Translational Orthopaedic Research Laboratory
Part of the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University and UNC-Chapel Hill
We had a whopping 5 undergrads present at the 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium! You can read about their research in the abstract book put out by the Office of Undergraduate Research, found here (this link will download a pdf. You can also find it here then scroll down to ABSTRACT BOOK. We’re so proud of all of them.
Last weekend was graduation, and TORL was proud to have four students graduating this year — two grad students and two undergrads.
Aasim will be starting at University of Texas at Austin in the fall. He’ll be pursuing a PhD in their Biomedical Engineering, initially doing rotations with Dr. Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez and Dr. Stephanie Seidlits
Andre will be starting as a level 1 engineer with Spectrum Plastics.
Lewis will be beginning a post doc in a few weeks with Danny Freytes, who served as Lewis’s co-advisor for his PhD. He won’t be going far (in fact, the Freytes Lab is the next bench down from ours so really not far!) but we’ll still miss having him as part of our group.
Danielle is putting the final touches on her dissertation and will be defending later this summer. We’re of course very excited for her, but also glad to not be losing her quite yet!
We had two undergrads present posters at the Spring OUR (Office of Undergraduate Research) symposium. Aasim presented the latest findings from his research with Zack on using gelatin in electrospinning. Chloe presented a poster highlighting her research with Jacob from this past year looking at the role of estrogen in fibroblasts. Great job guys!
Thanks to the easing of COVID restrictions, we felt that it was time to return to the annual TORL Mini Golf Competition™! This was our fifth year of competition (technically spread over 7 years, but still). We all had one goal: bring down Matt!
We proposed that scores would be averaged across everyone with shared DNA. It seemed more than fair. Steph’s score would be averaged with… no one. Zack’s score would be averaged with… no one. Jacob and Lewis and Ricky and everyone else? Also averaged with no one. Matt’s score, however, would be averaged with his kids (who joined for the outing). Really, who can argue with that fairness? According to these new rules, Matt’s score was 57 which put him squarely in the middle of the pack.
But, alas, by the old rules, Matt won again. We didn’t even take a picture this year because, really, why bother?
But in an exciting new twist, we had two trophies this year! It was decided that the second trophy would go to the most holes in one, which was won by Steph with a terribly impressive TWO holes in one. And, really, the Ewok is the better trophy anyway.
Then we went out for Pizza. We figured it only made sense for the winner to treat everyone else– it’s the least he could do.
April is one of our favorite times of the year. The weather starts warming up, flowers start blooming, birds start chirping, and it’s the NC Science Festival! As part of the NC Science Festival, our lab participates in SciMatch which connects scientists with middle school science teachers. The scientists then visit (or, in this case, virtually visit) the school and teach classes for a day. This is TORL’s 6th year participating and 2nd time doing it virtually. We introduce the kids to our research with a hypothetical scenario where a basketball player tears her meniscus. First, we have to learn more about the injury which we do via MRI. Then, once we have a 3D image of the meniscus we can print one on the 3D printer (Activity: kids use Wikistix to try to “3D print” a meniscus). We can also use the scan to make a mold. Then we introduce them to the idea of hydrogels using Instasnow. Much goopier and much messier than actual hydrogels, but also a lot faster and more fun! Finally, we tell them about mechanical testing and then break some stuff on the Instron. It seemed to go over really well, so we may need to adapt it to an in-person format for future years.
Today Lewis passed his PhD defense. Lewis is co-advised by Matt and Danny Freytes. He did a great job explaining his recent work modeling cell-ECM interactions at the muscle-tendon junction. We’re all so proud of you Lewis!
We kicked off our engineering design unit with the 4th graders at Exploris Elementary last week. This is our fourth year working with them, and we’re very excited to be back in person! Our six “engineering challenges” were culled from the ones we’ve used in previous years, so you could almost think of it as a “best of” list.
We look forward to seeing the creative ideas that the students come up with!
We’ve had several publications this year that we’re excited to tell you about! The last few months have been especially eventful.
We have a couple other papers in review, so fingers crossed for a good start to 2022!
A few years ago several lab members got together to go to an NC State Men’s basketball game, and we had a great time. Now that sports are back, we decided to do it again this year. Sadly Matt was not able to join us, but he was there in spirit (hovering over our shoulders, so to speak) to see State crush their opponents in the historic Reynolds Coliseum.
GO PACK!
Looks like Matt’s floating disembodied head forgot his mask.
Some very cool artwork on the walls:
The court:
Looking back through the posts, it’s become apparent that we’ve neglected Halloween on this website, which does not align with our actual treatment of Halloween. We love Halloween! So, here’s a look back at the TORL Halloween costumes throughout the years.
Skip to: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021
First up, 2017: Where it All Began
For our first annual TORL Halloween (TORL-o-ween?) we decided to go as The Office.
Some Outtakes:
(and therefore first Halloween where other labs dressed up too)
In 2018 we went with a slightly less cohesive theme that gave everyone a bit of room to flex their creative muscles. Our theme was “90s Nickelodeon”.
Aka the upside-down year, or the year we did Stranger Things season 3.
In what is perhaps a disturbing metaphor for the way we’ve felt for the last ~18 months or a scathing commentary on the cutthroat world of academia (or just what everyone was watching at the time), we opted to go as characters from Squid Games. Except Steph– who has never seen the show and doesn’t want to– chose to go as 2000s-era Netflix, complete with DVD. Only somewhat relevant but everyone decided to allow it.
