Travel grant awarded to BME student for community service and research

BME PhD candidate Xu Zhang is the recipient of a Ray Travel Award from the Coucil of Graduate Students at Ohio State. Zhang is advised by BME Associate Professor Dr. Yi Zhao. This award assists graduate students with the costs of traveling to conferences at which their research is shared. Candidates for this grant are selected by evidence of their committment to service within their community, department, or university, as well as their accademic achievements and professional goals. Zhang tutors students taking courses from the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and leads a group at the Columbus Chinese Christian Church that helps international students adapt to life in the United States. Additionally, he founded the OSU Chinese Amateur Astronauts Group and leads bi-weekly meetings. Zhang was also recognized for his current research, which he will be able to present at conferences as a result of the Ray Travel Award. Below is a description of Zhang's reseach:

Research

My research topic is " A Microengineered platform for studying the effect of physical exercise on intercellular mechanical transmission following heart failure".  The project aims at developing a microdevice for examining intercellular mechanical transmission in adult cardiac myocytes, establishing an ex-vivo cell model for identifying the role of ventricular hypertrophy on cardiac performance, and studying the effects of physical exercise on contractility of cardiac myocytes following heart failure.