GAG-based Biomaterials for Protein Delivery
and Stem Cell Differentiation

Johnna Temenoff's (Ph.D.) presentation will summarize her laboratory’s work in developing a family of glycosaminoglycan (GAG)-based biomaterials with varying levels of affinity to positively-charged proteins.  In particular, the versatility of these materials to modulate cellular response to soluble cues will be highlighted. Her lab's in vitro results suggest that GAG biomaterials affect progenitor cell differentiation towards a chondrocytic phenotype, and that this may be exploited in controlled ways to direct differentiation of stem cells to achieve maximal healing of orthopaedic defects. Moreover, strong affinity interactions may be used to sequester endogenous signals and therefore better control timing of cellular differentiation. This presentation will also summarize the development of these materials as in vivo protein delivery vehicles, including how GAG sulfation pattern promotes tunability of release kinetics for a wide range of injury types.

Biomedical Big Data Analytics for Personalized,
Predictive, and Precision Health

May Dongmei Wang, Ph.D., will highlight major challenges in biomedical data analytics pipeline consisting of data quality control, information feature extraction, advanced knowledge modeling, decision making, and proper action taking through feedback.  Second, she will present utilization of data analytic for 5-P health (e.g. histopathological imaging informatics for improving clinical decision support; next gene sequencing data analytics for improving medical genomics; and Electronic Health Record (EHR) data quality control and mining for improving patient care quality). Third, she will discuss new directions in biomedical big data analytics such as standard, and integrating genomics into EHR. Currently, there is shortage of data engineers who are capable of analyzing Biomedical Big Data for healthcare stakeholders (i.e. patients, physicians, payers, and hospitals). She will also share Biomedical Data Analytics MOOC development.