Mequanint Lab - News

2023

Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for his election to the College of Fellows, Biomaterials Science and Engineering
Welcome to Ziqin Qin to the Mequanint Lab as a PhD candidate.
Congratlations to Fifi (Fitfety M Teshger) for defending her PhD from BiT and for pbulishing three research articles (Chemosphere, Case Studies in Chemical and Biochemical Eng, Enviromental Science and Pollution Research).
Welcome to Andrew Markham to the Mequanint Lab as an MESc candidate.
The Mequanint Lab wishes Dr. Shigang Lin all the best as he retires following 15 years as a Research Associate in the lab. We will miss him!
Welcome to PhD candidate Seble Destaw to the Mequanint Lab. Seble is the recipient of an IBET Fellowship.

2022

Welcome PhD Candidates Riddhi Gadre, Hamzeh Ghaempanah, and Milad Vahidi to the Mequanint Lab. Hope to see your your research data soon!
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for broad media coverage about entangled hydrophobic macromolecular fluid for ultrastrong underwater in-situ fast tissue adhesion published in Science Advances.
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for recieving the Engineering Medal (Research & Development) from OSPE.
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for his election to the Canadian Academy of Engineering.
For his all-rounded impact in research, teaching, and Service, Dr. Mequanint was selected for addressing convocation during the Spring Convocation Ceremony on July 7, 2022. Congratulations for this recognition.
Congratulations to Lab members Rebeca Arambula, Meng Wang, Elahe Mahdipour, Kalin I Penev, and Fitfety M Teshager for publishing their researh.
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for his election to the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences.
Congratulations to Neda Aslankoohi for publishing a research Paper titled "Bioactive fluorescent hybrid microparticles as a stand-alone osteogenic differentiation inducer" in Materials Today Bio.
Congratulations to Neda Aslankoohi for successfully defending her PhD work (Here is her PhD thesis).

2021

Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for broad media coverage about injectable cardiac patch incorporating conductive CNTs.
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for broad media coverage about hemostatic tissue adhesives incorporating snake venom enzyme.
Congratulations to Neda Aslankoohi for publishing a research Paper titled "Intrinsically fluorescent bioactive glass-poly(ester amide) hybrid microparticles for dual drug delivery and bone repair" in the journal Materials Science and Engineering C.
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for securing NFRF-Exploration grant to study Epilepsy Drug Delivery and the Heart and Stroke Foundation Grant to study vascular diseases in engineered human tissues.
Congratulations to Kalin Penev and Pawel Brzozowski for publishing a paper "Gellan gum gel tissue phantoms and gel dosimeters with tunable electrical, mechanical and dosimetric properties" in the Int J Biol Macromolecules.
Congratulations to Armin Geraili for publishing an invited rveiew paper titled "Design and fabrication of drug delivery systems toward adjustable releas profiles for personalized tretament" in the Journl VIEW.
Congratulations to Rebeca Arambula for publishing a leading expert opinion paper titled "Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Threpautics: The Nexus of Chemical Engineering and medicine" in the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering.
Congratulations to Khalil Dayekh for successfully defending his PhD work (Click here to access his PhD thesis).
Congratulations to Kathleen (Katie) Zohorsky for successfully defending her MESc thesis (click here for the thesis). Katie is now working at Lonza as a Process development Scientist.

2020

Congratulations to Armin Geraili for receiving the Governor General's Gold Medal for his MESc thesis. Established over 140 years ago, the Governor General’s Gold Medal recognizes the outstanding scholastic achievements of students in Canada at the master's and doctoral levels.
Congratulations to Kathleen (Katie) Zohorsky for publishing a comprehensive review paper in Tissue Eng B.
Congratulations to Khalil Dayekh or publishing two papers from his PhD work in ACS Biomater Sci & Eng, and Acta Biomaterialia. Keep up the good work (you are getting ever closer to finishing!)
Congratulations to Armin Geraili for publishing two papers from his MESc work in Biofabrication, and Polymers.
Congratulations to Teshome Bedada and Kalin Penev for publishing their work in Chemical Physics. Great stuff!
Congratulations to Neda Aslankoohi for publishing the first research paper of her PhD in ACS Appl Bio Mater. Keep up the good work and look forward to more papers!
A warm welcome to PhD Candidate Yekaterina (Katya) Pokhilchuk to the Mequanint Lab. We wish you a productive time, Katya!

2019

Congratulations to Teshome Bedada for completing his MESc with a thesis "Characterization of Tetrazolium Salts and Formazans using Computational Chemistry for Radiochromic Dosimetry". We wish Teshome good luck in his new endeavour!
Congratulations to PhD Candidate Neda Aslankoohi and MESc Candidate Armin Geraili for presenting their work at the 35th CBS Annual Conference, May 21-24, 2019 held in Quebec City.
A warm welcome to PhD Candidate Rebeca Arambula to the Mequanint Lab. Wish you a productive time, Rebeca!
Congratulations to Pawel Brzozowski for successfully completing his MESc on a thesis: "Tissue Equivalent Gellan Gum Gel Materials for Clinical MRI and Radiation Dosimetry". His thesis produced two peer-reviewed research publications! We wish him good luck in his new endeavour!

