Akhilesh K Gaharwar, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been named a 2015 Young Innovator of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE) by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).
Gaharwar is one of only 11 distinguished honorees this year who are tenure-track assistant professors working in the field of cellular and molecular bioengineering. This year’s honorees represent some of the best and brightest working in the field and were chosen from a highly competitive pool of candidates, noted a CMBE official.
As part of the selection process, they were invited to submit full-length manuscripts that underwent a rigorous peer-review process prior to publication in the most recent issue of the scientific journal Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.
As a 2015 CMBE Young Innovator, Gaharwar will present his research at the 2015 Annual Biomedical Engineering Society Meeting in Tampa, Florida. A special two-part platform session will be held at 8 a.m. and 1:45 p.m., Oct. 9 as part of the cellular and molecular bioengineering track, and each corresponding author will present his or her research and be recognized as a 2015 CMBE Young Innovator.
Gaharwar was recognized for the development of a new biomaterial composite from poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) diacrylate, silicate nanoparticles and denaturalized collagen via ionic and covalent crosslinking. His research group has demonstrated the utility of these materials for creating complex multicellular structures, laying the foundation for a class of materials for the controlled presentation of mechanical and chemical cues. Their findings are published in September issue of CMBE Journal.
“Applications for such a composite system ranges from nerve tissue regeneration to blood vessel formation; additional complex geometries could be obtained through use of three dimensional printer capabilities,” said Charles W. Peak, lead author of the paper and graduate student in Gaharwar’s laboratory.
Gaharwar, who joined Texas A&M in 2013, received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Purdue University in 2011. He completed his postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. His research spans diverse fields, including materials science, chemistry, biology and micro-fabrication of polymeric biomaterials and nanocomposites.
For more information on the 2015 CMBE Young Innovators and Gaharwar’s research, visit http://link.springer.com/journal/12195/8/3/page/1 and http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12195-015-0406-7.