Higuita-Castro awarded National Institutes of Health T32 fellowship

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Natalia Higuita-Castro, Post-doc BME 
Natalia Higuita-Castro, post doctoral fellow, Biomedical Engineering was recently awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) T32 fellowship to work on novel autologous nanotherapy to control lung inflammation. With this fellowship Dr. Higuita-Castro plans to establish a new research niche focused on engineering naturally-derived autologous nano-carriers to modulate lung inflammation. Higuita-Castro received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Ohio State under the mentorship of Dr. Samir Ghadiali, professor, Biomedical Engineering, and co-advised by Dr. Derek Hansford, associate professor, Biomedical Engineering. Her research focused on the use of micro and nano-fabrication techniques for applications in cell mechanics and tissue engineering. During her postdoctoral training she worked with Dr. Samir Ghadiali on a collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh - School of Medicine, to develop advanced engineering platforms to characterize middle ear disorders at the microscale.

Higuita-Castro also worked with Dr. Sen, Executive Director of Ohio State's Comprehensive Wound Center, to develop novel engineering-based approaches for non-viral gene delivery and the derivation of exosomal nanocarriers for fundamental and therapeutic applications.

This project will be conducted under the clinical mentorship of Dr. Joshua A. Englert MD, and in collaboration with Drs. Ghadiali and Sen.

Congratulations Dr. Higuita-Castro!