The CEMB has awarded four trainee pilot grants for the 2021 cycle. The trainee pilot award program awards up to $15,000 to trainees with bold and innovative ideas in mechanobiology. This year saw the most competitive application pool yet. Awardees include two individuals and two groups, with trainees from four of the CEMB institutions: UPenn, WashU, NJIT, and BU:

Awardee: Haijiao Liu (Huh Lab, UPenn)

     Project Title: Mechano-engineered and vascularized organoid-on-a-chip model for tumor-reactive immunological screening

Awardee: Madhura Nijsure (Boerckel Lab, UPenn)

     Project Title: Mechanobiology of periosteal cell metabolism

Awardees: Huiyong Li (Foston Lab, WashU) and Laura Osorno (Arinzeh Lab, NJIT)

     Project Title: Mechanochemical Changes in the Extracellular Matrices of Hepatic Stellate Cells in Response to the Stiffness of Synthetic Scaffolds

Awardees: Dawei Song (Janmey Lab, UPenn) and Megan Griebel (Chen Lab, BU)

     Project Title: Three-dimensional traction force microscopy accounting for cell-induced matrix remodeling

Congratulations to all the awardees!