Kelley Garvin Wins Best Student Paper Competition

Kelley Garvin won the Best Student Paper Competition at the 157th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America held in Portland, OR from May 18-22. Her paper, titled Ultrasound standing wave fields control the spatial distribution of cells and protein in three-dimensional engineered tissue, was recognized as the best student paper in the Biomedical Ultrasound / Bioresponse to Vibration Technical Section. Kelley presented her recent work demonstrating the use of ultrasound fields to non-invasively control the spatial locations of cells in collagen-based engineered tissues. Ultrasound standing wave fields were used to organize cells into planar bands within collagen gels, resulting in a significant two-fold increase in cell-mediated gel contraction, suggesting that ultrasound-induced cell organization leads to a differential extracellular matrix remodeling. Further, using ultrasound to spatially band endothelial cells within collagen gels resulted in vessel sprouting. These novel technologies have important applications to the fabrication of engineered tissues with desired tissue characteristics. Kelley is a third year graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and her thesis research is co-advised by Dr. Diane Dalecki and Dr. Denise Hocking. Kelley is also a student member of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound (RCBU). Kelley's research is part of a larger, multidisciplinary project, led by Drs. Dalecki and Hocking and funded by the NIH, that aims to develop novel ultrasound technologies for the field of tissue engineering.