Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University
2025
Publications
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Sabrina and Lucy's review on tissue engineering opportunities to model dormancy in metastatic cancer is out now in Tissue Engineering Part B!
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Claudia's paper showing why Gulf War veterans still continue to suffer from gut health issues is out in Biology Open! Her first person interview is also an inspiring read for how she shaped this work!
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Abbie's paper in AACR Molecular Cancer Research demonstrated that peristalsis mechanics of the colon drove cancer progression, but only if the cancer cells have a mutation in the KRAS oncogene! This work also had an editorial shoutout!
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Abbie contributed to work from Dr. Amber Stratman's lab, on Piezo1 activation in blood vessel mechanobiology in the European Journal of Cell Biology!
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First year graduate student Karla Ortega contributed to work from Dr. Vlad Yakovlev's lab to use Brillouin micro-spectroscopy to evaluate mechanics of enteric glia, out as an SPIE conference proceeding!
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Undergrad alum Del Donehoo contributed to work from Dr. Bala Haridas' lab to evaluate immune responses to magnesium alloy wires in surgical staples, out as a conference proceeding from the 2025 ASME Design of Medical Devices conference!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan and Dr. Erika Moore publish their findings and a call to action in Cell Med: ElevateHER: Engineering a New Era in Women's Health!
Awards & Milestones
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel won an award to attend the National Academies workshop on Cancer Engineering!
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel is an "Emerging Star" at the ACS Rockstars of Regenerative Engineering Symposium in Summer 2025!
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Karla Ortega was awarded a travel grant to attend SFB 2025!
- Dr. Raghavan was named a Rising Star by the CMBE (Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering) SI
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Claudia Collier was invited to attend a showcase at Eli Lilly, as part of her Scientist Mentorship and Diversity program!
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Dr. Raghavan won the Young Faculty Fellow Award from the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan was granted promotion and tenure at Texas A&M University, and will soon be Associate Professor!
Presentations
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel presented her research at the National Academies workshop on Cancer Engineering in Summer 2025!
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel presented (and won an award) at the Society for Biomaterials on engineering dormancy in colorectal cancer using decellularized extracellular matrix biomaterials!
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Karla Ortega presented her work on testing therapeutics for gut health, and our new work on tissue engineering the uterine myometrium at SFB 2025!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan presented the plenary award lecture at SFB 2025 for her work on founding and establishing the UNITE Future Faculty Fellows program!
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Dr. Astha Lamichhane presented a poster at the Core Facility Showcase across the Texas A&M System to highlight how we democratize technologies invented in the Raghavan Lab for broad use across the Gulf Coast Consortium!
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Lucy Nash and Astha Lamichhane presented posters at the Annual CPRIT Regional Excellence Center in Cancer Research Symposium in Spring!
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Dr. Raghavan presented her year-long educational research project at the Innovative Teaching Fellowship showcase in May 2025! She will continue to refine her project over the next year.
Funding
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded an NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development R21 grant to study how the mechanics of the uterus change in postpartum hemorrhage and pre-term birth!
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded an NSF CAREER award to investigate the fundamental effect of uterine mechanics on cells in the uterus, and create education and outreach programs related to Women's Health!
Other News
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The Raghavan lab grows! We are welcoming an incoming first year graduate student Abigail McCollum from the University of Oklahoma!
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Raghavan lab trainees lead yet another successful year of AggieSTEM K-12 summer camps!
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Dr. Raghavan co-organized a Women's Health in Engineering panel at SFB, bringing together physicians and industry experts to talk about pressing problems in biomaterials research!
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Dr. Raghavan co-founded a Health Equity special interest group within SFB, and co-founded the Women's Health Engineering special interest group within BMES!
2024
Publications
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Sabrina's paper on macrophage checkpoint immunotherapy was published in ACS Applied Bio Materials.
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Abbie's review paper on macrophage mechanobiology was published into Cell (Trends in Biotechnology).
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Abbie and her team of undergraduates published a review on cancer mechanobiology in APL Bioengineering . They made the journal cover!
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Sabrina contributed to a study on evaluating immunomodulation of electrospun decellularized extracellular matrix scaffolds from Elizabeth Cosgriff Hernandez's lab, in Bioactive Materials!
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Abbie and Arpita contributed to a study on using granular hydrogel scaffolds to deliver neural progenitor cells from Danny Alge's lab in Advanced Healthcare Materials!
