & Engineering, and more!

Learn more: https://lsa.umich.edu/onsf/summer-programs.html

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Livestream / Virtual Thu, 01 Oct 2020 09:07:18 -0400 2020-11-10T16:00:00-05:00 2020-11-10T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships (ONSF) Livestream / Virtual Microscope
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (November 11, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79286 79286-20264787@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 11, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: There is a growing understanding that stress and depression during the process of training to become physicians is high. In this talk, we will discuss how we have used mobile and wearable data as well as genomics to understand the prevalence in the US and China, drivers and possible solutions about training physician depression and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them in the two countries.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Mon, 09 Nov 2020 14:13:58 -0500 2020-11-11T16:00:00-05:00 2020-11-11T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual Drs. Margit Burmeister and Srijan Sen
Reflections on Learning to Improve: Foundational Ideas, Observations from Practice, and Building a Field (November 12, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78908 78908-20152763@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 12, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

While the LHS Collaboratory is typically focused on learning health, learning systems actually have very broad applicability. Moreover, there has been a strong interest in the Collaboratory from the education community which is also focused on learning systems.

A thought leader in this area, Anthony S. Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will be speaking about a set of critical observations acquired in the course of his own efforts to improve how large complex educational systems work.

Discussants:

Elizabeth Birr Moje, Dean,
George Herbert Mead Collegiate Professor of Education,
and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor School of Education
Faculty Associate in the Institute for Social Research; Latino/a
Studies; and the Joint Program in English & Education
University of Michigan

Caren M. Stalburg, MD, MA
Collaborative Lead for Education
Associate Professor of Learning Health Sciences
Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Director of HILS Online Masters
University of Michigan

Moderator:

Donald J. Peurach, PhD
Professor
University of Michigan School of Education
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:41:04 -0400 2020-11-12T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-12T13:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Department of Learning Health Sciences Lecture / Discussion Collaboratory logo
RNA Seminar featuring: Michelle Hastings, Professor, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (November 16, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75868 75868-19615934@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 16, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VWX5SY6lSiaNyh5Weh8cHw

Michelle L. Hastings, PhD
Professor, Cell Biology and Anatomy
Director, Center for Genetic Diseases
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

ABSTRACT: Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) have proven to be an effective therapeutic platform for the treatment of disease. These short, single-stranded, modified nucleotides function by base-pairing with the complementary sequence of an RNA and modulating gene expression in a manner that is dependent on the ASO design and targeting site. We have used ASOs to normalize aberrant gene expression associated with a number of diseases of the nervous system including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and Usher syndrome. One of our approaches is under development for the treatment of CLN3 Batten disease, a fatal, pediatric lysosomal storage disease caused by mutations in a gene encoding the lysosomal membrane protein CLN3. The most common mutation associated with CLN3 Batten is a deletion of exons 7 and 8 (CLN3Δex78), which disrupts the mRNA open reading frame by creating a premature termination codon that results in the production of a truncated protein. We devised a therapeutic strategy for treating CLN3 Batten Disease using an ASO that basepairs to CLN3 pre-mRNA and alters splicing to correct the open reading frame of the mutated transcript. Treatment of CLN3Δex78 neonatal mice by intracerebroventricular injection of the ASO resulted in the desired splicing effect throughout the central nervous system, improved motor deficits associated with the disease in mice, reduced histopathological features of the disease in the brain and extended life in a severe mouse model of the disease. Our results demonstrate that ASO-mediated reading frame correction is a promising therapeutic approach for CLN3 Batten disease.

KEYWORDS: pre-mRNA splicing, Antisense oligonucleotides, Usher syndrome, Batten Disease, lysosomal storage diseases

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 07 Oct 2020 09:31:00 -0400 2020-11-16T16:00:00-05:00 2020-11-16T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion photo
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (November 18, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79290 79290-20264791@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 18, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Abstract: Genetic variation affecting gene expression is wide-spread within and among species. This variation reflects the combined actions of mutation introducing new genetic variants and selection eliminating deleterious ones. Comparative studies of gene expression in fruit flies, yeast, plants, and mice have shown that the relative contributions of cis- and trans-acting variants to expression differences change over evolutionary time, indicating that selection has different effects on cis- and trans-regulatory variants. To better understand the reasons for this now widely observed pattern, we have been systematically studying the effects of mutation and selection on expression of the TDH3 gene of the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This work has revealed differences between cis- and trans-regulatory mutations in their frequency, effects, and dominance. Differences in pleiotropy are also generally assumed to exist between cis- and trans-regulatory that affect their evolutionary fate, but have been difficult to measure. In this talk, I will discuss how newly arising cis- and trans-regulatory mutations affecting expression of this focal gene are structured within the regulatory network, their pleiotropic effects on expression of all other genes in the genome, and how these pleiotropic effects influence fitness. A computational model of regulatory evolution integrating empirically observed differences in properties of cis- and trans-regulatory mutations will also be presented and discussed.

