Rowan fair previews future of medicine

GLASSBORO - No tabletop volcanoes spewed foam Friday at the student center. And no one showed up with foam balls painted and strung together to model the solar system.

When Rowan University throws a science fair, it's based on months of research with the end goal of a real-world application.

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In the 19th annual STEM Symposium, more then 170 teams — a mix of undergraduate and graduate students and faculty researchers — unveiled projects with the potential to transform biomedical engineering, a growing field at the South Jersey school.

Only a small number of biomedical engineering projects were showcased when the research sector was first introduced at the symposium.

Now biomedical research teams are a major part of the symposium, presenting ideas on drug delivery systems, 3-D printed implants and flower extracts that may slow cancer cell growth.

Three research groups are working on complimentary projects related to 3-D printed implants, including a delivery system for antibiotics to prevent and treat infections related to implants.

Mechanical engineering professor Shivakumar Ranganathan is overseeing work by a team testing the best materials to use for the implant's structure. The 3-D printed object — used for knee replacements, for instance — must be durable, but less rigid than the hard implants currently used.

A second team is developing a delivery system for antibiotics dispensed through the implant. This team, Ranganathan explained, must sort out if an antibiotic reservoir in the piece the first team has designed and tested would be the best delivery method for the drug, or if the implant should be printed out of material that contains an antibiotic.

A third team is testing the effectiveness of the antibiotics, Ranganathan said.

"We want to improve the quality of patients recovering from orthopedic trauma," he said. "The idea is to bring this to market."

Junior chemical engineers Kacie Carlin and Freha Tahir are working on contact lenses that would continuously release glaucoma medication to the eye. The women have worked with lenses for rabbits. The team found it could increase the time glaucoma medication is present in the eye by adding chemicals to the contact lens that would hold on to the medicine.

They discovered a way to keep an antihistamine in the eye for 24 hours. By comparison, soaking a standard lens with the medication maintains drug levels in the eye for 10 hours. Eye drops, the current delivery method for most glaucoma drugs, keep medication in the eye for two hours before reapplication.

Carlin hopes the extended release formula for the lens would help elderly glaucoma patients who may, through dementia or Alzheimer's, forget to reapply their medication, which slows the progression of blindness from the disease.

"We're not just doing science for fun. We're trying to help people," Carlin said. "It is fun, though."

Carly Q. Romalino; (856) 486-2476; cromalino@gannettnj.com