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Jordan Goebig, Communications Coordinator
2020-08-19

The Cancer Center at Illinois’ (CCIL) Tissue Microenvironment (TiMe) Graduate Program kicks off its 2020 – 2021 academic year with nine new trainees dedicated to advancing biomedical science and healthcare.

“With every new cohort of TiMe trainees comes the opportunity to explore diverse ideas, build new relationships, and closely analyze complex biological processes, ultimately strengthening cancer research at Illinois,” said Rex Gaskins, the CCIL’s Associate Director for Education.

The TiMe Program is a unique education program – partnering Illinois graduate students with a scientist mentor who advises them through research, extracurricular activities, and career development related to their field of study. TiMe trainees are enrolled in specific courses to gain an advanced understanding of tissue microenvironments and their role in influencing cell behavior, health, and disease.

Since 2016, the CCIL’s TiMe graduate program has enrolled over 30 students spanning nine campus departments. Collectively, the U of I TiMe trainees have won over 30 research-related awards and have authored over 50 scientific publications.

“Being a part of the TiME program will offer new applications for our research and will also allow us to connect more with the biology of the systems we are interested in. We are excited about the potential to use new tools and build new collaborations with researchers in TiME,” said Amy Wagoner Johnson, TiMe Program Mentor, CCIL member, and Head of the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences.

The 2020 – 2021 cohort includes:

• Chenfei Hu – advised by Gabriel Popescu, Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Yoon Jeong – advised by Joseph Irudayraj, Founder Professor in Bioengineering
• Amir Moghaddam – advised by Amy Wagoner Johnson, Professor in Mechanical Science and Engineering
• Nicholas Pino – advised by Jeff Chan, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
• Ashlie Santaliz Casiano – advised by Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Associate Professor of Nutrition
• Craig Richard – advised by Rohit Bhargava, Founder Professor in Bioengineering
• Jason Wang – advised by Roy Dar, Assistant Professor in Bioengineering, and Hyunjoon Kong, Robert W. Schaefer Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Samantha Zambuto – advised by Brendan Harley, Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Maria Zeballas Castro – advised by Thomas Gaj, Assistant Professor in Bioengineering

TiMe trainees receive a stipend through the program. The TiMe Program is supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health.

2020-05-04

Taher Saif, Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering, and students Onur Aydin and Bashar Emon are testing common household fabrics to better inform those making homemade masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19. “The droplets released during coughing and sneezing come in various sizes and velocities. The fabric for any mask should be breathable and impermeable to high- and low-velocity droplets,” said Saif.

The study found that breathable materials, such as t-shirt fabric, are good options for homemade masks. Find out more and watch videos of the tests.

2020-03-26

Sisi He, PhD Candidate in Molecular and Integrative Physiology, will be defending her thesis, “The Impact of Cholesterol and Its Metabolites on the Ovarian Tumor Microenvironment and Cancer Progression” April 6, 2020, at 3:00 p.m.

Sisi is a student in CCIL’s Cancer Scholars for Translational and Applied Research program and the Tissue Microenvironment program. She was also in the 2019 Illini 4000 team, which bikes across the country and supports cancer research and awareness.

Read more about her studies in an interview with us and join her online defense by Zoom.

Carlos Renteria
2019-04-26

The TiMe Cohort hosted the third-annual Tissue Microenvironment (TiMe) Symposium on April 26, 2019 at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. This year over 90 participants across 15 departments from the University of Illinois participated to share the diverse research related to the tissue microenvironment.. Several faculty members provided research talks spanning biomechanics, molecular imaging, cancer, and other aspects of the microenvironment. Prof. Dennis Discher from the University of Pennsylvania served as keynote speaker, and Prof. Rashid Bashir, Dean of The Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois provided the lunchtime talk. Four plenary talks were presented by Illinois faculty members Stephen A. Boppart, Shuming Nie, Wawosz Dobrucki, and Amy Waggoner Johnson. The TiMe T32 scholars presented three-minute lightning talks to showcase the myriad of inquiries the current cohort is actively researching. The session was concluded with a poster session featuring 25 posters. Profs. Marina Marjanovic, Gregory Underhill, Marni Boppart, John Erdman, Jeff Chan, and Rex Gaskins worked together to select the three winners for the poster session. The winners for the best poster awards were Luke Akin, Anuj Yadav, and Mai Ngo.

Paloma Pearson
2019-03-27

TiMe students had the opportunity to interact with guest speaker Dr. Cyrus Ghajar of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Ghajar’s work forcuses on the metastatic microenvironment and the goal of his research is to understand how microenvironments within distant tissues regulate dormancy and growth of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs), and whether these niches convey chemoresistance to dormant DTCs. Students had the privilege of going to dinner with Dr. Ghajar before attending his seminar hosted by the Molecular and Integrative Physiology Department the following day.

Paloma Pearson
2019-03-20

Students from the Tissue Microenvironment (TiMe) program participated in the Beckman Institute’s biannual open house. Visitors had the opportunity to explore the research occurring at Beckman in conjunction with the annual Engineering Open House. The TiMe cohort and ENVISION gave visitors a chance to utilize 3D pens to build their own artistic pieces including snowflakes, animals, glasses, and a house.

Paloma Pearson
2019-03-27

TiMe students had the opportunity to interact with guest speaker Dr. Cyrus Ghajar of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Ghajar’s work forcuses on the metastatic microenvironment and the goal of his research is to understand how microenvironments within distant tissues regulate dormancy and growth of disseminated tumor cells (DTCs), and whether these niches convey chemoresistance to dormant DTCs. Students had the privilege of going to dinner with Dr. Ghajar before attending his seminar hosted by the Molecular and Integrative Physiology Department the following day.

Paloma Pearson
2019-03-20

Students from the Tissue Microenvironment (TiMe) program participated in the Beckman Institute’s biannual open house. Visitors had the opportunity to explore the research occurring at Beckman in conjunction with the annual Engineering Open House. The TiMe cohort and ENVISION gave visitors a chance to utilize 3D pens to build their own artistic pieces including snowflakes, animals, glasses, and a house.

2019-02-01

Announcement originally from BioEngineering:

Parinaz Fathi, a doctoral student in Professor Dipanjan Pan’s research group, has been selected to participate in the 2019 Science of Signatures Advanced Studies Institute at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) this spring. This highly selective, three-week program brings 15 accomplished Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers from around the country together to work in multi-disciplinary teams to generate novel, creative solutions to pressing national security problems. The participants also build the skills needed for successful research program development at national laboratories and in academia. Fathi’s research focuses on translational medicine applications of biomaterials and nanomaterials.

Program Description

2018-10-05

TiMe students had the opportunity to interact with Dr. Kirti Kulkarni of the University of Chicago’s Cancer Center. Dr. Kulkarni provided them an in-depth understanding of the day-to-day interactions of a radiologist with patients and physician colleagues, and also discussed the complexities of radiological reading. There were conversations and discussions of improvements in radiological and pathological software, and how bioengineering and bioinformatics impact the understanding of disease progressing. Questions arose about how cancer metastasizes to different areas of the body, how to try and understand the differences between each patient diagnosis, and overall the understanding, processes, and collaboration that occurs to care and treat patients.