Patricia Wittkopp received a BS from the University of Michigan, a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and did postdoctoral work at Cornell University. In 2005, she began a faculty position at the University of Michigan, where she is now the Sally L. Allen Collegiate Professor and Arthur F Thurnau Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and is a member of the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics. Her research investigates the genetic basis of phenotypic evolution, with an emphasis on the evolution of gene expression. She was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow, an Alfred P Sloan Research Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of a March of Dimes Starter Scholar Award, the Margaret Dayhoff Mid-Career Award from the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution, and the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Mon, 09 Nov 2020 15:12:34 -0500 2020-11-18T16:00:00-05:00 2020-11-18T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual
Where Do We Go From Here: Body Politics & Movement Towards Racial Empowerment (November 19, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79333 79333-20272796@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 19, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: School of Kinesiology

A virtual panel discussion sponsored by the University of Michigan Health Sciences units, hosted by the School of Kinesiology, and featuring:

Vanessa Barrow, DPM
Podiatrist & Owner, Sole Aesthetic, LLC
Specialization: Aesthetic and regenerative medicine of the foot and ankle

Neha Gothe, PhD
Assistant Professor of Kinesiology & Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Research: Bio-psycho-social health benefits of physical activity across the lifespan; yoga as a means to improve health and quality of life

Samuel R. Hodge, PhD
Professor of Kinesiology, Ohio State University
Research: Intersection of diversity, disability, and social justice in education and sport

NiCole R. Keith, PhD, FACSM
Professor of Kinesiology & Associate Dean, Indiana University School of Health & Human Sciences
President, American College of Sports Medicine
Research: Community-based participatory research, physical activity, and health equity

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:05:27 -0500 2020-11-19T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-19T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location School of Kinesiology Lecture / Discussion University of Michigan Health Sciences present Where Do We Go From Here: Body Politics and Movement Towards Racial Empowerment
Impact of COVID-19 on Service Workers: Work Experiences & Concerns of food retail, food services, and hospitality workers (November 24, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79384 79384-20288598@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 24, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center

Marie-Anne Rosemberg is an assistant professor in UM's School of Nursing.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: COVID-19 presents a unique burden specifically for workers in service industries not only because they are disproportionately at risk for contracting the virus but also because of their work-related burdens. We aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on these workers.
Methods: This was a mixed-method study with a congruent triangulation design. Participants were recruited through social media. Each interview lasted up to 20 minutes. The survey data included demographic questions along with items from the CAGE and PC-PTSD questionnaires.
Results: Twenty-seven individuals completed audio-recorded phone interviews and 28 completed the survey. Participants were mostly women with an age range between 19 and 65. Participants worked in food retail (n=23), restaurant (n=25), and hospitality (n=7) industries. Length of time on the job ranged from two months to 25 years and 60% of the participants worked full time. Participants reported experiencing symptoms of depression and maladaptive coping. Job insecurity, change of job tasks, and work hours were the most common ways that COVID-19 affected the workers. Themes that emerged about participant’s concerns included being infected and/or unknowingly infecting others, the unknown, isolation, and work and customer demands. Constant changes relating to communication and protection measures were a major source of stress. There was discordance in the perceived level of threat of COVID-19. Most participants reported that their workplace complied with their state’s mandates for protection measures. While others reported lacking basic supplies such as soap, hand sanitizer, and masks.
Conclusions: In addition to their work experiences, COVID-19 has affected service workers at the financial, physical and mental levels. This study has implications of employers, occupational health and safety professionals and policy stakeholders.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 12 Nov 2020 16:33:42 -0500 2020-11-24T12:00:00-05:00 2020-11-24T12:50:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease Center Lecture / Discussion Impact of COVID-19 on Service Workers
Udall Scholarships (December 1, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/78020 78020-19955546@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships (ONSF)

REGISTER: https://myumi.ch/bvnN2

The Udall Foundation awards $5,000 scholarships to college sophomores and juniors and the opportunity to attend a 4-day orientation in Tucson, AZ and to gain access to the Udall Alumni Network.

The Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship provides support for approximately 125 full-time undergraduate students per year studying in NOAA mission fields. Scholarship recipients receive two years of academic support (up to $9,500/year) and a 10-week paid summer internship at a NOAA partner facility.

