Research and technology brings innovation to chemical engineering. From growing new cartilage cells to help osteoarthritus, to improving drug delivery for cancer patients, chemical engineering offers new solutions to some of our greatest societal challenges.
Spotlight Stories
NSF CAREER Award to Fight Cancer
Sidi Bencherif, assistant professor of chemical engineering, recently received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to develop biomaterials that generate oxygen. These materials could help researchers understand how low oxygen environments affect the immune system and potentially be used to supply oxygen to help train immune cells to fight cancer.
NSF CAREER Award to Address Cardiovascular Disease
Eno Ebong, assistant professor of chemical engineering, recently received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She and her team are studying endothelial cells that line blood vessels to better understand how the blood flow environment and stiffness of the underlying tissue contribute to cardiovascular disease risk.
Engineering in Action
World-Renowned Cooperative Education
Bradley Priem, BS, chemical engineering, had two co-ops that gave him the ability to delve into a particular industry. At Synlogic he was a bioanalytical chemist and bacterial engineer creating e-coli strains, and at bluebird bio he was an upstream process development engineer for gene production. He now knows he wants to go into the biotech industry and is interested in graduate school too.
Global Research Co-op
Taylor Wilde, BS chemical engineering student, worked in a research lab at École Normale Supérieure, a university in Paris. Wilde collaborated with a postdoctoral researcher to create nanomaterials using a chemical vapor deposition, or CVD, furnace. It helped him land his third co-op at GVD Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where worked again with a CVD furnace. Ultimately, Wilde wants to work in renewable energy and contribute to the efforts across the globe to lower society’s carbon footprint.
Recent News
Third COE Startup Acquired in Three Years
The Northeastern Spinout, Flaskworks, founded by former ChE Professor Shashi Murthy, was acquired in August by Northwest Biotherapeutics, a biotechnology company specializing in personalized immune therapies, for approximately $4.33 million.
Bencherif Lab Receives NSF I-Corps Teams Award
The Bencherif lab received a $50K NSF award for “Oxygen-controlling Cryogels for Cell Culture Applications” to participate in the national NSF Innovation Corps Teams program.
Faculty and Staff Awards 2020
Congratulations to all the winners of the faculty and staff awards, and to everyone for their hard work and dedication during the 2019-2020 academic school year.
Fang and Koppes Receive $2.2M NIH Award Leading to State-of-the-Art Electrophysiological Capabilities
ECE Assistant Professor Hui Fang (PI) and ChE Assistant Professor Ryan Koppes (co-PI), in collaboration with UCLA and Boston Children’s Hospital, received a $2.2M NIH grant for “Novel transparent, ultra-soft neuroelectrode arrays based on nanomeshing conventional electrode materials.”