2014 GEM Awards Honor Two Physician-Engineer Teams from UC San Diego

By Patti Wieser

NOTE: This is an overview of the entire news item, which appeared on the UC San Diego website.
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Two physician-engineer teams from UC San Diego have been selected as the 2014 recipients of the Galvanizing Engineering in Medicine (GEM) awards from the Clinical and Translational Research Institute (CTRI) and the Institute of Engineering in Medicine (IEM). GEM, a ground-breaking initiative of UC San Diego’s CTRI and IEM, supports projects that identify clinical changes for which engineering solutions can be developed and implemented to improve healthcare.

The GEM awardees are Douglas Conrad, MD, and Drew Hall, PhD, who are collaborating on an at-home monitoring device for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, and Yingxiao Wang, PhD, and Xiangdong Xu, MD, PhD, who are collaborating on molecular engineering and imaging of T cells for immunotherapy of multiple myeloma. Each team is receiving $60,000 for their research projects.

“These two projects are outstanding examples of bridging UC San Diego’s strengths in clinical care and engineering to develop innovative healthcare solutions, and show great promise for helping cystic fibrosis and multiple myeloma patients. They also reflect how CTRI’s funding by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences leverages resources and meaningful collaborations,” said Gary S. Firestein, MD, Director of CTRI.

Read the full article about the honorees and their projects.