Two HSCI faculty members receive prestigious award

December 10, 2010

Two HSCI faculty members from Brigham and Women's Hospital have been awarded the 2011 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB). Jeffrey Karp, PhD, and Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, MASc, will receive their awards at the SFB Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida in April 2011.

“This is a very humbling experience given the long legacy of this award and its previous recipients. I am very happy to share this with Prof. Jeff Karp, a great friend and colleague,” Khademhosseini said.

Each year for more than a decade, SFB has recognized young investigators from around the world who demonstrate outstanding achievement and leadership in the field of biomaterials research.The awardees are selected from a review of international nominations. Recipients, who must be within 10 years of receipt of their terminal degree (PhD or equivalent), are selected from a review of formal nominations, recommendations, and a review of their previous research and work.

“It's such a great honor. I would like to extend this award to the members of my group who are wonderful people to work with and very passionate about research. It is great to receive this along with my good friend Prof. Khademhosseini, whom I have known since graduate school,” Karp said.

Karp's research focuses on stem cell engineering biomaterials, and medical devices such as needles that sense travel through tissues, or Gecko-inspired medical adhesives - recently selected as one of Popular Mechanic's "Top 20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine.” He was also recognized in 2008 by MIT’s Technology Review magazine as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35 (TR35).

Khademhosseini, conducts research based on developing micro and nanoscale technologies to control cellular behavior with particular emphasis in developing microscale biomaterials and engineering systems for tissue engineering.