Maryland Engineers Take On Big Challenges in Medicine

Engineering at Maryland magazine

Engineers at the University of Maryland are taking aim at some of the biggest challenges in medicine.

Not a single FDA-approved treatment to prevent preterm birth is available today. Hannah Zierden, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and her team are helping to create one by testing the use of tiny particles known as bacterial extracellular vesicles (bEVs) as a drug delivery mechanism.
To treat aneurysms in some of the most difficult-to-reach regions in the brain, surgeons have relied on maneuvering hand-bent guidewires—a process that is time-consuming at best, and physically impossible in the most complicated cases. A team led by Ryan Sochol, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, is 3D-nanoprinting a ‘soft robot’ to better aid brain surgeons in the operating room.
Cost and access to specialists can be barriers to women receiving the treatments required following a diagnosis of cervical dysplasia, the precursor to cervical cancer. Bioengineering Assistant Professor Jenna Mueller and her team are developing a low-cost technology with the ambition that doctors could one day diagnose—and treat—cervical dysplasia in a single visit.

Zierden, Sochol, and Mueller are among the Maryland Engineering faculty who are building tools and advancing technologies designed to improve patients’ health, both here and around the world.

Learn more about the ways Maryland engineers are built for the breakthrough: explore the impact of their research in the Fall/Winter 2024 issue of Engineering at Maryland magazine.

Read the Fall/Winter 2024 issue

Additional issue highlights include:

RESEARCH: New AI tool predicts rogue waves
CLASSROOM: UMD launches new interdisciplinary minor in quantum
COMPETITION: Student Terrapin Rocket Team soars to victory
ALUMS: The world’s #1 male pickleball player is a Terp

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Melissa L. Andreychek
Engineering at Maryland magazine
A. James Clark School of Engineering
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
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Engineering at Maryland magazine is published twice a year for alums and friends of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. Digital issues are available on the Maryland Engineering website.

The Fall/Winter 2024 cover is illustrated by Aldo Crusher, whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Time magazine, and for Blue Moon Brewery. The feature story is authored by Erin Peterson, whose clients include Howard Hughes Medical Institute, California Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Stevens Institute of Technology.

Published November 13, 2024