2023

• May
  • Mackenzie graduated with her Master’s! Congratulations and we will miss her! 
    
    

     

  • Dr. Song received the 2023 College of Engineering Rising Star Research Award. Congratulations! 
    
    
• April
  • Sarah, Devin and Isabel presented their Honors Thesis research at the 2023 Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Research Symposium. Later in the week we celebrated the end of the semester at JJ’s Grill. Congratulations everyone!
    
    

     

  • Emory, Mackenzie and Devin presented at the 2023 Society for Biomaterials in San Diego, CA! Emory gave her first podium talk, and Mackenzie and Devin presented posters on their MS and SURF research, respectively. Great job, everyone! 
    
    

     

  • Mackenzie very successfully defended her Master’s thesis, congratulations! After graduation she will work at AstraZeneca in DC.

    

• February
  • Emory presented her work on pancreatic cancer perineural invasion at the 2023 Gordon Research Conference Physics of Cancer in Galveston, TX. Great job, Emory!
    

• January
  • Patrick Kuczwara has joined the lab as a new PhD student in biomedical engineering. Welcome! 

2022

• December
  • Hailey has won the Honors College Research Grant! She will be investigating metabolic regulation of breast tumor innervation. Congratulations Hailey!
• November
  • Niko won Best Student Poster Award at the 2022 Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center Annual Symposium – Congratulations!
    
    
• October
  • Inha and Isabel presented at the 2022 Biomedical Engineering Society meeting in San Antonio, TX!

  • June:

    • Congratulations to Emory on passing her PhD candidacy exam! She’s our lab’s first PhD Candidate!
      

• May:
  • Congratulations to Emory on her first first-author research publication in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering! Co-authors from our lab include Inha, Niko and Reagan. Dr. Jorge Almodovar in Chemical Engineering and his student Luis are also co-authors.
• April:
  • Congratulations to Emory and Mackenzie on their presentations at the 2022 Society for Biomaterials meeting in Baltimore, MD!

2021

• December:
  • Inha presented his work on combinatorial therapeutics for spinal cord injury at the 2021 US-Korea Conference in Garden Grove, CA, and won the Best Presentation Award!
  • Gabriel attended 3D Bioprinting Open-Source Workshop at Carnegie Mellon University. He built a 3D bioprinter, which will arrive in lab early 2022!
    
  • Dr. Song is elected a member of the Early Career Editorial Board of ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering Journal. She will serve a three-year term beginning in 2022.
  • Congratulations to Devin Gerber for winning a SURF grant and Isabel Powers for Honors College Research Grant! Devin will develop in vitro models of spinal cord injury, and Isabel will investigate the role of extracellular vesicles on perineural invasion.
  • The lab had a joint holiday bash with Nelson lab, with white elephant gift exchange and gingerbread house decoration contest!
    
• October:
  • Dr. Song and Emory presented at the inaugural Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center Symposium.
    
  • First in-person conference presentations from the lab! Emory, Inha and Niko presented their work at the 2021 Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Network Meeting in Orlando, FL.
    

• September:
  • Welcome Joshua Adams, Hyunseo Seok and Alyssandra Marie Navarro! Joshua is a senior in biomedical engineering and will conduct Honors research in the lab on combinatorial therapeutics for spinal cord injury. Hyunseo and Aly are freshmen engineering students and will conduct Freshman Honors research in the lab on mechanical stimuli-mediated collagen fiber organization.
• August:
  • Welcome Noah Thompson and Isabel Powers! Noah is a new PhD student and Isabel is a junior, both in biomedical engineering.
  • Dr. Song receives funding from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute to study the effects of pancreatic cancer-derived extracellular vesicles on perineural invasion.
• July:
  • Dr. Song serves one-year term as Arkansas Chapter President of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association.
• May: 
  • Congratulations to Nathalie and Dani for winning Undergraduate Summer Research Grant Awards! Nathalie will study breast tumor microenvironment, and Dani will work on optimizing nerve repair graft fabrication. 
• March: 
  • Dr. Song is awarded an NIH R15 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study the role of fibrotic scar in spinal cord injury progression using tissue engineering strategies! Read about this from the U of A Newswire. 
• February:
  • The University of Arkansas will be establishing Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center through an NIH COBRE grant! Dr. Song will serve as one of the four Project Leaders and work on understanding the role of dysregulated breast cancer metabolism on cancer-nerve crosstalk. This exciting development is covered in the U of A Newswire article.
• January:
  • Congratulations to Reagan for winning the Undergraduate Research Award for her work on characterizing decellularized nerves for in vitro models of perineural invasion!

2020    

•  December:
  • Congratulations to Emory, Reagan and Gabriel for their first peer-reviewed publication of their review paper “The biology and engineered modeling strategies of cancer-nerve crosstalk” in BBA Reviews on Cancer!
  • Dr. Song has won the PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Grant in Drug Delivery! Read news articles about this from the U of A Newswire and Arkansas Money & Politics.
• October:
• Dr. Song gave an invited talk at the UAMS-UAF Collaborative Cancer Retreat.
• Congratulations to Emory for her first conference presentation at the 2020 Biomedical Engineering Society Virtual Annual Meeting!
• September:
• Welcome Nikolas Ala-Kokko and Mackenzie Lewis! Niko and Mackenzie are both seniors in biomedical engineering.
•  August: 
  • Dr. Song has won the Arkansas Breast Cancer Research Program Pilot Fund from the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences!
  • Welcome Inha Baek, a new PhD student in biomedical engineering! He holds a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Florida. 
• July:
  • Congratulations to Gabe for winning the University of Arkansas Honors College Research Grant!
• June: 
  • Dr. Song is awarded an equipment grant from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute! She will use the fund to purchase Malvern Panalytical NS300 NanoSight nanoparticle tracking analysis equipment.
  • Dr. Song is awarded the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund! This two-year funding will support her research with Dr. Sun-Ok Lee in Nutrition on investigating the role of vitamin B12 in breast tumor innervation. 
• May:
  • Welcome Nathalie Cedeno! She’s a rising junior in biomedical engineering.

2019   

• December: 
  • Dr. Song’s review article on nanotherapeutic strategies for spinal cord injury repair, published in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, is featured in Korean Biological Research Information Center.
• November:
  • Dr. Song is now an active associate member of the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.
  • Welcome Reagan Dugan! She’s a junior in biomedical engineering.
• September:
  • Welcome Gabriel David! He’s a junior in biomedical engineering and will be conducting his Honors research in the lab.
• August:
  • Dr. Song is now a faculty member of the UAF Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Cell & Molecular Biology.
• May:
  • Emory Gregory from Ouachita Baptist University has joined the lab as the first biomedical engineering Ph.D. student of the lab. Welcome Emory! 
• April:
  • Dr. Song has accepted an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering position at the University of Arkansas! Therapeutic Testbed Engineering Lab will open in August 2019!