Learn more: https://lsa.umich.edu/onsf/scholarships/united-states/udall-scholarship.html

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Livestream / Virtual Thu, 01 Oct 2020 09:23:59 -0400 2020-12-01T16:00:00-05:00 2020-12-01T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Office of National Scholarships & Fellowships (ONSF) Livestream / Virtual Van driving through Arizona
Is the End in Sight? An Inside Look at the COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Approval Process (December 2, 2020 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79570 79570-20388901@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: School of Public Health

Join infectious disease expert Dr. Arnold Monto in a discussion about the COVID-19 vaccine development and approval process. Dr. Monto, a professor of epidemiology and global public health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, serves as acting chair of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which provides advice to the Food and Drug Administration on the authorization and licensure of vaccines to prevent COVID-19. Throughout his career spanning seven decades, Dr. Monto has been involved in pandemic planning and emergency response to influenza and other respiratory virus outbreaks, including the 1968 Hong Kong influenza pandemic, avian influenza, SARS, MERS and the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Emily Martin, an associate professor of epidemiology at Michigan Public Health, will join Dr. Monto for a Q&A session, in which the experts will also address attendee questions as time permits. Dr. Monto and Dr. Martin co-lead the Michigan Influenza Center, one of five centers across the country that collects data for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Register here: http://myumi.ch/R5oBM

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 25 Nov 2020 12:04:12 -0500 2020-12-02T13:00:00-05:00 2020-12-02T14:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location School of Public Health Livestream / Virtual Is the End in Sight? Image of a bottle of vaccine and image of Dr. Arnold Monto
DCMB / CCMB Weekly Seminar (December 2, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79631 79631-20436379@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

ABSTRACT: The brain is made of networks of neurons that send information to each other via spikes. Sleep and wake are the most clearly definable brain states and each exerts unique effects upon neural network spiking activity. We used large-scale recordings in the frontal cortex of mice and rats to examine the activity of neurons during wake/sleep cycles and found that a novel form of homeostatic action is taken by sleep: homogenization of firing rates. Whereas it was previously believed that sleep simple decreased firing rates, we found that this was much more true of the most active neurons only, thereby reducing the variance of the population.

To extend this observation of homeostatic forced during sleep we also examine how sleep and wake states interact with learning and performance, which is also facilitated by sleep. We have therefore begun to record before, during and after learning sessions to determine how learning interacts with the usual homeostatic effects of sleep. Further we can also record how waking changes in brain states such as motivation and attention modulate firing and information processing by neurons during behavior itself.

Finally, our end-goal to translate these kinds of basic neurobiologic observations in healthy rodents to states of stress or treatments of stress. Unfortunately the chronic stress states of relevance to psychiatric disease do not last seconds but days and weeks. We have therefore begun to build new long-term recording environments to enable future experiments over these time-spans.

BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Watson is an assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Michigan. He grew up in Ann Arbor and then obtained his BA from Cornell University and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. During his Ph.D. he used two-photon microscopy to study the behavior of neurons in local cortical microcircuits. During his doctoral work he also participated in technical development of multi-beam two photon imaging techniques. Upon graduation from medical school, Dr. Watson pursued a residency in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College as well postdoctoral work at New York University. He received the National Institute for Mental Health’s Outstanding Resident Award, the American Psychiatric Association’s Lilly Research Fellowship and the Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellowship. He did a fellowship with Dr. Gyorgy Buzsaki at NYU to record ongoing activity in naturally behaving and sleeping animals wherein he showed that sleep reorganizes neuronal firing architecture in the neocortex in previously unknown ways. He is now combining his electrical recordings with behavioral tools to deepen his understanding of both use and regulation of cortical brain circuits.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Tue, 01 Dec 2020 09:45:44 -0500 2020-12-02T16:00:00-05:00 2020-12-02T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual
LSI Seminar Series: Astrid D. Haase, M.D., Ph.D., National Institutes of Health (December 3, 2020 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79308 79308-20270814@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, December 3, 2020 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Life Sciences Institute (LSI)

Abstract:
Akin to an adaptive immune system, PIWI-interacting small RNAs (piRNAs) protect the integrity of germline genomes by silencing mobile genetic elements (transposons). Precision of piRNA silencing is essential for the survival of a species, and target-recognition by complementary base-pairing places the sequences of piRNAs at its center. How piRNAs are controlled to ensure silencing of all transposons while avoiding mistargeting of essential host genes remains an outstanding question in reproductive biology. This seminar presentation will explore mechanisms of piRNA biogenesis to understand how specificity of piRNA silencing is regulated and adjusted to gain control over novel genomic invaders.

About the Speaker:
Astrid Haase received an M.D. from the University of Vienna (Austria) in 2002 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Basel (Switzerland) in 2007. Haase became interested in small non-coding RNAs during her graduate work with Prof. Witek Filipowicz at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, and continued exploring mechanisms of RNA silencing as a postdoc with Prof. Greg Hannon at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She began her independent research group as a Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator at the NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in 2015.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 10 Nov 2020 11:19:42 -0500 2020-12-03T12:00:00-05:00 2020-12-03T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Life Sciences Institute (LSI) Lecture / Discussion LSI Seminar Series
RNA Seminar featuring: John Mattick, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (December 7, 2020 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75816 75816-19608031@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, December 7, 2020 5:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fCIiMkveTdq3D9-PKFLm6Q

