Tuesday, July 1 at Nau Hall
Organized and Supported by: Biomaterials Research Interest Group (RIG), awarded to Lead, Chris Highley
Lead Faculty Organizers: Chris Highley, Kyle Lampe, and Rachel Letteri
Student Organizing Committee: Geshani Bandara, Mobina Alimadad, Hadley Mosby, Nadeesani Sirinayake, and Christian Tessman
Many thanks to Angela Skubon for administrative support!
UVA Biomaterials Research Symposium
Tuesday, July 1, 2025, 8:15-4:30 p.m., Nau Hall
8:15 a.m. Breakfast
9:00 a.m. 5-min Research Group Introductions of Capabilities and Interests
5-min talk format: Faculty will introduce their lab with a lab overview slide, share techniques/approaches their lab uses, highlight one result, and share future directions they are most excited about working on with others here
Hydrogel scaffolds
9:00 Don Griffin
MAP Scaffolds: Porosity, Injectability, and Tissue Integration
9:10 Lakeshia Taite
Synthetic Extracellular Matrices for Vascular Tissue Engineering
9:20 Steven Caliari
Cell-Instructive Biomaterial Design
9:30 Phillip Taylor
Leveraging Molecular Simulations and Machine Learning to Design Smarter Soft Materials
9:40 a.m. Coffee Break
10 a.m. 5-min Research Group Introductions of Capabilities and Interests
Peptide-based biomaterials
10:00 Kyle Lampe
Dynamic peptide hydrogels and nanoarchitecture
10:10 Rachel Letteri
Chirality-directed assembly of polymer-peptide biomaterials
10:20 Camille Bilodeau
How charge modulates hydrophobicity
10:30 Nick Tshilis
Self-assembled Nanoscale Materials to Target Disease
10:40 Marcos Pires
Molecular Accumulation Across Biological Systems: Bacteria, Human Cells, and Biomolecular Condensates
10:50 a.m. Coffee Break
11:10 a.m. 5-min Research Group Introductions of Capabilities and Interests
Engineering spatially and temporally-defined biomaterials to advance biomanufacturing
11:10 Liheng Cai
Molecular architecture encoded modular biomaterials for basic and translational medicine
11:20 Chris Highley
Fibrous hydrogels for engineering vascularized tissue constructs
11:30 Rebecca Pompano
Engineered models and spatially resolved analysis of immunity in the lymph node
11:40 Lu Yu
From Lab to Clinic: Advanced Coating Solutions for Small-Diameter Grafts
11:50 George Christ
Biomaterials & Biomanufacturing for Musculoskeletal Tissue Repair
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 p.m. Poster Session A: Pompano, Caliari, Tshilis, Christ, Cai labs
2:00 p.m. New Collaboration ‘Speed Dating’
In a ‘speed dating’-like format, attendees will spend 12 minutes talking with 5 different people discussing new project possibilities. Faculty will be paired with other faculty, whereas students and postdocs will be paired with other students and postdocs.
3:15 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. Poster Session B: Letteri, Lampe, Griffin, Bilodeau, Green labs
4:30 p.m. Close
Poster easels, foam boards (36" in height and 48" wide), and tacks will be provided to mount your posters. You are welcome to bring a poster you already have or print a new one on your own.
Poster session A (1-2 p.m.): Pompano, Caliari, Tshilis, Christ, Cai labs
Poster Session B (3:30-4:30 p.m.): Letteri, Lampe, Griffin, Bilodeau, Green labs
Starting position: Your name tag will have a letter and a number on it. If yours says '3A', find a seat anywhere in the row labelled 3A, leaving 2-3 seats between you and the next person. Turn around and face the back of the room so you can talk with the person nearest you in Row 3B.
Each chat will be 12 minutes long: during this time, talk with each other about what you work on, ask a lot of questions, and think about if there is an opportunity to work together on a new project or help each other with current projects. Even if you just get the chance to tell someone else about your work and get new questions, it's a win!
Rotate when timer indicates: If you are in Row A - don't move. If you are in a B row, face the front of the room and move to your right. If you are at the rightmost end of the row, walk around to the left side.