September 21, 2006

Honors

Luis Amaral, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, has been named a Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research by the W.M. Keck Foundation. He is one of five recipients of the award nationally and will receive up to $1 million over five years.

The award, made to Northwestern to support Amaral’s work, will support his research using computational methods to identify and map patterns in the growing “sea” of complex biological information. These maps hold promise for guiding drug designs that can cure diseases while avoiding unwanted side effects. His research has the potential to greatly decrease the amount of time and money spent in drug development.

Amaral, a physicist with expertise in computer-based modeling, is a member of the executive committee of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. His research covers numerous areas within the field of complex systems, with a recent focus on the characterization of complex biological networks.

Guillermo Ameer, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering whose research could ultimately play an important role in reconstructive knee surgery, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation, the agency’s most prestigious award for new faculty members.

Ameer will receive $400,000 over a five-year period from the NSF in support of his project titled “Biodegradable Elastomeric Composite Scaffolds for Ligament Reconstruction.”

His research focuses on developing new biomaterials for tissue and organ replacement. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is the most commonly injured ligament in the knee, resulting in at least 150,000 reconstructive surgeries each year in the United States and health care costs in the billions of dollars. The number of procedures is expected to grow due to a significant rise in the aging population and the increased prevalence of sports-related trauma.

Ameer also recently received one of 10 grants awarded for the first time by the State of Illinois to fund adult stem cell research.

Clarke L. Caywood, associate professor in the Medill School of Journalism’s integrated marketing communications (IMC) program, has been elected to the board of directors of the Aidmatrix Foundation. The foundation provides information technology for humanitarian purposes for 35,000 charities on six continents. 

Caywood helped create the internationally known IMC program and is its former chair. He now directs Medill’s graduate program in public relations and teaches graduate classes in crisis management, communications management, marketing and public relations.

In 1999 PRWeek named Caywood one of the most influential 100 PR people of the 20th century and, in 2000, one of the top 10 outstanding educators.

A sought-after speaker on the use of databases for media and print tracking for public relations and marketing, Caywood has addressed business and government audiences throughout the world.

He is editor of the best-selling “Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Communications” (McGraw-Hill, 1997).

Navdeep Chandel, assistant professor of medicine and of cell and molecular biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, has been awarded the prestigious 2006 Anthony Linnane Young Investigator Award by the Mitochondrial Research Society.

Chandel is also on the faculty of the Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences at the Feinberg School.

Chandel is interested in deciphering how cells sense a decrease in oxygen levels. All multicellular organisms consume oxygen during mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. If the level of cellular oxygen falls below a critical threshold, mitochondrial ATP production ceases, and the cells begin a spiraling descent culminating in their demise. ATP is adenosine triphosphate, the energy currency of cells.

Bartosz Grzybowski, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, has been named a 2006 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of California at San Francisco. The award provides $240,000 in research support over four years.

Grzybowski’s research focuses on the development of new drugs and the experimental tools used to facilitate the practice of drug discovery. He is particularly interested in bioactive small molecules targeting cytoskeletal machinery and the motility of cells. The long-term objective of his research is to develop new chemotherapies preventing cancerous cells from acquiring a tissue-invasive, directional motility phenotype leading to metastasis, the major cause of mortality in cancer patients.

In addition to the Pew award, Grzybowski recently received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.