ABSTRACT: The genomic programming of the development of complex organisms appears to have been misunderstood. The human genome contains just ~20,000 protein-coding genes, similar in number and with largely orthologous functions as those in other animals, including simple nematodes with only 1,000 somatic cells. By contrast, the extent of non-protein-coding DNA increases with increasing developmental complexity, reaching 98.8% in humans. Moreover, it is now clear that the majority of the genome is not junk but is differentially and dynamically transcribed to produce not only mRNAs but also tens if not hundreds of thousands of short and long non-protein-coding RNAs that show specific expression patterns and subcellular locations. Many of these noncoding RNAs have evolved rapidly under positive selection for adaptive radiation, and many have been shown to have important roles in development, brain function, cancer and other diseases. They function at many different levels of gene expression and cell biology, including translational control, formation of subcellular (phase-separated) domains, and guidance of the epigenetic processes and chromatin dynamics that underpin development, brain function and physiological adaptation, with plasticity enabled by RNA editing, RNA modification and retrotransposon mobilization. These discoveries mean that the assumption that combinatorial control by transcription factors and other regulatory proteins is sufficient to account for human ontogeny is incorrect, as are the circular assumptions about the neutral evolution of the genome. The challenge now is to determine the structure-function relationships of these RNAs and their mechanisms of action, as well as their place in the decisional hierarchies that control human development, physiology, learning and susceptibility to disorders.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 03 Nov 2020 16:51:46 -0500 2020-12-07T17:00:00-05:00 2020-12-07T18:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion photo
Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics Weekly Wednesday Seminar (December 9, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79756 79756-20484062@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 9, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: DCMB Seminar Series

Learning objectives:

1. Discuss the conceptual distinction and clinical utility of self-reported race/ethnicity and genetic ancestry in childhood asthma.
2. Discuss the role of genetic ancestry and socio-environmental exposures in childhood asthma.
3. Discuss ancestry-specific polygenic risk scores, precision medicine and childhood asthma disparities.

Short bio: Dr. Mersha is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Asthma Research and leads the Population Genetics, Ancestry, and Bioinformatics (pGAB) Laboratory (https://research.cchmc.org/mershalab/Home.php).
Dr. Mersha’s research combines quantitative, ancestry and statistical genomics to unravel genetic and non-genetic contributions to complex diseases and racial disparities in human populations, particularly asthma and asthma-related allergic disorders. Much of his research is at the interface of genetic ancestry, statistics, bioinformatics, and functional genomics, and he is interested in cross-line disciplines to unravel the interplay between genome and envirome underlying asthma risk. His long-term research goal is to understand and dissect how biologic predisposition and environmental exposures interact to shape racial disparities in complex disorders.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/93929606089?pwd=SHh6R1FOQm8xMThRemdxTEFMWWpVdz09

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Livestream / Virtual Mon, 07 Dec 2020 11:27:42 -0500 2020-12-09T16:00:00-05:00 2020-12-09T17:15:00-05:00 Off Campus Location DCMB Seminar Series Livestream / Virtual Tesfaye ("Tes") Mersha, PhD (Associate Professor, Division of Asthma Research at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center)
RNA Seminar featuring: Narry Kim, Seoul National University (December 14, 2020 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/75818 75818-19608034@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, December 14, 2020 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for RNA Biomedicine

ZOOM REGISTRATION REQUIRED: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_c9BFJM9dRGKn1WFF4L_wLg

ABSTRACT: Viruses rely heavily on RNA binding proteins for their success as pathogens. In this presentation, I will first talk about RNA tail modification which impacts viral and cellular gene expression. We found that TENT4 enzymes extend poly(A) tail of mRNAs with ‘mixed tails’ to delay deadenylation and stabilize the RNAs. Hepatitis B virus and human cytomegalovirus hijack this mechanism to efficiently stabilize their own RNAs. In the later part of my presentation, I will discuss our recent work on SARS-CoV-2. To delineate the viral transcriptomic architecture and provide a high-resolution map of SARS-CoV-2, we performed deep sequencing of infected cells. Our data define the canonical transcripts and noncanonical transcripts encoding unknown ORFs. More recently, we have also performed proteomic analyses of the SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleoprotein complex. We identify many proteins that directly interact with viral RNAs and modulate viral growth. Functional investigation of the viral transcripts and host proteins discovered in this study will open new directions to the research efforts to elucidate the life cycle and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 02 Dec 2020 12:55:41 -0500 2020-12-14T16:00:00-05:00 2020-12-14T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Center for RNA Biomedicine Lecture / Discussion Narry Kim, Seoul National University
PhD Defense: Sabrina Lynch (December 15, 2020 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/79855 79855-20509613@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 15, 2020 10:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be provided below.

