Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University
News & Events
What's happening in SITE Lab?
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.
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Sabrina published on macrophage checkpoint nanoimmunotherapies in ACS Applied Bio 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 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 doctoral students (Lucy, Kate, and Karla) and one post-doctoral student (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!