2018

Congratulations to Kalin Penev (Research Associate) who presented his work at the 10th International Conference on 3D and Advanced Radiation Dosimetry (IC3DDose) held Sept 16-19th, 2018, Kunshan, China.
Congratulations to Hilary Stone for successfully completing her MESc on a thesis: "Preparation and Characterization of Electrospun rGO-Poly(ester amide) Tissue Engineering Scaffolds. Hilary joined U of Toronto medical school in August 2018. Good luck to our future MD!
Here he comes for polyphosphazenes! A warm welcome to PhD Candidate Meng Wang to the Mequanint Lab. Wish you a productive time, Meng!
A warm welcome to MESc Candidate Kathleen (Katie) Zohorsky to the Mequanint Lab. Wish you a productive time and healthy relation with Jagged1!
Dr. Mequanint received the Faculty of Engineering Award for Excellence in Research for 2017.
Dr. Mequanint is inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in April 2018. Election to AIMBE College of Fellows represents the most accomplished individuals in the fields of medical and biological engineering in academia, industry, and government. These leaders in the field have distinguished themselves through their contributions in research, industrial practice and/or education.
Congratulations to Dibakar Mondal for successfully completing his PhD on a thesis "Covalently Crosslinked Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Biomaterials for Bone Tissue Engineering Applications". His thesis produced four peer-reviewed research publications! We wish him good luck in his new postdoc role at the University of Waterloo.

2017

Dr. Mequanint Presented a keynote at the 11th World Congress on Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells, Singapore, Nov 13, 2017.
Congratulations to PhD candidate Dibakar Mondal for publishing his recent paper in JMBBM. Good Job!
A warm welcome to Armin Geraili to the Mequanint Lab as MESc Candidate (Biomedical Engineering). Wish you a productive time Armin!
Dr. Mequanint presented an invited talk "Functional co-substituted poly[(amino acid ester) phosphazene] biomaterials for vascular tissue engineering" at the 254 ACS National Conference, August 20-August 24, 2017, Washington DC. The presentation was an award-winning talk!
Sarah Kiros and Dibakar Mondal will be presenting their work at the Canadian Biomaterials Society Annual Meeting (May 24-27, 2017).
We Welcome Hilary Stone to the Mequanint Lab as MESc candidate (Biomedical Engineering). We hope to see your discovery soon!
We Welcome Pawel Brzozowski to the Mequanint Lab as MESc candidate (Biomedical Engineering). We hope to see your discovery soon!
We Welcome Neda Aslankoohi to the Mequanint Lab as PhD candidate (Biomedical Engineering). We hope to see your discovery soon!
Congratulations to Brandon Chaffayfor successfully defending his MESc thesis Effect of L-Ascorbic Acid and All-trans Retinoic Acid on Smooth Muscle Cells Cultured on PCL Scaffolds. We wish Brandon success in his Medical School endeavour!

2016

Dr. Mequanint has delivered an invited keynote talk at the BIT's 10th World Congress on Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells, Nanjing China (Nov 16-19, 2016).
Congratulations to Sarah Kiros for successfully defending her MESc thesis Electrospinning of poly (ester amide) fibers for mesenchymal progenitor cell differentiation. We wish her all the best in her future!
Congratulations to Shuyu (Echo) Liu for successfully defending her MESc this on Fabrication and Cross-linking of L-Aspartic Acid Functionalized Poly(ester amide)-based Tissue Engineering Scaffolds. We wish her all the best in her future!
Congratulations to Somiraa Said who defended her PhD thesis Controlled Delivery of Angiogenic and Arteriogenic Growth Factors from Biodegradable Poly(ester amide) Electrospun Fibers for Therapeutic Angiogenesis. You have been an outstanding team of the Mequanint Lab, and we wish you all the best.
We welcome Bugra Aktan as a PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering to the Mequanint lab. We all hope to see your biomaterials research data soon!
Congratulations (again) to PhD candidate Khalil Dayekh for receiving an OGS scholarship for 2016-2017!

2015

Congratulations to PhD candidate Khalil Dayekh for receiving an OGS scholarship for 2015-2016!
Congratulations to Dr. Kibret Mequanint who received the Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching. This is the highest teaching honor Western bestows upon its faculty.
Mequanint Lab welcomed Zeyu (Jack) Sun as an exchange researcher from Tianjin University, China. Jack will be a lab member until May 30, 2015.
We welcome Dr. Tayirjan (Taylor) Isimjan as a Research Associate to the Mequanint lab. We all hope to see your data soon!

