Assistant Professor in the NC State University Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Jingjie Hu, recently received the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Trailblazer Award. This award is given to early-career investigators showing promise in integrating the fields of engineering, physical sciences, and life or biomedical disciplines.
As the Contact PI/Project Leader, Hu’s project, titled “Integrated Experimental and Computational Approach for Accurate Patient-specific Vascular Embolization,” addresses the challenges clinicians face during transcatheter embolization procedures. Despite being minimally invasive, these procedures can be unpredictable due to the current technological limitations in forecasting the trajectory of embolic agents.
With three years of funding totaling $581,245 from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Hu will collaborate with Amirhossein Arzani, Assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah.
“Our aim is to create a biomaterial-computational platform that refines the design of multifunctional microspheres, provides guidelines for the transcatheter’s optimal placement, and anticipates the in vivo movement of these microspheres,” Hu Said. “This approach aims to enhance the efficacy and customization of transcatheter intervention.”
Prior to this recognition, Hu was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), wherein she was the sole PI. Since she began working with MAE in 2021, she has earned other notable awards, including the ASME Haythornwaite Foundation Research Initiation Award and the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award.