CTSA awards funding for three engineering projects

CTSA awards funding for three engineering projects

Three research projects involving Penn State engineering faculty are among the 13 pilot projects selected for funding by the University's Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Initiative.

The CTSA is a National Institutes of Health Roadmap Initiative designed to speed up the process of turning basic research discoveries into tangible health benefits. The awards were made possible through the pooling of resources by the College of Medicine, Penn State Hershey Medical Center; Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; and the Social Science Research Institute.

Funded projects involving engineering faculty include:

– "Adapting an RNA Sensor Platform to Protein Detection Using Aptamers" with Rustom Bhiladvala, research assistant professor in electrical engineering, and Theresa Mayer, professor of electrical engineering, as well as Christine Keating from the Eberly College of Science; and Gary Clawson, Wei-Hua Pan and Kevin Staveley-O'Carroll, all from the College of Medicine;

– "Nanostructured Raman Detection and Diagnosis of Respiratory Pathogens" with Melik Demirel, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics, as well as Mary Poss and David Allara from the Eberly College of Science and Dani Zander from the College of Medicine; and

– "Pattern Recognition from 3D Histology Images for Translational Science and Discovery" with Yanxi Liu,ssociate professor of computer science and engineering and electrical engineering, and Keith Chang from the College of Medicine.

The 13 projects chosen for funding involve 57 faculty members across three University campuses and eight academic colleges.