November 14, 2009
Four new lab members
We have had four new people join the Schaffer lab in the last couple of months. Sanket is an undergraduate who will be working with Nate to study the inflammatory response after microhemorrhages. Dong (D.K.) is an M.Eng. student who will be working with Nozomi to develop a re-openable cranial window preparation for mouse brain imaging. Steve is an undergraduate who will be working on the design and construction of our new two-photon microscope. Mujtaba is an M.Eng. student who will also be working on the new microscope. Welcome to these new lab members.
November 1, 2009
Matt Farrar’s research highlighted by Cornell Physics department
Matt’s work focuses on the development of surgical and optical techniques for studying spinal cord injury in mouse models. The physics department spotlight is available here.
September 3, 2009
Mahin Rehman joins lab
Mahin is an undergraduate in the Human Ecology college at Cornell and will work on determining the degree of and mechanisms for brain pathology following small scale stroke. Welcome to Mahin!
August 21, 2009
Schaffer’s talk at ACS meeting highlighted
Chris Schaffer gave a talk at the Biological Applications of Nonlinear Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy symposium at the American Chemical Society conference that was highlighted on the Chemical and Engineering News site.
July 13, 2009
Chris Schaffer wins NSF CAREER award
Chris has won a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. This award will support the lab’s work to develop optical techniques for targeted transfection of cells in live animals, opening the door to single-cell genetic manipulation. The award will also support continued innovation in pedagogical approaches in undergraduate biomedical engineering courses and ongoing outreach efforts by Prof. Schaffer.
June 9, 2009
Dr. Nishimura receives post-doctoral research award
Dr. Nozomi Nishimura, a postdoc in the Schaffer lab, received a L’Oréal USA Fellowship for Women in Science for ongoing work on the link between Alzheimer’s disease and small strokes. The L’Oréal USA Fellowships for Women in Science are annually awarded to 5 women scientists at the postdoctoral career stage. The fellowship offers provides funds for research and professional development career development workshops. Nozomi received her BA in Physics from Harvard University and a PhD in Physics at University of California San Diego before coming to the Schaffer lab at Cornell. She will use the L’Oréal USA fellowship grant to test the idea the blood vessel dysfunction plays a role in triggering Alzheimer’s disease. She will investigate how clot or bleeds in the smallest vessels in the brain of rodents could seed the accumulation of the amyloid-beta proteins that aggregate during Alzheimer’s disease. This work uses newly developed optical tools for the manipulation and measurement of physiology with the living brain.
Image copyright Micheline Pelletier.
May 25, 2009
Congratulations to the graduates
Joan Zhou graduated with a Master of Engineering degree in Biomedical Engineering this past weekend. Andrew Davis received a Bachelor of Science in Biology, with Honors. Congratulations to both Joan and Andrew!
April 27, 2009
John Nguyen receives SPIE student award
John Nguyen has been awarded a SPIE Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering. This award recognizes students for their long-range potential in contributing to the optics field and other relevant disciplines. John will receive his award at SPIE’s Photonics West conference in January, 2010. Congratulations to John!
