22 Feb

Congrats to Bahram!

Congratulations to Bahram on winning the best poster award for the Valve Imaging, Engineering, and Design Session at the Heart Valve Society 2024 Annual Conference in Boston!

11 Jul

Congrats to Hayley!

Congratulations to Hayley on receiving the Centennial Senior Project Award for Mechanical Engineering for her 4th year thesis!

22 Jan

Joseph awarded CRAFT fellowship

Congratulations go out to Joseph who was selected to recieve a 2020 CRAFT Fellowship Award. The award is provided by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to help cover salary and research costs.

 

18 May

Jenna joins UBC

This summer, Jenna will move to Vancouver to join University of British Columbia as Instructor in the School of Biomedical Engineering. A loss for us but a valuable gain for UBC. Congratulations Jenna!

25 Mar

Rachel wins Lorne Phenix award

Congratulations to Rachel on winning the 2018-2019 “Lorne Phenix Graduate Award” from the Cardiovascular Sciences Collaborative Specialization (CSCS)! This award is given on the basis of research and academic excellence for cardiovascular research related to women.

28 Jan

Neda receives fellowship

Congratulations Neda  on recieving First Rank in the Multidisciplinary Committee of the Fonds de Recherche du Quebec-Nature et Technologies Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.

01 Sep

Alan rewarded a travel award

Congratulations to Alan on winning the Cardiovascular Sciences Collaborative Specialization Travel Award to cover his expenses for the  8th Biennial Heart Valve Biology & Tissue Engineering Meeting in London, England.

31 May

Agnes wins best poster at iARC 2018

Congratulations Agnes, to receiving the award for best poster in the category Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at IBBME’s annual research conference, iARC 2018. For more info on the event and to see the other winners, follow this link.

 

 

01 Mar

CIHR grants for TBEP

Last week, a delegation from Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) visited our department (TBEP, Translational Biology and Engineering Program). The visit served as a public announcement for the 2017 CIHR grants (awarded April last year), 10 of which went to UofT and 4 to TBEP, including the Simmons lab for Engineering Pulmonary Valve Tissue for Pediatric Patients with Tetralogy of Fallot and Development of a physiological cardiac microtissue platform for drug development.

Read more about it on UofT‘s, Ted Roger’s or IBBME‘s websites.

16 Jan

Bowmanville Heart and Stroke rally

Bailey, Shouka, and Craig described the lab’s research in heart valve disease and heart valve tissue engineering to Heart and Stroke Foundation canvassers and other volunteers at the Bowmanville Heart Rally.

Shouka, Bailey and Craig together with Susan at the Bowmanville Heart&Stroke rally.

29 Nov

Craig awarded Engineering Medal – Research and Development

At the 2017 Ontario Professional Engineers Awards, Craig was awarded the Engineering Medal for Research and Development. This medal is awarded “for using new knowledge in developing useful, novel applications, or advancing engineering knowledge or applied science, or discovering or extending any of the engineering or natural sciences.”

Read more about it at Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) or in the news at UofT, MIE, IBBME or at StartUp HERE Toronto .

Also, definitely don’t miss the award video Craig by PEO on .

25 Jan

Craig is named U of T Distinguished Professor of Mechanobiology!

Major congratulations to Craig who has been appointed University of Toronto Distinguished Professor of Mechanobiology by the University of Toronto Office of the Vice-President and Provost for his exceptional career accomplishments and promise, his excellence in research, education and leadership!

Please join us to congratulate Craig on this well-deserved distinction!

02 Sep

Jenna wows Cheryl Regehr, U of T Vice President & Provost in lab tour

Jenna thoroughly impressed Cheryl Regehr, Vice President & Provost of the University of Toronto by leading her on a tour of the lab and describing her work in identifying environmental conditions that enable bone marrow MSCs to develop tissue that could act as a functional, regenerative replacement for diseased heart valves.

jennalab.400x400

06 Jun

Craig appointed as Associate Director, Research of IBBME

Congratulations to Craig, who was appointed as Associate Director, Research of the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) for a term of three years beginning July 1, 2014. This appointment follows his one year in the position as an acting associate director.

03 Jun

Craig elected as Fellow of CSME

Congratulations to Craig, who was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineers for excellence in mechanical engineering and active contribution to the progress of the profession and of the society.

01 Jun

Team Heart Valve completes the 50-km Ride for Heart!

Congratulations to Team Heart Valve, who completed the 50-km Becel Heart & Stroke Ride for Heart on June 1. The team, comprised of 17 lab members and friends, raised $5200 for the Heart & Stroke Foundation. This amount is the most we’ve ever raised in the 7 years we’ve participated as a lab team. Thanks to all of our generous sponsors!

team_heart_valve_2014

ride_for_heart_2014

01 Apr

Mark named recipient of the 2013-14 Lorne Phenix Graduate Award

Mark Blaser has been selected as the 2013-2014 “Lorne Phenix Graduate Award” recipient by the Cardiovascular Sciences Collaborative Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. This award is made possible by a generous donation in the memory of Mr. Lorne Phenix by the Phenix family. It is given on the basis of research and academic excellence and consists of a cash prize and a certificate.