Zoom link: https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/94668154127

Thrombosis is a process whereby a blood clot forms in situ within a vessel and impedes flow. Although necessary to maintain hemostasis, the human thrombotic system often becomes unstable leading to scenarios of thrombosis and subsequent diseases such as myocardial infarction, stroke, pulmonary embolism, and deep vein thrombosis. Computational modeling is a powerful tool to understand the complexity of thrombosis initiation and provides both temporal and spatial resolution that cannot be obtained in vivo. The goal of this investigation is to develop a computational model of thrombosis initiation in patient-specific models that includes both a complex description of the hemodynamics and biochemistry of thrombin formation. We argue that the complex hemodynamics occurring in vivo significantly alter the initiation and progression of thrombosis.



While blood viscosity is known to exhibit nonlinear behavior, a Newtonian assumption is often employed in computational analyses. This assumption is valid in healthy arteries where shear rates are high and recirculation is low. However, in pathological geometries, such as aneurysms, and venous geometries, this assumption fails, and nonlinear viscous effects become exceedingly important. Previous computational models of thrombosis have investigated coagulation through chemistry based formulations focusing on protein dynamics but have generally excluded complex 3D hemodynamics.



A computational framework was developed to investigate the interplay between 3D hemodynamics and the biochemical reactions involved in thrombosis initiation in patient-specific models under transient flow. The salient features of the framework are: i) nonlinear rheological models of blood flow; ii) a stabilized numerical framework for scalar mass transport; and iii) a computational interface for nonlinear scalar models of protein dynamics that can be easily customized to include an arbitrary number of species and protein interactions.



We implemented and verified nonlinear rheological models of viscosity into CRIMSON and investigated the effects of non-Newtonian viscosity on both hemodynamic and transport metrics in an arterial and venous patient-specific model. Results demonstrated the importance of considering accurate rheological models.



A stabilized finite element (FE) framework was developed to solve scalar mass transport problems in CRIMSON. Simulation of cardiovascular scalar mass transport problems offers significant numerical challenges such as highly advective flows and flow reversal at outlet boundaries. Furthermore, little attention has been given to the identification of appropriate outflow boundary conditions that preserve the accuracy of the solution. These issues were resolved by developing a stabilized FE framework that incorporates backflow stabilization for Neumann outlet boundaries; a consistent flux boundary condition that minimally disturbs the local physics of the problem; and front-capturing stabilization to regularize solutions in high Pe number flows. The efficacy of these formulations was investigated for both idealized and patient-specific geometries.



Next, a flexible arbitrary reaction-advection-diffusion (ARAD) interface was implemented that enables prototyping nonlinear biochemical models of thrombin generation. After verifying the ARAD interface, the performance was compared against the original hardcoded FORTRAN implementation for speed and accuracy using a 4-scalar nonlinear reaction model of thrombosis. Three different biochemical models of thrombin generation were investigated in idealized geometries. Finally, we implemented the 18 scalar model in both idealized and patient-specific geometries to determine the effects of complex 3D hemodynamics on thrombin generation.



The computational framework for thrombosis initiation presented in this work has three key features: i) non-Newtonian hemodynamics; ii) a stabilized numerical framework for scalar RAD problems; and iii) a method to rapidly prototype custom reaction models using Python with negligible associated computational expense.

Chair: Prof. Alberto C. Figueroa

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:16:10 -0500 2020-12-15T10:00:00-05:00 2020-12-15T11:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Jared Scott (December 22, 2020 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79866 79866-20509634@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 2:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/97604985906?pwd=N1Y1UXEvNXMxdjlnVkpjUFZHQkRhdz09

Epilepsy is a debilitating neurological disorder characterized by recurrent spontaneous seizures. While seizures themselves adversely affect physiological function for short time periods relative to normal brain states, their cumulative impact can significantly decrease patient quality of life in myriad ways. For many, anti-epileptic drugs are effective first-line therapies. One third of all patients do not respond to chemical intervention, however, and require invasive resective surgery to remove epileptic tissue. While this is still the most effective last-line treatment, many patients with ‘refractory’ epilepsy still experience seizures afterward, while some are not even surgical candidates. Thus, a significant portion of patients lack further recourse to manage their seizures – which additionally impacts their quality of life.



High-frequency oscillations (HFOs) are a recently discovered electrical biomarker with significant clinical potential in refractory human epilepsy. As a spatial biomarker, HFOs occur more frequently in epileptic tissue, and surgical removal of areas with high HFO rates can result in improved outcomes. There is also limited preliminary evidence that HFOs change prior to seizures, though it is currently unknown if HFOs function as temporal biomarkers of epilepsy and imminent seizure onset. No such temporal biomarker has ever been identified, though if it were to exist, it could be exploited in online seizure prediction algorithms. If these algorithms were clinically implemented in implantable neuromodulatory devices, improvements to quality of life for refractory epilepsy patients might be possible. Thus, the overall aim of this work is to investigate HFOs as potential temporal biomarkers of seizures and epilepsy, and further to determine whether their time-varying properties can be exploited in seizure prediction.



