Leanne recently presented her work titled: The effect of extracellular matrix properties on polarized light-based analysis of collagen fiber alignment in soft tissues at the SPIE Photonics West Conference. Her strong work was rewarded with the best student paper in this sub conference (Polarized Light and Optical Angular Momentum for Biomedical Diagnostics 2022) within Photonics […]
Congratulations to alum Dr. Alex Reiter on winning a 2022 NIRA (New Investigator Research Award) award. This award was recently announced at the 2022 Annual Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) meeting in Tampa, Florida.
Congratulations to Leanne Iannucci on receiving an ON Foundation Grant to attend the annual Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) meeting in Tampa, Florida. Leanne is a 5th year PhD Candidate and will be giving a talk examining how different tendon-related ECM properties influence polarized light measurements of collagen alignment.
Leanne Iannucci, a 5th year PhD candidate in the lab was awarded an SPIE student travel award to attend the Photonics West conference in San Fransisco, California. At Photonics West she will be giving a presentation based off her accepted abstract; The effect of extracellular matrix properties on polarized light-based analysis of collagen fiber alignment […]
On December 6th 2021 Jeremy successfully defended his PhD Thesis. For the past several years Jeremy has been working in the Lake Lab studying the role of elastic fibers in tendon. Post graduation Jeremy joined the Soslowsky group at the University of Pennsylvania as a Lab Manager/ Research Specialist. We look forward to seeing the […]
Congrats to Dr. Lake as being elected as a Fellow of the American society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), joining an elite group of fewer than 3,500 Fellows! We are proud to call Spence our PI and can’t wait for many more years of success! Please read the entire Mckelvey School of Engineering article here.
The university recently published an article highlighting class acts in research. Our very own Alex Reiter was one of several researchers interviewed for this article. Check out the university’s article here. Thanks for being such a wonderful asset to our lab Alex!
Congratulations to Alex Reiter on successfully defending his PhD thesis. Alex has spent the past several years investigating the effects of physical therapy in hopes of reducing post-traumatic joint contracture in the elbow. Alex is headed to the University of Wisconsin Madison for a 2-year post-doc position. Good luck Dr. Reiter!
The lab has secured a new NSF grant to investigate the mechanical role of elastic fibers in tendons. With collaborator Robert Mecham the lab will using imaging techniques to study tissues which lack elastic fibers to observe the impact on mechanics. For the full story published by WashU Engineering please click here.
The Lake lab recently secured a grant from the Musculoskeletal Research Center at Washington University School of Medicine. With this funding the lab will look to better understand post traumatic joint contracture using machine learning. To see the complete article from WUSLT engineering, click here.
On Friday April 10th 2020 Griffin Kivitz successfully presented his master’s thesis. Griffin did a wonderful job presenting the work he has done on the hernia box over a zoom meeting. We congratulate Griffin on his success and look forward to seeing what the future holds for him!
On Tuesday March 31st 2020 Chelsey Dunham officially defended her thesis to become Dr. Chelsey Dunham. Chelsey did a wonderful job presenting her work via Zoom with over 50 colleagues, friends and family watching. We look forward to seeing Dr. Dunham succeed in her next chapter. Congratulations!
The Lake lab challenged all of our colleagues and their labs to donate any excess PPE during lab shut down to help with the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a tweet the challenge was passed on and accepted by various other groups across many universities. Check out the nice blog post written by BMES. Link here
The excitement and interest around the latest NSF grant the lab secured has been fantastic. In the past month the project (which uses polarized light to better understand the UCL) has been featured in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and on the radio thanks to the National Academy of Engineering.
The Lake lab recently secured a NSF grant to shine light of a known polarization state off the surface of the UCL, then use a bioinspired camera to measure the properties of the reflected light. Read the entire WashU press release here.
Congratulations to Alex Reiter on being selected to represent the graduate student body on the Washington University Board of Trustees. To see a full list of Trustee members and newly selected members click here. To see the MEMS announcement click here.
Congratulations to 4th year PhD student Chelsey Dunham. She was awarded a 2018 Doctoral Student Research Award and presented her research at the annual BME day. Chelsey received the award for the work she has completed on our post traumatic joint contracture project. See a list of all BME award winner here.
From the innovative idea and strong work of Chelsey Dunham the lab secured a seed Grant from the WUSTL Center of Regenerative Medicine. The work will focus on mechanical priming to direct adipose progenitor cells toward an anti-fibrotic phenotype. To read the full WUSTL press release please click here.
Spencer Lake, assistant professor of mechanical engineering & materials science, has been awarded the Y.C. Fung Early Career Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the highest award for young investigators in bioengineering. Check out the entire WashU press release here.
The Lake lab recently secured funding from the NIH. With this new grant we will continue to study post-traumatic joint contracture. Read the full WashU press release here.
On July 24th 2017 Fei Fang officially defended her thesis to become Dr. Fei Fang. With the successful completion of her PhD Dr. Fang moved to Columbia University to a post doc position with the Thomopoulos lab group.
Dr. Spencer Lake has been selected to receive the 2016 Early Carer Award from the journal of Orthopaedic Research. The award highlights the work of a researcher early in his or her career who published a paper in the journal in the prior calendar year. Read the entire WashU press release here.
The Lake lab recently secured a NSF grant to continue our work looking at multi-scale tissue mechanics. Read the entire WashU press release here.
The use of polarized light to image microstructure of biological soft tissues has resulted in interesting data for the Lake Lab. Our work with Dr. Gruev was featured in a recent episode of the Explorer series on National Geographic. See the official WUSTL press release here.
A collaboration of engineers and researchers from Washington University in St. Louis’ School of Engineering & Applied Science and School of Medicine led by Viktor Gruev, has received the highest award from the IEEE for developing a bioinspired imaging sensor for medical imaging applications. Read entire WashU press release here.
The Lake lab recently secured a NIH grant to continue our work on developing an animal model of post-traumatic joint contracture. Read the entire WashU press release here.
Spencer Lake, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received a one-year grant from the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons to study the causes of stiffness and tightening, or contracture, of the joint after an injury to the elbow, called post-traumatic joint stiffness. Read WashU press release here.