Two with BME ties receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

April 6, 2012

Jocelyn Marshall, a summer 2011 graduate of the BME master's program, and Kristine Mayle, who as an Ohio University undergraduate conducted research in a BME lab, were among the recipients of 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.

The fellowships supply three years of support in the form of $30,000 annual stipends and cost-of-education allowances of $10,500 to their current institutions.

Both students majored in chemical engineering as Ohio University undergraduates.

Marshall participated in the BME program's 4-1 option, which allowed her to accelerate her progress toward the BME master's degree. Her research advisor was Monica Burdick. Marshall is now a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering at Cornell University, where her advisor is Michael King. Currently, Marshall is investigating the colocalization of death receptors in lipid rafts and how that plays a role in induction of TRAIL-induced apoptosis of cancer cells. In the future, she hopes to investigate the effects of different stimuli (i.e., shear forces) on colocalization.

Mayle is in her second year as a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering at UCLA, where her advisor is Daniel T. Kamei. As an Ohio University undergraduate, Mayle conducted research with BME faculty members Doug Goetz and Ramiro Malgor. She received her bachelor's degree in spring 2010. Mayle's current research focuses on the use of polypeptide vesicles for drug delivery applications. Vesicles made from polypeptides represent an emerging class of drug delivery carriers that can be used to deliver payloads, such as siRNA and anti-cancer drugs, for treatment of various diseases ranging from liver cirrhosis to prostate cancer.