News

Improving Control for Users of Robotic ProsthesesSeptember 22, 2021Advanced Peripheral Nervous System Decreases Abnormal Sensations A biomedical engineer from the Cullen College of Engineering has been awarded $2.8 million by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to improve… Mario Ignacio Romero-Ortega, Cullen Endowed Professor of biomolecular engineering, is creating next-generation advanced peripheral nervous system (PNS) interface electrodes to decrease the abnormal sensations associated with electrical stimulation of prosthetic limbs.
Docking Peptides, Slow to Lock, Open Possible Path to Treat Alzheimer’sSeptember 15, 2021Frustration in Amyloid Fibrils as They Form Shows it May be Possible to Stop Their Growth HOUSTON – Progress on treating Alzheimer’s disease has been frustratingly slow. A group of scientists in Houston suggest frustration at a… Graduate student Yuechuan (Alex) Xu, left, and Professor Peter Vekilov of the University of Houston pose near an atomic force microscope of the same type used to capture the growth of amyloid beta fibrils implicated in Alzheimer’s disease.
MMP calculator developed by Petro's Dindoruk already in high useSeptember 9, 2021Birol Dindoruk, Ph.D., the American Association of Drilling Engineers Endowed Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering, has developed an online calculator for minimum miscibility… Birol Dindoruk, Ph.D., the American Association of Drilling Engineers Endowed Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering, has developed an online calculator for minimum miscibility pressure (MMP), which has already received more than 13,500 visits since being brought online in May.
Paper from CML outlines new Approach for Management of Cushing's diseaseSeptember 7, 2021Researchers from the Cullen College of Engineering are exploring ways to automate the administration of medicine for patients suffering from Cushing's syndrome, with a proposal establishing architecture for that recently… Researchers from the Cullen College of Engineering, including doctoral student Hamid Fekri Azgomi, are exploring ways to automate the administration of medicine for patients suffering from Cushing's syndrome, with a proposal establishing architecture for that recently published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.
Ince earns NSF grant to continue research on neural hand networkingSeptember 3, 2021Simple, everyday activities that people seldom put thought into – opening a door, cradling an egg, picking up a coffee cup – actually rely on complex interactions between your brain and the nerves of your hand and fingers, all of… Nuri Firat Ince, an Associate Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering, has earned a $983,513 grant from the NSF for his research into neuroengineering.
Actuator Discovery By Cullen BME Outperforms Existing TechnologySeptember 3, 2021University of Houston researchers are reporting a breakthrough in the field of materials science and engineering with the development of an electrochemical actuator that uses specialized organic semiconductor nanotubes (OSNTs).… Mohammad Reza Abidian, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, has announced a breakthrough with the development of an electrochemical actuator.
Lee's research focuses on Decision-Making preferencesAugust 9, 2021A new paper from Taewoo Lee, an Assistant Professor of the Industrial Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering, examines the decision-making preferences using past decision data, using a novel, data-driven… A new paper from Taewoo Lee, an Assistant Professor of the Industrial Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering, examines the decision-making preferences using past decision data, using a novel, data-driven inverse optimization method.
Grabow engineering dynamic solutions for carbon fiber marketJuly 16, 2021Lars Grabow's Research to Bring Chemical Production and Manufacturing Together Could Revolutionize Numerous Chemical Processes You may know little to nothing about the carbon fiber market, but products produced with carbon fibers… Acrylonitrile is the feedstock used to make carbon fiber, which is used in the manufacturing of an array of products, from vehicles and performance sports equipment to wind turbine blades and electronics.
Using the Ancient Art of Kirigami to Make an Eyeball-like CameraJune 28, 2021Cunjiang Yu, Ph.D., Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, is reporting the development of a camera with a curvy, adaptable imaging sensor that could improve image quality in… Schematic of a biaxially stretched kirigami sheet.
The Powerhouse Future Is FlexoelectricJune 2, 2021“Giant Flexoelectricity” Breakthrough in Soft Elastomers Paves Way for Improved Robots and Self-Powered Pacemakers What do the following have in common: a self-powered implanted medical device, a soft human-like robot and how we… Kosar Mozaffari, a graduate student at the Cullen College of Engineering, is lead author for a new paper on flexoelectricity, along with Pradeep Sharma of Mechanical Engineering and Matthew Grasinger of the Air Force Research Lab.
