Year: 2019

Morgan travels abroad to Spain to TA with AU Abroad!

Our very own PhD candidate, Morgan Ellis, was chosen to spend part of her summer in beautiful Pamplona and San Sebastian, Spain, to serve as a TA for the Regional Sustainable Technologies and Practices in Northern Spain: Energy, Water, and Infrastructure course through AU Abroad! What an incredible opportunity to enrich her graduate studies and gain teaching experience, all while exploring a new country! Check out these pictures of Morgan, her students, and of the gorgeous Spanish architecture and landscape. For more pictures, look at our Instagram!

Lipke Lab Undergraduate Researchers had a productive summer!

This summer, our Lipke Lab undergraduate researchers spread out across the world (literally) to enrich their undergrad experience and broaden their knowledge through internships, fellowships, and study abroad opportunities. Joshita Suresh was accepted to the HudsonAlpha BioTrain Internship program and spent her summer in Huntsville, AL, with our collaborators, CFD Research Corporation. Emma Hicks traveled to Dublin, Ireland with the UA in Ireland: Chemical Engineering program. In between exploring castles, Emma took Transport Phenomena and Stem Cell Bioengineering courses at University College Dublin. Hanna Hammons was hard at work at a co-op with Procter and Gamble. Andrew Moore and Michaela Bush were both awarded the AU Undergraduate Research Fellowship and spent all summer right here in the Lipke Lab. The rest of our many undergraduates spent their time either in the lab or taking courses at Auburn!

Joshita poses with our cancer-on-a-chip collaborators at CFDRC in Huntsville, AL.
Emma poses with UA Chemical Engineering students in front of a castle in Ireland.

Pig Hearts, Workshops, and REU Students. Oh my!

  • Publication date August 28, 2019
  • Categories: Outreach

Here at the Lipke Lab we are all a bunch of STEM nerds at heart, so when we got the opportunity to use a real pig heart to show NSF REU students at Alabama State University how our hearts pump, you better bet we were excited! Here are some more pictures of our fun outreach day!

Ferdous poses with a pig heart. We used the heart to show NSF REU students how our hearts pump blood through our body.
Michaela is ready to show off the pig hearts!
Mohammad and Samira sure make outreach events fun!

NSF REU Workshop at Alabama State University

  • Publication date August 28, 2019
  • Categories: Outreach

This summer, the Lipke and Cremaschi research groups co-hosted a Biomanufacturing Workshop for NSF REU students at Alabama State University! We had a great time teaching the 2019 cohort about biomanufacturing from both an experimental and optimization viewpoint. More pictures from the workshop can be found on our instagram.

Lipke and Cremaschi group members pose with NSF REU students at Alabama State.


Ferdous shows NSF REU students contracting engineered cardiac tissues in a well plate.
Trey and Samira teach NSF REU students about hydrogels using instant snow!

Andrew is ready for a fun day of outreach!

Review Article Published in Advanced Functional Materials!

Nicole and Dr. Lipke’s new collaborative review article, “Microphysiological Systems as Enabling Tools for Modeling Complexity in the Tumor Microenvironment and Accelerating Cancer Drug Development”, was recently published in Advanced Functional Materials! This article discusses tumor heterogeneity and complexity, and reviews recent advancements in engineered tumor microenvironments for application in cancer progression research and novel drug discovery. 

Gabi and Luke win at the Auburn Research Symposium

Congratulations to Lipke Lab undergraduates Gabi and Luke for winning 1st and 2nd place overall in the STEM category for their oral presentations at the university-wide Auburn Student Research Symposium! We are so proud of both of them for their dedication to their research and phenomenal presentations!

Auburn 2019 Student Research Symposium

Lipke Lab undergraduate researchers Gabi, Michaela, Joshita, Emma, Bryana, and Luke, as well as graduate researcher Iman, presented their work at the Auburn Student Research Symposium. We are so proud of their hard work and dedication to the Lipke Lab! 

SFB STAR Awards

Congratulations to Iman Hassani for receiving the Society for Biomaterials STAR Award, which recognizes research excellence, outstanding contribution to the meeting, and develops future leaders within SFB! Iman was very excited to have the opportunity to travel to Seattle for the first time, present our lab’s cancer tissue engineering work, and to network with other SFB members throughout the meeting. Morgan Ellis also received an Honorable Mention for the STAR Award!

SFB 2019 Annual Meeting

Lipke Lab graduate students Iman, Yuan, Morgan, and Nicole were all awarded talks at the 2019 Society for Biomaterials Annual Meeting, and Benny and Ferdous were awarded poster presentations! Iman and Yuan traveled to Seattle, WA and gave all 6 presentations between the two of them. We are so proud of them for representing the Lipke Lab and Auburn so well!