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Claudia's review paper on the potential of bioengineering in Gulf War Illness was published in the Journal of Military Medial Research.
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Del and Claudia published their findings on macrophage‐facilitated healing in aneurysm occlusion devices in Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials.
Awards & Milestones
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel won best poster award during the 2024 graduate research symposium at Texas A&M University!
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Lucy Nash won the TAMU Horizons Fellow!
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Karla Ortega Sandoval won the T32 Fellowship!
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Kate Maier won the TAMU engineering Merit Fellow!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan won the prestigious Innovative Teaching Fellowship at Texas A&M!
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Arpita Mohapatra successfully graduated with her Masters of Science!
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Dr. Abbie Clevenger is the first to graduate as a Ph.D. student in the Raghavan Lab!
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel has won a GSA Travel Award!
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Claudia Collier is a doctoral candidate!
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Claudia Collier was selected for the 2024 Science Mentoring and Diversity Program fellowship!
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Dr. Abbie Clevenger won the BME Outstanding Graduate Student Award!
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Claudia Collier won the BME Graduate Student Exceptional Service Award!
Presentations
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel presented a rapid fire talk on macrophage tumor interactions at 2024 Society for Biomaterials Southwest Regional; and Dr. Abbie Clevenger and Claudia Collier presented posters!
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Claudia Collier presented her work on enteric neural stem cell repairment in Gulf War illness at Digestive Disease Week in Washington D.C!
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Dr. Abbie Clevenger presented her work on KRAS mutations role in peristalsis as a featured "Future Leaders of Mechanobiology" at CMBE.
Funding
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded an NSF Conference grant to support the ElevateHER conference (Engineering Innovations in Women's Health Discovery) by the CBET division!
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded an CDMRP DOD Award to fund our potential therapeutics for Gulf War illness!
Other News
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The Raghavan lab grows! We welcomed three new graduate students (Lucy, Kate, and Karla) and one post-doctoral fellow (Astha)!
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The ElevateHER Conference was a success, led by Dr. Shreya Raghavan and Dr. Erika Moore!
2023
Publications
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Abbie and her team of undergraduates published their findings on how peristalsis mechanics push colorectal cancer progression in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.
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Sabrina and Dillon publish on breast cancer lung metastasis using engineered lung biomatrices in Science Advances.
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Claudia publishes her findings on Gulf War Illness in Advanced Biology.
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Abbie and Sabrina developed methods to test biocompatibility of liquid crystal elastomers, published in Biomaterials.
Awards & Milestones
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel was awarded a Collaboration & Community Engagement Abstract Award at the Drexel University Immune Modulation and Engineering Symposium!
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Aelita Salikhova won the Wanda & Jack McMahan ‘43 Scholarship!
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Abbie Clevenger was awarded the US Senator Phil Gramm Doctoral Fellowship!
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Claudia Collier was awarded the NDSEG Fellowship through the Army Research Office!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan was awarded the BMES Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award!
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel won the Best Podium Presentation Award at GRS 2023!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan has been named a finalist for the Scientific American Cancer Community Awards!
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Undergrads Joy Chen and Sameera Dabbiru won an Undergraduate Summer Research Grant!
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel and Claudia Collier have received GSA Travel Awards to attend BMES!
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Dr. Shreya Raghavan has been named a Young Innovator by the BMES-CMBE Journal!
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel and Abbie Clevenger are doctoral candidates!
Presentations
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel gave a talk on her work on ovarian cancer nano-immunotherapy at the Drexel Immune Modulation and Engineering Symposium in Philadelphia!
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Abbie Clevenger gave a talk at the Gordon Research Conference Physics of Cancer in Galveston.
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Graduate students Claudia Collier and Abbie Clevenger gave talks at the annual BMES meeting in Seattle, Sabrina presented a poster!
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Dr. Raghavan gave the Rita Schaffer plenary lecture at BMES on Oct. 14.
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Dr. Raghavan gave a research talk in the CMBE Young Innovators special session.
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Joy Chen presented her undergraduate research through the Undergraduate Summer Research Grant symposium.
Funding
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded an NIH R37 MERIT Award to fund our colorectal cancer liver metastasis work!
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded a CPRIT Texas Regional Excellence in Cancer to establish a center for cancer research at Texas A&M!
