Grande-Allen named fellow of Society for Experimental Mechanics

Honor recognizes bioengineer’s advances in tissue engineering and biomaterials

Rice bioengineer Jane Grande-Allen has been elected a fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics for her application of tissue-engineering analysis and biomaterials development to understand heart-valve mechano-biology and contributing factors of cardiovascular disease.

Grande-Allen, the Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering, joined Rice in 2003. The long-standing focus of her research has involved experimental methods to characterize, remodel and test the function of normal and diseased heart-valve tissues, as well as to assess their mechanical strength, growth and the development of abnormalities.

Jane Grande-Allen

Her investigations have ranged from nano to macro lengths of scale, employed numerous customized devices that she and her students have built and sought new mechano-physico bases to forecast changes in tissues over the course of a lifetime and with various types of valve disease. Such in-depth studies have allowed her lab to gain a fundamental understanding of the extracellular matrix that underlies the mechanical behavior of valves, as well as how the matrix varies across valve microstructure.

Grande-Allen’s extensive research collaborations have impacted the development of novel surgical and tissue-engineering therapies that can be used to treat patients earlier in the disease process. New projects in her lab involve joint research with Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to apply the latest techniques in tissue engineering toward the study of gastrointestinal disease.

Founded in 1943, the Society for Experimental Mechanics is an international professional society of engineers and scientists interested in the research and application of engineering measurements and test methods with the mission to promote and encourage expanding knowledge pertaining to the education, research and application of experimental mechanics to the determination of materials and system behavior. The society will present Grande-Allen with the SEM fellowship award during the 2016 SEM XIII International Congress and Exposition in Orlando, Fla.

–Shawn Hutchins is a science writer and Web specialist for the Department of Bioengineering.