April 2016
Two alumni of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s Summer Scholars program have been honored for scientific research they conducted during the 2015 program. SavannahEst, a biomedical engineering junior at the University of Washington, is one of 60 students nationwide selected to participate in the 20th annual Posters on the Hill event, a selective poster session sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research(CUR). Sarah Grebinkkov, a microbiology major at the University of Oklahoma, was awarded honorable mention in the competition.
Est, whose Summer Scholars project focused on 3D printing a trachea, worked under the mentorship of Anthony Atala, MD, Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Sean Murphy, PhD, assistant professor. At the Posters on the Hill event,she shared the work with Members of Congress, congressional staff, federal government officials, academics and other researchers.
Grebennikov’s project, conducted under research under the direction of Thomas Shupe, PhD, Assistant Professor of RegenerativeMedicine. The project focused on engineering a mini-blood vessel for a “body on a chip” system to test theeffects of biologic weapons on the body and develop potential therapies.
The goal of the Posters on the Hill event is for lawmakers to see how federal programs and dollars impact students and faculty,and to learn about the value of undergraduate research.