2022
Publications
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Abbie and Sabrina published a book chapter - "The Intersection of Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering and Immuno-Oncology"
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Sabrina published an expert review describing nanomedicine applications to target proteases in ovarian cancer in International Journal of Molecular Sciences
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Dr. Raghavan published a perspective on how inclusive bioengineered cancer models are in Disease Models and Mechanisms
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Sarah Chau published the lab's first quantified immune response metrics to implantable devices in the SFB journal of Biomedical Materials Research B
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Abbie published her first research paper describing the peristalsis bioreactor in Cells Tissues Organs
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With collaborators at Wash U- St Louis, we published new ways to adapt peristaltic pumps for vascular laminar flow in the Journal of Biologic Chemistry
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Dr. Raghavan and Dr. Walsh published the findings of a DEI activity for the undergraduate classroom in Biomedical Engineering Education
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Dr. Raghavan developed an educational toolkit for inclusive biomaterials pedagogy, published in Biomedical Engineering Education.
Awards & Milestones
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Sabrina VandenHeuvel was named a national finalist for the PEO Scholar Award!
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Claudia Collier received an Honorable Mention on her NSF GRFP!
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Undergrad Vibha Sheshadri is awarded the Undergraduate Excellence in Research Award
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Undergrads Del Donehoo and Anirudh Madyastha won an Undergraduate Summer Research Grant!
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Dr. Raghavan was awarded the Center for Teaching Excellence Montague Scholars Award, for excellence in undergraduate teaching.
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Dr. Raghavan was named an Emerging Leader in Biological Engineering by the Journal of Biological Engineering!
Presentations
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Graduate students Claudia Collier, Abbie Clevenger, Sabrina VandenHeuvel and Valentina Garcia gave presentations at BMES about their research and STEM Outreach!
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Grad student Sabrina VandenHeuvel presented her ovarian cancer metastasis research at the annual Society for Biomaterials meeting in Baltimore.
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Dr. Raghavan gave a talk at the CMBE Meeting, and gave several seminars nation-wide.
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Undergrads Del and Anirudh presented their research at Student Research Week
Funding
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The Raghavan lab was awarded a grant from Shape Memory Medical Inc to evaluate immunocompatibility of their aneurysm occlusion devices.
Other News
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Arpita Mohapatra joined the Raghavan Lab as a PhD Student!
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Several of our undergraduates graduated and went on to take up industry positions!
2021
Publications
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We were working really hard as we recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic on our scientific stories! Stay tuned for more science updates in 2021!
Fellowships and Awards
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Abbie received an Honorable Mention on her Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship!
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Dr. Raghavan received a Young Investigator Award from the journal Cells Tissues Organs.
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Dr. Raghavan and colleagues received an Honorable Mention on an essay to reimagine biomedical science through the Health Research Alliance and PLoS One
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Claudia Collier won the Aviles-Johnson Fellowship at Texas A&M University, and joined the Raghavan Lab!
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Presentations
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Abbie presented her work at the CMBE Annual Meeting in Indian Wells, CA
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Dr. Raghavan gave a talk at the Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation conference on evaluating in vitro immunocompatibility for implantable devices.
Funding
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The Raghavan lab was awarded an NIH R21 from the National Cancer Institute to study and model perineural invasion in colorectal cancers
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The Raghavan lab was awarded a CPRIT Core Facility Grant to establish a Microphysiologic Lead Optimization and Toxicity Screening Core - this core services the entire Gulf Coast Consortium in their quest to find new therapeutics to fight cancer.
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The Raghavan lab was awarded a CDMRP Gulf War Illness Idea Award to ask why Gulf War veterans have impaired neural function in their guts.
Other News
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Claudia Collier joined the Raghavan Lab as a PhD Student and Aviles-Johnson Fellow!
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Logan, our very first grad student, graduated and got a job with Alcon!
2020
Publications
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We published our first paper outlining the importance of new nanomedicine approaches to target liver metastatic cancers.
Fellowships and Awards
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THE RAGHAVAN LAB OPENED ITS DOORS IN JANUARY 2020!
Presentations
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Logan presented his first virtual poster at BMES on a new design for a peristalsis bioreactor!
Funding
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The Raghavan lab was awarded its first funding from the Kaplan Gynecologic Cancer Fund through Houston Methodist Hospital!
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The Raghavan lab was awarded a pilot grant through the T3 Triads for Transformation mechanism at Texas A&M University.
Other News
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Logan Crawford was our first ever graduate student!
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Abbie Clevenger and Sabrina VandenHeuvel joined as our first ever PhD students!