In the first study we explore population-level evidence for the existence of this temporal effect in a large clinical cohort with refractory epilepsy. Using sophisticated automated HFO detection and big-data processing techniques, a continuous measure of HFO rates was developed to explore gradual changes in HFO rates prior to seizures, which were analyzed in aggregate to assess their stereotypical response. These methods resulted in the identification of a subset of patients in whom HFOs from epileptic tissue gradually increased before seizures.



In the second study, we use machine learning techniques to investigate temporal changes in HFO rates within individuals, and to assess their potential usefulness in patient-specific seizure prediction. Here, we identified a subset of patients whose predictive models sufficiently differentiated the preictal (before seizure) state better than random chance.



In the third study, we extend our prediction framework to include the signal properties of HFOs. We explore their ability to improve the identification of preictal periods, and additionally translate their predictive models into a proof-of-concept seizure warning system. For some patients, positive results from this demonstration show that seizure prediction using HFOs could be possible.



These studies overall provide convincing evidence that HFOs can change in measurable ways prior to seizure start. While this effect was not significant in some individuals, for many it enabled seizures to be predicted above random chance. Due to data limitations in overall recording duration and number of seizures captured, these findings require further validation with much larger high-density intracranial EEG datasets. Still, they provide a preliminary framework for the eventual use of HFOs in patient-specific seizure prediction with the potential to improve the lives of those with refractory epilepsy.

Chair: Dr. William Stacey

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 10 Dec 2020 14:13:29 -0500 2020-12-22T14:00:00-05:00 2020-12-22T15:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
PhD Defense: Tianrui Luo (December 22, 2020 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79858 79858-20509623@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 3:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

https://umich.zoom.us/j/92217348735

Excitation pulse design and image reconstruction are two important topics in MR research for enabling faster imaging. On the pulse design side, selective excitations that confine signals to be within a small region-of-interest (ROI) instead of the full imaging field-of-view (FOV) can be used to reduce sampling density in the k-space, which is a direct outcome of the change in the underlying Nyquist sampling rate. On the reconstruction side, besides improving imaging algorithms’ ability to restore images from less data, another objective is to reduce the reconstruction time, particularly for dynamic imaging applications.



This dissertation focuses on these two perspectives: The first part is devoted to the excitation pulse design. Specifically, we derived and developed a computationally efficient auto-differentiable Bloch-simulator and its explicit Bloch simulation Jacobian operations. This simulator can yield numerical derivatives with respect to pulse RF and gradient waveforms given arbitrary subdifferentiable excitation objective functions. We successfully applied this pulse design approach for jointly designing RF and gradient waveforms for 3D spatially tailored large-tip excitation objectives.



The auto-differentiable pulse design method can yield superior 3D spatially tailored excitation profiles that are useful for inner volume (IV) imaging. We propose and develop a novel steady-state IV imaging strategy which suppresses aliasing by saturating the outer volume (OV) magnetizations via a 3D tailored OV excitation pulse that is followed by a signal crusher gradient. This method substantially suppresses the unwanted OV aliasing for common steady-state imaging sequences.



The second part focuses on non-iterative image reconstruction. In dynamic imaging (e.g., fMRI), where a time series is to be reconstructed, such algorithms may offer savings in overall reconstruction time. We extend the conventional GRAPPA algorithm to work efficiently for general non-Cartesian acquisitions. It attains reconstruction quality that can rival classical iterative imaging methods such as conjugate gradient SENSE and SPIRiT.



In summary, this dissertation has proposed and developed multiple methods for accelerating MR imaging, from pulse design to reconstruction. While devoted to neuroimaging, the proposed methods are general and should also be useful for other applications.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:29:18 -0500 2020-12-22T15:00:00-05:00 2020-12-22T16:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning In Health Sciences Education (January 14, 2021 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/80071 80071-20554878@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 14, 2021 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: RISE (Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Education.)

Please join us on Thursday, January 14, 2021, 12:00 - 1:00 PM for a discussion on Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in Health Sciences Education. We are interested in learning more about how these new technologies can cultivate new approaches in teaching and learning that can improve health and science outcomes.

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 16 Dec 2020 07:13:27 -0500 2021-01-14T12:00:00-05:00 2021-01-14T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location RISE (Research. Innovation. Scholarship. Education.) Livestream / Virtual RISE Virtual Talking Circle
PhD Defense: Charles Park (January 15, 2021 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/80413 80413-20719667@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, January 15, 2021 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held remotely via Zoom. The link will be placed below.