New research method from Faghih, Amin allows more reliable brain information inference using electrodermal activity May 13, 2021A new paper from Rose Faghih, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the Computational Medicine Laboratory, and her doctoral student Rafiul Amin describes how they have developed a… A new paper from Rose Faghih, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the Computational Medicine Laboratory, and her doctoral student Rafiul Amin describes how they have developed a novel inference engine to obtain brain information from raw electrodermal activity (EDA) recordings, eradicating previous challenges from earlier methods.
Examining the One-Two Punch of Malaria DrugsMay 5, 2021When a mosquito begins to nibble on you, it is not merely feeding on your blood, it is also injecting its saliva into your skin. If that saliva happens to be full of parasites carrying malaria or other diseases from its last… Peter Vekilov, Moores Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston, is examining why the two drugs that most often cure malaria can also fail because they tend to fight each other.
Improved Catalyst May Translate to Petrochemical Production GainsApril 27, 2021Aromatics are major building blocks of polymers, or plastics, that turn up as everything from PET bottles for water to breathable, wrinkle-resistant polyester clothing. These petrochemicals comprise a specialized, value-added… Jeffrey Rimer is the Abraham E. Dukler Professor at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering.
Cancer ‘guardian’ breaks bad with one switch, UH, Rice researchers show March 4, 2021A mutation that replaces a single amino acid in a potent tumor-suppressing protein turns it from saint to sinister. A new study by a coalition of Texas institutions shows why that is more damaging than previously known.  The… A model produced by scientists at Rice University shows the conformational changes caused by a mutation in the cancer-fighting p53 protein. At top left, the red box highlights the aggregation-prone sequence protected by the N-terminus tail in wild-type p53 but exposed by the mutation of a single amino acid. The strongest deviation happens in the domain at the green asterisk. The other three models show “open” conformations at the C-terminus caused by the mutation. (Credit: Kolomeisky Research Group/Rice.)
With Lithium in High Demand, UH Researcher Examines New SourcesFebruary 25, 2021As the energy transition motors on to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the need for lithium has grown exponentially over the past decade because lithium-ion energy storage (i.e., lithium-ion batteries) powers both electric… Kyung Jae Lee, assistant professor of petroleum engineering, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation for $508,722 to contribute to the enhancement and diversification of the domestic supply of lithium.
UH Researcher Develops, Tests Nano-Carrier as Potential Treatment for Brain TumorsFebruary 23, 2021With a survival rate of only five years, the most common and aggressive form of primary brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme, is notoriously hard to treat using current regimens that rely on surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and… In this artistic illustration, prepared by Majd's former student You Jung Kang, IL13 ligands (represented by butterflies) carry the Dp44mT-loaded nanoparticles (represented by honey) from the vein (represented by red pipe) to the tumors (represented by the purple and red bugs), feeding and destroying the tumors.
UH graduate’s work identifies new clues behind vision loss due to impaired metabolismFebruary 4, 2021A graduate of the biomedical engineering doctorate program at the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering has published new research about how vitamin and protein deficiencies can lead to metabolic abnormalities in… Dr. Tirthankar Sinha, a graduate of the biomedical engineering doctorate program at the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering and now a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Claudio Soto's Lab at the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, has published new research about how vitamin and protein deficiencies can lead to metabolic abnormalities in the eye.
New Clues Help Explain Why PFAS Chemicals Resist RemediationJanuary 20, 2021Work Suggests New Avenues for Cleaning Up These ‘Forever Chemicals’   The synthetic chemicals known as PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are found in soil and groundwater where they have accumulated,… Research led by Konstantinos Kostarelos of UH Energy suggests why PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” because they can persist in the environment for decades, are so difficult to permanently remove and offers new avenues for better remediation practices.
Tapping the Brain to Boost Stroke RehabilitationJanuary 12, 2021Clinical Trial Suggests Brain-Machine Interface Coupled with Robot Offers Increased Benefits for Stroke Survivors Stroke survivors who had ceased to benefit from conventional rehabilitation gained clinically significant arm… A clinical trial found that stroke survivors gained clinically significant arm movement and control by using an external robotic device powered by the patients’ own brains.
New Drug Discovery Institute Launches at University of HoustonNovember 17, 2020The University of Houston has launched the Drug Discovery Institute (DDI) aimed at integrating new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to streamline and modernize the drug-discovery process. With an emphasis on multi-… The ultimate goal of the Drug Discovery Institute research program is to bring scientific discoveries and technological advances to the marketplace. [Photo from Getty Images.]