February 2025
We are excited to welcome Kayla Cornwell who is joining the lab as a new BME PhD student. Kayla will be working on developing new purinergic biomaterials to enhance astrocyte wound repair responses after CNS injury.
Congratulations to Kate Herrema on a successful PhD Prospectus Defense. Kate gave an awesome talk on her PhD Thesis work entitled “Biomaterial-directed patterning of xenografted human brain organoids“. Well done Kate!
December 2024
Congratulations to Eric DuBois on his presentation at the Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall meeting in Boston.
NOVEMber 2024
We are excited to be awarded an R21 Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant from NINDS. This funding will support our research focused on transcriptional and morphological profiling of astrocyte borders using injectable biomaterials.
October 2024
Congratulations to Honour Adewumi on her two presentations at BMES in Baltimore.
September 2024
Tim presented the Lab’s work at the Society for Biomaterials Regional Symposium.
Tim gave an invited talk for the Center for Neuroregeneration Visiting Lecture Series at the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
JULY 2024
We are excited to be awarded an R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from NIGMS. This funding will support research that is focused on furthering our understanding of parenchymal repair mechanisms after tissue injury. In this work we are developing new biomaterial-based approaches to augment endogenous astrocyte glia repair (a type of parenchymal repair in the CNS) in the context of spinal cord injury (SCI). New insights from this work will enable important advances in treatments for a variety of tissue and organ injuries.
June 2024
Congratulations to Kunyu Li on passing her BME PhD Oral Qualifying Exam. We are very proud of her achievements and excited to have her join the O’Shea Glia Engineering lab as full-time member. Kunyu will be working on her thesis research that is focused on dissecting the metabolic fuel requirements for astrocyte glia repair after SCI and she will be developing new biomaterial-based systems to augment these processes.
Congratulations to Eric DuBois for being awarded an F31 fellowship from NINDS for his project “Glycopolymer Biomaterials for Regulating Adaptive Reprogramming in Glia”.
MAY 2024
Congratulations to Paige Woods on a successful PhD Prospectus Defense. Paige gave an awesome talk on her PhD Thesis work entitled “Dendrimer Nanoparticles for Microglia-Targeted Drug Delivery in Parkinson’s Disease“. Well done Paige!
The BU Glia Engineers completed another successful Wings for Life Run on an overcast and cool Sunday morning (we forgot to take any photos this year).
Congratulations also to Laboni Hassan on a successful PhD Prospectus Defense. Laboni gave a very insightful talk on her PhD Thesis work entitled “Trehalose-based coacervates for biomolecular and cellular delivery to improve wound healing in spinal cord injury“. Well done Laboni!
April 2024
We are excited to be awarded an R21 Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant from NINDS. This funding will support our research that is focused on developing non-viral glial cell targeted delivery vehicles. We see this grant as enabling important work towards developing glial cell targeted therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease.
Tim presented the Lab’s work at the annual Wings for Life Scientific Meeting in Salzburg, Austria.
February 2024
The Courier Mail in Brisbane has published a thoughtful piece on Tim and Ben that describes their friendship and how Ben’s SCI help guide the research direct of the lab. Link to the story
DECEMBEr 2023
The lab had some winter holiday fun ice skating at Time Out Market.
october 2023
Congratulations to Laboni Hassan, Eric DuBois, Honour Adewumi, and Paige Woods on their presentations at BMES in Seattle.
JUNE 2023
Congratulations to Kate Herrema and Matt Simkulet for passing their BME PhD Oral Qualifying Exam. Congratulations too to Laboni Hassan for also passing the same BME PhD Oral Qualifying Exam with Honors! We are very proud of your achievements and look forward to a productive summer of research.
We are excited to be awarded an R21 Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant from NINDS. This funding allows us to explore an exciting new research direction in the lab using intravital imaging methods to characterize transplant evoked glia repair in stroke. This project is a collaborative effort between the O’Shea Glia Engineering Lab and the BU Neurophotonic Center team led by David Boas. Tim is serving as PI and David as Co-I on this grant. We are looking forward to seeing the new insights on cell grafting in stroke to come out of this project.
MAY 2023
We are excited to welcome Kate Herrema and Matt Simkulet to the lab as BME PhD graduate students. Kate is being co-supervised with Anna Devor working on using biomaterial approaches to direct the differentiation of transplanted cortical organoids. Matt is being co-supervised with David Boas and will be investigating the use of novel intravital imaging methods to evaluate glia responses in CNS injury and to foreign bodies. It is great to have you both on board Kate and Matt.