Zoom: https://umich-health.zoom.us/j/97318374664?pwd=YTB4dzNTVXdRZDZQcGR1dVRLZi9JUT09

With the recent progress in technologies, analyzing detailed cellular interactions that constitute the immune system have become possible, and many more biological and engineering tools became within reach for precise investigation and modulation of immune responses. As a result, immunotherapies, such as anti-PD-1 antibody and chimeric antigen receptor T cells, have revolutionized cancer immunotherapy, while genome sequencing and nanotechnology allowed for the rapid development of various vaccines in response to the recent outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019. Here, first discussed is modulation of the immune responses using biomaterials, such as silica- or lipid-based nanoparticles and immunomodulating agents for cancer immunotherapy. My approach for immune modulation was to deliver vaccine or pattern recognition receptor-stimulating drugs using nanoparticles to enhance the activation of antigen presenting cells at the innate immune response stage, which leads to stronger adaptive immune responses. In addition, induction of a stronger chemokine gradient to recruit more T cells to tumor from the blood circulation was investigated. In the next study, use of lipid-based nanoparticle to formulate vaccines against infectious diseases, such as human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), is introduced. Nanoparticle-mediated vaccine delivery increases the amount of antigen reaching lymph nodes to interact with immune cells. Also, co-delivery of adjuvants further induces stronger adaptive immune responses. Meanwhile, it is critical to preserve the epitope conformation when protein antigens are used for vaccine formulation, in order to induce functional neutralizing antibodies. The aim of the study was to co-load a subunit protein and an adjuvant into lipid-based nanoparticles while maintaining the structural intactness and induce enhanced antibody responses when vaccinated to animals. Overall, immune modulation strategies are introduced in therapeutic or prophylactic settings, where innate and adaptive immune responses were enhanced using biomaterials-based treatments.

Chair: Dr. James J. Moon

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 06 Jan 2021 08:23:34 -0500 2021-01-15T13:00:00-05:00 2021-01-15T14:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo
U-M Health Sciences 2021 MLK Keynote (January 18, 2021 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79757 79757-20484063@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 18, 2021 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: School of Kinesiology

Bodies represent the sites of socially constructed differences and power relations. As such, the personal is political, and bodies are subject to political interpretations. Body politics based on racial (and/or ethnic) ascriptions (along with other intersecting elements such as sex, gender, sexuality, age, social class, ability, etc.) have adversely affected the overall health and wellness of bodies of Color in general, and Black bodies in particular - impacting their abilities, opportunities, access (inclusion/exclusion), care/treatment, and the overall nature of their lived experiences. Consequently, racialed body politics have contributed to an array of health disparities being more pronounced in communities of Color. However, movement offers a variety of health benefits and is therefore, a source of empowerment for racially politicized bodies.

This event will feature a keynote presentation by Dr. Monique Butler, U-M Kinesiology alumna and Chief Medical Officer for HCA Healthcare North Florida Division. She will address the theme "Where Do We Go From Here: Body Politics and Movement Towards Racial Empowerment."

This event is sponsored by the U-M Health Sciences units and hosted by the School of Kinesiology.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 05 Jan 2021 16:27:06 -0500 2021-01-18T12:00:00-05:00 2021-01-18T13:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location School of Kinesiology Lecture / Discussion U-M Health Sciences 2021 MLK Keynote - Where Do We Go From Here: Body Politics and Movement Towards Racial Empowerment - with Dr. Monique Butler, MD
KNOWLEDGE EXTRACTION TO ACCELERATE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY (January 18, 2021 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/79534 79534-20373071@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 18, 2021 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Michigan Institute for Data Science

To combat COVID-19, clinicians and scientists all need to digest the vast amount of relevant biomedical knowledge in literature to understand the disease mechanism and the related biological functions. The first challenge is quantity. For example, nearly 2.7K new papers are published at PubMed per day. This knowledge bottleneck causes significant delay in the development of vaccines and drugs for COVID-19. The second challenge is quality due to the rise and rapid, extensive publications of preprint manuscripts without pre-publication peer review. Many research results about coronavirus from different research labs and sources are redundant, complementary or event conflicting with each other.

Let’s consider drug repurposing as a case study. Besides the long process of clinical trial and biomedical experiments, another major cause for the long process is the complexity of the problem involved and the difficulty in drug discovery in general. The current clinical trials for drug re-purposing mainly rely on symptoms by considering drugs that can treat diseases with similar symptoms. However, there are too many drug candidates and too much misinformation published from multiple sources. In addition to a ranked list of drugs, clinicians and scientists also aim to gain new insights into the underlying molecular cellular mechanisms on Covid-19, and which pre-existing conditions may affect the mortality and severity of this disease.

To tackle these two challenges, we have developed a novel and comprehensive knowledge discovery framework, COVID-KG, to accelerate scientific discovery and build a bridge between clinicians and biology scientists. COVID-KG starts by reading existing papers to build multimedia knowledge graphs (KGs), in which nodes are entities/concepts and edges represent relations involving these entities, extracted from both text and images. Given the KGs enriched with path ranking and evidence mining, COVID-KG answers natural language questions effectively. Using drug repurposing as a case study, for 11 typical questions that human experts aim to explore, we integrate our techniques to generate a comprehensive report for each candidate drug. Preliminary assessment by expert clinicians and medical school students show our generated reports are informative and sound. I will also talk about our ongoing work to extend this framework to other domains including molecular synthesis and agriculture.