01 May

Linda, Jessica, Kathak, and Aileen awarded undergraduate research scholarships

Congratulations to our new group of undergraduate research students who received scholarships for the summer. Linda received an NSERCUndergraduate Student Research Award, Jessica received a CIHR Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis Studentship, Kathak received a Dental Research Institute Summer Research Program Award, and Aileen received a University of Toronto Undergraduate Research Opportunity Award. Congratulations to all!

13 Sep

Lab alumnus, Chris Moraes, awarded a prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship!

Congratulations to lab alumnus, Chris Moraes, who is the recipient of a two-year Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are Canada’s most prestigious awards for postdoctoral fellows. Only 70 fellowships are awarded annually across all three federal granting agencies. Chris won one of only 26 awarded by NSERC. More details are available here: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?nid=695009

07 Aug

Craig is named a recipient of the McLean Award

Congratulations to Craig, who was named a recipient of a prestigious McLean Award, part of the Connaught Fund. The award honours emerging leaders in basic research in the fields of physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, engineering sciences and statistics. The full story is available here.

01 May

Michelle, Xiaofan, Moussa, Kathak, and David receive undergraduate research scholarships

Congratulations to several undergraduate students in the lab who received scholarships to perform research in the lab this summer. Michelle, Xiaofan, and Moussa all received NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRAs); David received a UROP Summer Researcher Award; and Kathak received an award from the Dentistry Summer Student program.

05 Apr

Mark selected for the CIHR Canadian Student Health Research Forum

Congratulations to Mark, who was selected to attend the CIHR Canadian Student Health Research Forum (CSHRF) in Winnipeg, MB from June 12-14, 2012. The CSHRF provides a venue for health research trainees from across Canada to present their work, network and be recognized for the excellence of their contributions. More details are available here:http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/medicine/research_days/index.html. Mark was selected as one of the top 5% of doctoral students at the University of Toronto.

18 Aug

Xiaofan, Meena, Michelle, and Mike win research awards at UnERD

Our undergraduate researchers showed exceptionally well at Undergraduate Engineering Research Day (UnERD), with Meena, Michelle, Mike, Vanessa, and Xiaofan all doing outstanding presentations and earning high praise for their talks and posters. Xiaofan was awarded best oral presentation in his session, and Meena, Michelle, and Mike all were runners-up in their poster sessions. Congratulations!

04 May

Suthan cleans up at MMB 2011!

Congratulations to Suthan, who won *two* best poster awards at The 6th International Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology (MMB 2011) in Lucerne, Switzerland! Suthan’s posters were on digital microfluidics for primary cell culture and a membrane microfluidic device to mimic the vascular microenvironment.

22 Mar

Chris receives the 2010 John Leyerle-CIFAR Prize for Interdisciplinary Research!

Congratulations to Chris, who was awarded the 2010 John Leyerle-Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Prize for Interdisciplinary Research. This prize recognizes a doctoral dissertation from the University of Toronto that makes unusually significant and original contributions to its academic field, and is presented to one excellent graduate student who performed outstanding interdisciplinary research. Chris was selected as the clear winner.

20 Oct

Congratulations to Chris, who received the Norman F. Moody Award!

Chris was awarded the 2010 Norman F. Moody Award. The Moody award was established in 1974 on the occasion of the retirement of the founder and first director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. It is awarded annually to a graduate student inIBBME in recognition of his or her academic excellence.

20 Sep

Aleks wins a MATCH Scholarship!

Congratulations to Aleks who was awarded an NSERC CREATE Program in Microfluidic Applications and Training in Cardiovascular Health (MATCH) Scholarship for 2010-11.

12 Aug

Chien wins Best Podium Presentation at UnERD!

Congratulations to Chien, who won Best Podium Presentation in the Biomedical Engineering session at the 2010 Undergraduate Engineering Research Day (UnERD) for his talk titled “Wnt3A inhibits TGF-beta1-induced apoptosis in aortic valvular endothelial cells”.

15 Jul

TENURE!!! Congratulations, Craig!

Congratulations to Craig, who received tenure in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, the Faculty of Dentistry, and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering.

15 Oct

Congratulations to Edmond, who received the Norman F. Moody Award!

Edmond was awarded the 2009 Norman F. Moody Award. The Moody award was established in 1974 on the occasion of the retirement of the founder and first director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. It is awarded annually to a graduate student inIBBME in recognition of his or her academic excellence.

