In the seventh iteration of the prestigious Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Award, six women were selected from more than 520 applications representing over 60 countries. These female researchers will receive $150,000 in funding and three years of mentorship from Johnson & Johnson for their groundbreaking and inspiring research in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Manufacturing and Design (STEM2D) fields. These women are working on everything from smart diabetes trackers to the advancement of printable manufacturing materials and they continue to inspire future generations of female STEM2D talent to come.
The mechanism of action of topoisomerases
Laura Baranello, Ph.D.
Karolinska Institutet (Solna, Sweden)
What she’s working on
One of the major challenges of chemotherapy is to find drugs able to better differentiate between cancer cells and fast-growing healthy cells. This would increase the quality of life of cancer patients by improving side effects stemming from the treatment. Using a combination of genomic, molecular biology and drug screen approaches, Baranello studies the mechanism of the protein topoisomerase, which is targeted in several types of chemotherapy. Baranello has discovered that the activity of topoisomerase is boosted by other proteins, an effect that, in turn, promotes the fast growth of cancer cells. “This opens the way for new strategies that knock out cancer cells, but spare healthy ones.”
What is the most interesting/coolest part of your research?
“In our studies we found that the MYC oncoprotein, which is responsible for the development of many cancers, boosts the activity of the topoisomerase to accelerate cellular proliferation. Once we have defined the underlying mechanism, we will be one step closer to developing selective anticancer therapeutics toward tumors driven by MYC. Considering that drugging MYC has been historically challenging, our work might provide a new platform for the treatment of many tumors.”
Transdermal diabetes tracker
Mahla Poudineh, Ph.D.
University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)
What she’s working on
Poudineh’s lab employs cutting-edge engineering solutions to tackle critical challenges in the fields of life science and medicine via advancing two key technologies: microfluidics and microneedles. The lab has developed microfluidic platforms to uncover crucial biological insights pertaining to diabetes and cancer, while their hydrogel microneedle devices introduce a first-of-its-kind platform for the development of polymeric, flexible wearable sensors suitable for minimally invasive monitoring of patients’ health conditions in point- of-care settings.
What is the most interesting/coolest part of your research?
“The big goal of our research is to create platforms that help enrich patient quality of life,” Poudineh says. “Our technologies, such as Miniaturized Artificial Pancreas Device or Diabetes Tracker can be readily used by patients while providing improved disease management. We aim to bring our technologies to the healthcare and biomedical technologies markets.”
Metal-organic framework nanochannels/membrands for io and molecular separation
Huacheng Zhang, Ph.D.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Melbourne, Australia)
What are you working on?
“Membranes are an excellent candidate for efficient separation applications,” says Zhang. “They have been widely used for various separation processes, including microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. But if we can design membranes of specific selectivity toward a single substance, it could make the separation process more efficient and environmentally friendly. For example, we can extract high-value lithium ions from brines and seawater directly by lithium-selective membranes to replace conventional chemical-intensive separation processes.” She continues, “Learning from natural ion channels, I am interested in designing membranes with biomimetic structures and functionalities for efficient, valuable ion extraction and recycling.” Although some initial studies demonstrated the possibility, scaling up membranes for industrial separation applications is challenging. Once she and her team work out new membrane-based lithium separation technologies, they may be able to switch lithium mining industry.
What is the most interesting/coolest part of your research?
“Lithium ion-selective membrane is a vital example to show the feasibility of single-ion-selective membranes to greener the separation process,” Zhang says. “Considering the number of ion species in seawater and wastewater, if we can achieve specific selectivity of all these ions by membranes, no wastes will be generated during water desalination and treatment processes, enabling a sustainable water industry future.”
New ways to gain information from functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) that indicates the subjects’ susceptibility to develop Alzheimer’s Disease in the future
Amanda Mejia, Ph.D.
Indiana University (Indiana, USA)
What are you working on?
“Functional neuroimaging technologies like functional MRI (fMRI) offer an unprecedented way to study how the brain works in-vivo without being invasive,” says Mejia. “Being able to gather a snapshot of how someone’s brain is functioning in real time opens up incredible clinical possibilities. We might be able to identify risk levels for Alzheimer’s disease and begin early interventions or determine whether someone is responding to a drug or distinguish difficult-to-diagnose diseases like ALS. What’s standing in our way is the fact that the data, which is noisy and large, is very difficult to analyze in a way that produces accurate, sensitive biomarkers in individuals. There are ways to combat this, like collecting hours of data on an individual, but that is typically not practical or even possible. My work focuses on developing sophisticated statistical models that can produce accurate biomarkers from functional neuroimaging data, while being fast and easy to use in clinical settings. With my scientific and clinical collaborators, one of my main goals right now is developing a functional MRI-based biomarker for Alzheimer’s that could serve as a noninvasive and relatively inexpensive first-line screening method before more invasive technologies like PET are used.”
What is the most interesting/coolest part of your research?
“We are just beginning to scratch the surface of the clinical value of functional MRI. There is good evidence at this point that the brain signals it measures have clinical value. But we have not had the ability to extract those brain signals with sufficient precision to make clinical decisions. That is starting to change with recent advances in image acquisition and more advanced statistical and computational models. The possibilities are tremendous with the right tools. I am excited to be developing tools that could advance the use of fMRI clinically over the next 10 to 15 years.”
Multi-material additive micromanufacturing to bridge human and machine
Ximin He, Ph.D.
University of California, Los Angeles (California, USA)
What are you working on?
The emerging demand for ever-smaller and softer devices that merge machine with human pose the next-level challenges to modern manufacturing. He works on enabling an unconventional additive micro-manufacturing system to 3D-print a broad range of materials from polymers to metals on a single platform, at record-setting high resolution.
What is the most interesting/coolest part of your research?
“The human-machine interfacing systems represent the unification of high complexity and high precision with multimaterial fabrication. Currently, no single micromanufacturing system can handle such a broad range of materials, let alone integrate them at micro/nanoscale high resolution in a compatible way. The UCLA He group harnesses their pioneering material-processing expertise to enrich the reproterior of printable materials to embody all major material types from polymers to metals and push the resolution limit to nanometer level. This research has the potential to revolutionize the global manufacturing industries of printed circuit boards, microelectronics, soft robotics, point-of-care techniques and various personal healthcare devices, becoming widely accessible for the general public.”
From implants to buildings: optimizing life sciences’ biomaterials into architectural components for healthier construction
Laia Mogas-Soldevila, Ph.D.
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA (Pennsylvania, USA)
What she’s working on
Laia’s research focuses on regenerative material practices bridging science, engineering and the arts. She builds scholarship for materials design critique, and translates biomedical materials used in implants, drug delivery and tissue scaffolding into robust materials for use in products and architectural design that nurture both humans and the planet. Her interdisciplinary research areas push forward biomaterials science for nonmedical applications, inclusive and equitable materials sourcing, growth-like large-scale and ambient conditions manufacturing and new policy and testing for biocomposites in consumer products and the built environment.
What is the most interesting/coolest part of your research?
“Some of our objects and structures carry an element of surprise as they exhibit unprecedented material capabilities. By harnessing biomaterial’s ability to sense and react to the environment, we can re-program the chemistry of our designs, which would be impossible with traditional materials such as plastic, concrete or steel. For instance, we build canopies that change color with radiation, sand blends that self-assemble, partitions that deliver aromas, leathers that compost, scarfs that diagnose or fashion that self-ruffles.”