Bio:

Heng Ji is a professor at Computer Science Department, and an affiliated faculty member at Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also an Amazon Scholar. She received her B.A. and M. A. in Computational Linguistics from Tsinghua University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University. Her research interests focus on Natural Language Processing, especially on Multimedia Multilingual Information Extraction, Knowledge Base Population and Knowledge-driven Generation. She was selected as “Young Scientist” and a member of the Global Future Council on the Future of Computing by the World Economic Forum in 2016 and 2017. The awards she received include “AI’s 10 to Watch” Award by IEEE Intelligent Systems in 2013, NSF CAREER award in 2009, Google Research Award in 2009 and 2014, IBM Watson Faculty Award in 2012 and 2014 and Bosch Research Award in 2014-2018, and ACL2020 Best Demo Paper Award. She was invited by the Secretary of the U.S. Air Force and AFRL to join Air Force Data Analytics Expert Panel to inform the Air Force Strategy 2030. She is the lead of many multi-institution projects and tasks, including the U.S. ARL projects on information fusion and knowledge networks construction, DARPA DEFT Tinker Bell team and DARPA KAIROS RESIN team. She has coordinated the NIST TAC Knowledge Base Population task since 2010. She has served as the Program Committee Co-Chair of many conferences including NAACL-HLT2018. She is elected as the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) secretary 2020-2021. Her research has been widely supported by the U.S. government agencies (DARPA, ARL, IARPA, NSF, AFRL, DHS) and industry (Amazon, Google, Bosch, IBM, Disney).

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Performance Mon, 23 Nov 2020 09:48:55 -0500 2021-01-18T16:00:00-05:00 2021-01-18T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Michigan Institute for Data Science Performance Heng Li
LHS Collaboratory (January 21, 2021 11:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/80293 80293-20688136@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 21, 2021 11:30am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Department of Learning Health Sciences

The LHS Collaboratory presents Rachel Richesson, PhD, MPH, MS, FACMI, Professor of Learning Health Sciences, Department of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan in a virtual event on 1/21/2021 from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm ET.

Professor Richesson's talk, "Data Standards and Learning Health Systems –Challenges and Opportunities," will be followed by an audience Q&A. Questions are also encouraged prior to the event.

Please send questions to LHSCollaboratory-info@umich.edu.

Registration in advance at: https://umich-health.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HytRsYwITc6oOGRj0F_MOA

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Livestream / Virtual Sat, 02 Jan 2021 10:24:08 -0500 2021-01-21T11:30:00-05:00 2021-01-21T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Department of Learning Health Sciences Livestream / Virtual LHS Collaboratory logo
BME 500 Seminar - Xiaoning Jiang (January 21, 2021 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/80996 80996-20830794@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 21, 2021 4:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Biomedical Engineering

NOTICE: This event will be held via Blue Jeans. The link will be placed below.

Blue Jeans Link: https://bluejeans.com/628109990

Xiaoning Jiang, Ph.D.

North Carolina State University

Seminar Abstract:

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the number one cause of death and the search for more effective diagnosis and treatment techniques has been of a great interest. Ultrasound present a great potential in imaging and therapy for CVD. In this talk, small aperture transducers were designed, fabricated and tested for advanced intravascular ultrasound imaging (IVUS) and effective and safe intravenous sonothrombolysis. In specific, we investigated high frequency (40-60 MHz) micromachined piezoelectric composite transducers and arrays with broad bandwidth (-6 dB fraction bandwidth ~ 80%) for intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging. Dual frequency transducers and arrays (6.5 MHz/30 MHz, 3 MHz/30 MHz) were also successfully demonstrated for contrast enhanced intravascular superharmonic imaging (or acoustic angiography) toward detection of plaque vulnerability. For the case of intravascular thrombolysis, small aperture (diameter &lt;2 mm) sub-MHz forward-looking transducers were successfully developed with peak-negative-pressure of &gt; 1.5 MPa. Significantly enhanced thrombolysis rate was observed by using microbubbles and nanodroplets in in-vitro tests. Other transducer techniques such as optical fiber laser ultrasound transducers were also investigated for intravenous sonothrombolysis. These new findings suggest that small aperture ultrasound transducers are increasingly important in advancing intravascular ultrasound imaging, intravenous therapy, minimal invasive diagnosis and therapy, and image guided drug delivery and surgery.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:42:47 -0500 2021-01-21T16:00:00-05:00 2021-01-21T17:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Biomedical Engineering Lecture / Discussion BME Logo