06 Jul

Congratulations to Andrea, who successfully defended her M.Sc. thesis

Congratulations to Andrea, who successfully defended her M.Sc. thesis in the Orthodontics Graduate Specialty Program! Andrea’s thesis, co-supervised by Dr. Siew-Ging Gong and Craig, is titled “Development of a three-dimensional in vitro model system to study orthodontic tooth movement”. Andrea also passed her board exams earlier this year and will be opening her own orthodontics practice in Toronto in the fall. Congratulations, Andrea!

20 May

Congratulations to Bogdan, Jennifer, Lina, and Joyce! All were awarded summer student scholarships!

Congratulations to all the new summer research students who received scholarships for the summer. Bogdan was awarded a John D. Schultz Science Student Scholarship from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. Jennifer received an NSERC USRA. Lina was awarded a University of Toronto Life Sciences Scholarship. And Joyce received a scholarship from the Dentistry Summer Student Program.

11 Dec

Edmond is now Dr. Young!

Congratulations to Edmond, who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis today! Edmond will be moving to the University of Wisconsin in the New Year to start an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the lab of Dave Bebbe.

01 May

Congratulations to Ali, Billy, Bogdan, Catherine, Ian, Rachel, and Suthan, who all received summer research fellowships!

Congratulations to Ali, Billy, Bogdan, Catherine, and Ian, who receivedNSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards! Congratulations to Suthan, who received a John D. Schultz Science Student Scholarship from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario! And congratulations to Rachel, who received an Engineering Science Research Opportunity Program Fellowship!

27 Nov

Congratulations to George, who was awarded a research grant!

Congratulations to George, who was awarded a Golden Key Fall Undergraduate Research Grant from the Golden Key International Honour Society to support his thesis research! Bravo on an impressive accomplishment, George! Watch this space for the latest news, including a pending Golden Key press release featuring George’s headshot…

30 Sep

Craig and Edmond participated in the 2007 BMES conference in Los Angeles

The 2007 BMES conference took place in Los Angeles from September 26 – 29, and Craig and Edmond from the lab were there to participate. Craig (below) gave a sterling lecture on high-throughput mechanobiology, and presented current developments in that area that are being pursued within his own lab. Edmond presented his poster on matrix-dependent adhesion of vascular and valvular endothelial cells in microchannels. Also representing the University of Toronto was Irena Barbulovic-Nad (below) from the Wheeler Microfluidics Laboratory, who presented a poster on her novel work with droplet microfluidics and cell assays.

Craig-BMES 2007

Craig wraps up his talk on high-throughput mechanobiology to a round of applause.

Irina-BMES

Irena Barbulovic-Nad from the Wheeler Microfluidics Laboratory discusses her work on droplet microfluidics and cell assays to a crowd of very enthusiastic and interested BMES attendees.

08 Jan

Congratulations to Jan for his appointment as the new UTCML social Coordinator!

Congratulations to Jan for his appointment as the new UTCML social coordinator! “Jan has been a very vocal member of the lab when it comes to social activities, so I think this appointment is perfect for him”, said Cindy, the former social coordinator. “I’m pleased to be passing a fun job onto such capable hands.” And with that, the new social coordinator was crowned. UTCML looks forward to the social calendar of 2007!

01 Sep

The website will be undergoing some changes

The webpage has undergone some major work in the last days performed by Moritz, mainly to eliminate literally more than a thousand errors in the code, to make the code easier to maintain and more structured, but also for some small design changes. With the exception of the photo albums in the intranet pages (which will have to be tackled in the next days), all pages should now be truly valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS – a prerequisite for having the pages displayed as similarly as possible in different browsers! Each page contains a link in the footer that can be used to validate the current page; if you do find errors, please report them to Edmond.

25 Aug

Goodbye students!

The Simmons Lab had a farewell lunch to thank the summer students for all their hard work in the past few months. Everyone indulged themselves with General Tao’s Chicken. By the end of the meal, we had Derek saying, “General Tao is my new best friend.

22 Aug

The 1st annual Simmons Lab Day at Centre Island

What a great event this turned out to be! Thanks to Craig for authorizing this day off, and to Cindy for organizing and carefully deciding on the delegation of tasks. There was frisbee, kite-flying, beach volleyball, soccer, and of course the food. All in all, a major success!!!

1st Annual Simmonslab day1st Annual Simmonslab day (2)

24 Feb

Hello Rosebrugh!

We officially moved into our new facilities in the Rosebrugh Building! Everyone is anxious to get organized and to settle into the new digs. Check back for new updates and pictures of our move-in.

27 Jan

Congratulations to Cindy!

Congratulations are in order to Cindy Yip, who has just received her Master of Applied Science degree here at the University of Toronto (IBBME)!

04 Dec

Get ready for the Christmas Dinner which will be organized by Cindy!

The University of Toronto Laboratory of Cellular Mechanobiology (UTLCM) has planned a Christmas dinner for members and friends at the Old Spaghetti Factory on Friday, December 16th at 8:00pm. The members of the lab would like to thank Prof. Simmons for the invitation. (Event organized by Cindy Yip, social coordinator.)