2014

We welcome new graduate students Sarah Kiros, Teshome G Bedada, Khalil Dayekh, and Shuyu (Echo) Liu to the Mequanint lab. Hope to see your data soon!
Congratulations to Tierney Deluzio for successfully defending her MESc thesis Tissue Engineering Scaffolds with Enhanced Oxygen Delivery Using a Cyclodextrin Inclusion Complex in August 2014. We wish Tierney the best of luck in her Law School endeavor!
Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for receiving the Bikila Professional Excellence award.
We welcome Hilary Stone and Brent Parker who joined the lab as Summer Research Students. Hope you will learn lots of exciting stuff during the Summer!
Congratulations to PhD candidate Dibakar Mondal for receiving the most prestigious Vanier Canada Doctoral Graduate Scholarships Program.
Dr. Mequanint received the Faculty Scholar Award. This award is aimed to honor and celebrate outstanding scholarly achievements at a critical point in the career of a Faculty member at Western. Click here for details.
Dr. Mequanint will deliver an invited talk titled "Synthetic Biomaterials and Cells: an Unlikely Union Going Strong" at the University of Cape Town Medical School.
Dr. Mequanint will give an invited talk titled "Filling the gap: Engineered human blood vessels for preclinical testing" at the First Congress of Biomedical Engineering in Quito, Ecuador. Click here for details.
Dr. Mequanint is promoted to Professor. Congratulations on reaching this critical career milestone!
Congratulations to Lisa Rogers and Somiraa Said! Their paper Effects of Fabrication Strategies on 3D Scaffold Morphology, Porosity, and Smooth Muscle Cell Response in J Biomat Tissue Eng. 3, 300-311; 2013 has been selected for the "JBT Best Paper Award" for the year 2013.

2013

Congratulations to Darryl Knight who defended his PhD thesis titled Biomimetic Poly(ester amide) Biomaterials for Vascular Tissue Engineering. Job well-done Darryl!
Congratulations to Tierney Deluzio who was voted as "Speaker of the Month" for December 2013 in the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Graduate Seminar. Her talk was titled
Congratulation to Bedilu Allo! His paper "The Role of Bioactive 3D Hybrid Fibrous Scaffolds on Mechanical Behavior and In-Vitro Spatiotemporal Osteoblast Gene Expression." ACS Applied Mater Interfaces. 5(15):7574-83; 2013 has been profiled by Mesenchymal Cell News.
Congratulations to Dr. Kalin Penev for his MITACS-Accelerate postdoctoral fellowship funding.
Welcome to Brandon Chaffay to the Mequanint Lab. Brandon came to us from Queen's University.
Congratulations to Somiraa Said for winning the Best Poster Award at the 30th Annual CBS Conference in Ottawa (May 29-June 1, 2013). Her Poster was titled "Controlled delivery of angiogenic factors from biodegradable amino-acid-based fibers for therapeutic angiogenesis. Her work is highlighted on the CBS website.
Dr. Mequanint was a visiting Professor at Addis Ababa Institute of Technology. Amongst other activities, he gave a talk titled "Recent changes in chemical engineering curriculum: The North American Perspective".
Dr. Mequanint gave an invited talk titled "3D scaffolds beyond structural templates in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine: Who is talking to Whom?" at the Ottawa Heart Institute.
Welcome to Dibakar Mondal to the Mequanint Lab. Dibakar came to us from the University of SoonChunHyang, South Korea.
Congratulations to Amanda Baillargeon for her NSERC scholarship.
Dr. Mequanint gave an invited talk titled "3D scaffolds beyond structural templates in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine: Who is talking to Whom?" at Harvard-MIT Health Sciences.
Dr. Mequanint gave a visiting talk at the University of Waterloo.
Congratulations to Bedilu Allo for successfully defending his PhD thesis titled "Sol-gel derived biodegradable and bioactive organic-inorganic hybrid biomaterials for
bone Tissue Engineering". Bedilu is now heading to the University of Toronto for a postdoctoral fellowship.

2012

Congratulations to Amanda Baillargeon for her CIHR scholarship in vascular biology.
We welcome Amanda Baillargeon to the Mequanint Lab. Amanda is a graduate of Western.
we welcome, Tierney Deluzio to the Mequanint Lab. Tierney is a graduate of Western.
Congratulations to Aparna Bhattacharyya for successfully defending her MESc thesis titled "Co-culture of smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells on porous 3D polyurethane scaffolds for vascular tissue engineering". Aparna is now heading to Drexel University for her PhD study. We wish you good luck Aparna!
Congratulations to Dawit Seifu for successfully defending his PhD thesis titled "Oxygen delivery strategies in tissue-engineered constructs". Dawit is now heading to Laval University as a postdoctoral fellow. Good luck with your advanced research and learning a bit of French!
Congratulation to Bedilu Allo for his Queen Elizabeth II Scholarship in Science and Technology.

2011

Congratulations to Dr. Mequanint for receiving the R. Mohan Mathur Award for Excellence in Teaching!
Congratulations to Lisa Rogers for successfully defending her MESc Thesis titled "Comparative study of 3D tissue engineering scaffold fabrication methods". Lisa was one of our NSERC scholarship holders.
Congratulations to Dr. Shigang Lin! His work is selected for the Cover of Tissue Engineering for the June 2011 issue.
Congratulation to Bedilu Allo for winning the first prize in the Biotechnology Category at the Research Bridges Symposium, Sarnia Ontario (May 5, 2011). His presentation topic was "Synthesis of hybrid biomaterials for bone regeneration".
Congratulation to Bedilu Allo for his CIHR Graduate Fellowship in Muskuloskeletal Health Research.