The University of Minnesota and Massachusetts General Hospital have received a National Science Foundation (NSF) award to create a new Engineering Research Center (ERC). NSF awarded $26 million over five years to fund the ERC for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio). The U of M’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM) and Mass General’s Center for Engineering in Medicine and Surgery will co-lead ATP-Bio, with the administrative center at the U of M; the University of California, Riverside and University of California, Berkeley are collaborators on the project. ATP-Bio will focus on developing and deploying breakthrough bioengineering technology to preserve cells, tissues, organs, and whole organisms. A story about this grant appears on the College of Science and Engineering website: U of M and Collaborators Receive $26M for New NSF Engineering Research Center.
The director of the IEM is MSI PI John Bischof (professor, Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering). Professor Bischof has used MSI for several projects; his group is currently focusing on the use of iron oxide and gold nanoparticles to enhance thermal therapies.