Congratulations to Jacob Labovitz who was awarded a prestigious Distinguished Summer Research Fellowship (DSRF). We are excited to see what exciting research you do this summer with this fellowship working under the mentorship of Tim and Eric.
Congratulations to Emily McCarthy who was awarded a UROP fellowship to conduct summer research in the lab. We are excited to see what exciting research you do this summer with this fellowship working under the mentorship of Tim and Honour.
Congratulations to Riya Sen and Payton O’Connor who were awarded second prize in the BME Senior Design competition. Well done Riya and Payton.
APRIL 2023
We are excited to be awarded a Dean’s Catalyst Award from the BU College of Engineering and a NPC CAN DO Award from the BU Neurophotonics Center. These awards will support a collaborative project with Mike Economo’s lab to develop new smart biomaterial coatings to regulate glial border formation at neural devices. You can read about this project here.
Congrats to Riya, Gabby and Payton who all have received admission to BME PhD programs for matriculation in the Fall. We are very proud of your achievements to date and excited to see what you will accomplish in graduate school.
MARCH 2023
The lab’s research and Tim’s passion for developing new SCI therapies was highlighted by the BU College of Engineering communications team. You can read the article here.
FEBRUARY 2023
Congratulations to Honour Adewumi on a successful PhD Prospectus Defense. Honour gave an awesome talk on her PhD Thesis work entitled “Engineering immature astrocyte grafts for neural regeneration“. Well done Honour!
JANUARY 2023
Congratulations to Eric DuBois on a successful PhD Prospectus Defense. Eric gave a stellar talk on his PhD Thesis work entitled “Regulation of Glial Interfaces in the Mouse Central Nervous System Leveraging Bioactive, Glycosylated Materials“. Well done Eric!
NOVEMBER 2022
We are excited to be awarded a PVA Research Foundation Grant. This funding allows us to continue our research on directing adaptive glia repair in adult spinal cord injury using injectable biomaterials. SCI advocate, Ben Harvey, will be helping us on this project! Thank you PVA.
OCTOBER 2022
The Glia Engineering lab traveled to BMES 2022 in San Antonio. Congrats to Honour and Gabby for their stellar posters and to Eric for his awesome talk!
AUGUST 2022
The lab had some summer fun learning to paint at Muse Paintbar in Assembly Row.
Congrats to Paige Woods on passing your PhD qualification exam. We are excited to see you continue your research efforts in a new area for the lab, glia cell targeted drug delivery.
MAY 2022
The lab and friends participated in the annual Wings for Life World Run to raise funds for spinal cord injury research. We had a fun, albeit chilly, morning at Castle Island for the run.
APRIL 2022
The lab has been awarded a grant from the Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation to support our work on chronic spinal cord injury (SCI).
With this generous support we are developing approaches to improve glia repair in chronic injuries using bioengineered enzymatic debridement and cell grafting. We greatly appreciate the support provided by Wings for Life.
OCTOBER 2021
Gabby and Riya did a great job presenting their summer projects at the 24th Annual BU Undergraduate Research Symposium. Congrats Gabby and Riya.
JUNE 2021
The lab has been awarded two grants to support our work on spinal cord injury (SCI).
With generous support from Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation we are studying how to activate endogenous glia repair mechanisms using injectable biomaterials. Starting in July, with generous support from Craig H Neilsen Foundation, we will be testing biomaterial based strategies to improve astroglial maturation of transplanted neural progenitor cells in SCI. We greatly appreciate the support provided by these wonderful SCI foundations to our young but enthusiastic lab.
Congratulations to Honour, Eric and Isabella on passing their PhD qualification exams. We are excited to have you continue your research efforts in the lab this summer.
MAY 2021
Riya Sen has joined the lab as a Kenneth R. Lutchen Fellow. We are excited to have her join the team and look forward to working with her over the summer and beyond. Welcome Riya.
APRIL 2021
We are excited to welcome Honour Adewumi and Isabella Darke to the lab as BME PhD graduate students.
MARCH 2021
Over the past year the O’Shea Lab has taken shape. Despite pandemic challenges we have set up our chemistry, molecular biology, cell culture, and neurosurgery spaces. We are currently working hard to develop new bioengineering tools to test in our CNS injury models.
In March, we welcomed Eric Dubois as the first PhD graduate student to join the lab.
Gabriela Berniac also joined the lab as an undergraduate researcher and was awarded a UROP fellowship to support her research over the summer. Congratulations!
MAY 2020
The O’Shea Lab website is live! Follow us here and on our social media platforms for research updates. The lab opens up in Boston in the Fall. We are looking forward to getting to work.
O'Shea Lab 