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Spotlight
on 2009 CAREER award recipients

Ogle earns CAREER award for contributions to stem cell analysis

While a benefit of stem cells lies in their potential to develop into many cell types, that tendency to differentiate also frustrates researchers trying to study stem cells without disturbing them. “Many stimuli — whether it be mechanical, electrical, chemical — can induce this differentiation,” says Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Brenda Ogle. “Often we don’t realize we’re inducing these changes, and so the cells have to be constantly monitored. The large numbers of cells to be analyzed, and the sensitivity of stem cells to external stimuli, makes this a difficult task. ”

Brenda M. Ogle (large image)

Recipient of a 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER award, Ogle is developing stem cell analysis tools that offer researchers the flexibility to study not only individual cells, but also multicellular entities and small tissue-engineered constructs.

One technology builds on a flow cytometer, an analysis tool in which large volumes of individual cells flow quickly through a chamber. There, a laser hits the cells and reflects light that provides researchers information about physical and chemical characteristics of a cell.

Called multi-photon flow cytometry, Ogle’s technology incorporates fluidics that can handle not only single cells, but also larger, multicellular aggregates or tissue-engineered constructs. In addition, it employs multiphoton optics that enable researchers to move beyond surface analysis and probe deep within the larger cellular structures. Only one company, Union Biometrica, currently manufactures a large-particle flow cytometry system that can accommodate multicellular structures, but the system’s optics limit researchers to studying just cell surfaces.

To develop their technology, Ogle and her students drew on UW-Madison experts in optics (Biomedical Engineering and Molecular Biology Assistant Scientist Kevin Eliceiri) and microfluidics (Biomedical Engineering Professor David Beebe and Assistant Professor Justin Williams).

The team has filed a patent application for the technology — an add-on to the current cytometer — through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. With the CAREER funding, Ogle and her students plan not only to improve their proof-of-concept prototype and share it with other stem cell researchers, but also use it to study stem cell fusion processes.

Assistant Professor Brenda Ogle with PhD student Nicholas Kouris (large image)

Ogle and others are exploring the therapeutic benefits of fusing stem cells with mature cells, such as cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells. While researchers have demonstrated cell fusion in vivo and in vitro, only recently have they begun to study how this fusion occurs. “We want to know what happens to cells that undergo fusion over time, and so a nice way to analyze them in a high-throughput way is with this multi-photon flow cytometer,” says Ogle.

She and her students also hope to develop sorting capabilities for the technology, so that if they or other researchers identify cells that exhibit certain properties, they can isolate, culture and study those cells separately.

Currently, the multi-photon flow cytometer resides in the campus Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation, and she aims to make it available to a broader range of researchers both on and off campus. Her efforts may lead to a consortium that enables member companies to collaboratively generate new technologies that advance stem cell biology and help translate stem cell research into commercial products.

Draper earns CAREER award for research
in accelerating digital communications

Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Stark Draper is a computer philosopher of sorts, as evidenced by some of the questions he poses to his students: What kind of digital communication technologies are possible and what are not? What are the implications from the way we conceive and design real-world systems?

Draper sees possibilities in new architectural models for digital communications, and his work has earned him a prestigious CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

Draper’s research suggests a re-thinking of important classes of digital communication systems. Traditionally, communication systems are designed to handle data as large, discrete and unrelated units of information. However, in many modern applications — including high-quality video conferencing, wireless media streaming and wireless factory automation — data unfurls in a stream. To be useful for real-time decision-making, streaming data needs to be conveyed in a continuous and time-sensitive fashion.

Stark C Draper (large image)

“When the current architecture was originally developed, it didn’t matter if an email arrived immediately or ten minutes after it was sent,” explains Draper. “The underlying assumption of the model was that if you needed instant communication, you picked up the phone.”

Draper will redefine assumptions and design models to meet user demands for networks to handle streaming data more efficiently and reliably. In current models, when a computer sends a data packet to another computer, the latter either confirms that the packet has arrived or asks for it to be resent, and the turnaround time can be lengthy. A more efficient “conversation” between computers could increase the speed of data transfer.

Draper has already developed tools to improve this conversation and now is studying how to integrate them into both larger-scale and wireless networks. He is also working with industrial collaborators to develop an application that will test the ideas and algorithms he developed. The applications for the algorithms could be far-reaching and benefit a variety of industries that rely on sensing, communication and control.

“I’ve been fortunate to find such talented and energetic collaborators across the campus,” Draper says. “My research has been strengthened and broadened here at UW-Madison.”

Enabling cheaper, faster and more reliable digital communication is also important for a global society that is increasingly reliant on massive exchanges of information, says Draper, whose interests have led him to join the team of UW-Madison faculty members who teach InterEngineering 102: Introduction to Society's Engineering Grand Challenges. Based on challenges outlined by the National Academy of Engineering, the class aims to aims to demonstrate to students how the work of engineers is crucial to improving the quality of life around the world. Draper will begin co-teaching the course in 2010.

His work with the grand challenges course is only one of his outreach and education efforts as part of his CAREER award. At the graduate level, Draper teaches courses on information theory, error-correction coding, and statistical signal processing, and he is developing a course on large-scale statistical inference with applications in machine learning, signal processing, and communications.

Draper is also working to pique the interest of pre-collegiate students in science and engineering. He was a guest speaker at the 2009 UW-Madison Engineering Summer Program, which encourages underrepresented high school students to pursue engineering and science.