A Radical Approach to Biomedical Engineering

This post is part of a series of blog posts written by incoming and second-year graduate students in the Early Graduate Fellowship Mentoring Program. Students were asked to provide a brief description of their research interests and how they came to those interests. 

I will be pursuing my PhD in biomedical engineering at Rutgers University.  Within the field, my main research interests include biomaterials, drug delivery and drug delivery systems, and tissue engineering.  Many of these interests stem from my previous research experience and exposure.  Last summer, I had the opportunity to work on a project that focused specifically on developing a biomaterial matrix for drug delivery applications.  The project that I worked on focused on the treatment of traumatic brain injuries. A potential treatment for brain injury uses neuron-damaging radicals that persist at the injury site as a means to target a therapeutic. A functional biomaterial matrix composed of a drug covalently linked to PEG molecules has the potential to be a viable treatment option. This experience peaked my interest in the drug delivery and biomaterials fields within biomedical engineering.  These are research areas that I plan to pursue during my graduate career.