Winter 2023-
Congratulations to Andrea Jones for receiving the 2022 Gridley Mckim-Smith Foundation for Women's Wellness Fellowship award acknowledging Andrea's work towards creating the human ovarian cell atlas
https://thefww.org/fellowship-award-awardees-updates-2022/
Fall 2022-
Taylor Schissel and Delaney Sinko join the Shikanov lab! WELCOME!
Congratulations to Jordan Machlin on publishing her first review article
"Single-cell RNA-sequencing of retrieved human oocytes and eggs in
clinical practice and for human ovarian cell atlasing" in Molecular Reproduction and Development
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/mrd.23648
CONGRATULATIONS to Emily Thomas on receiving Derek Tat award for being the
most outstanding first year PhD student
Congratulations to Cynthia Dela Cruz on publishing her first author research article "A mouse model mimicking gender-affirming treatment with pubertal suppression followed by testosterone in transmasculine youth" in Human Reproduction
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36484619/
Summer 2022-
Andrea's work on spatial analysis of human ovary is in the spotlight!
If you are interested to learn more about her collaborative project to create
Spatial Organ Atlas with the Nanostring GeoMx, watch her webinar here
CONGRATULATIONS to DESPINA PAVLIDIS!!! Despina unconditionally
passed her PhD qualifying exam and was advanced to PhD candidacy. Great job!
Looking forward to see how she combines materials and tissue engineering to advance restoration of fertility and ovarian endocrine function restoration.
CONGRATULATIONS to Prianka and her co-authors on publishing her first author paper "Pharmacokinetic comparison of three delivery systems for subcutaneous testosterone administration in female mice" in General and Comparative Endocrinology
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016648022001150
CONGRATULATIONS to Margaret on publishing her first-author paper "Human Ovarian Follicles Xenografted in Immunoisolating Capsules Survive Long Term Implantation in Mice" in Frontiers in Endocrinology!
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.886678/full
Winter 2022
Ariella is interviewed on the radio program hosted by Paul W. Smith on WJR to discuss her lab's work on artificial ovaries and restoration of ovarian endocrine function https://player.fm/series/series-2166118/ariella-shikanov-the-paul-w-smith-show
Check out the FastForward portfolio for the Frankel Innovation Initiative that funded our preclinical studies required to apply for the FDA approval for the first-in-human clinical trials https://innovation.medicine.umich.edu/portfolio_post/artova/
Claire's research is published and highlighted in online on Medicine Innovates Series https://medicineinnovates.com/novel-biomimetics-promote-dynamic-cell-driven-remodeling-microenvironment/
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Claire Nason-Tomaszewski who defended her thesis and moved to Atlanta to start her research scientist position! Thank you Claire for all the great work you have done investigating extracellular matrix deposition during in vitro folliculogenesis!
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Claire Nason-Tomaszewski who was awarded the Richard and Eleanor Towner Prize for Outstanding PhD Research at this year's Engineering Research Symposium and we were hoping that this would be included in the next BME Updates email.
Fall 2021 -
Allison Sutton and Emily Thomas, join the Shikanov lab as a PhD graduate student! WELCOME!
Dr. Daniel Pfau joins the Shikanov lab as a postdoctoral fellow. WELCOME!
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Hadrian Kinnear who defended his thesis and continues his
studies towards the Medical Doctor degree at UM Medical School ! T
hank you Hadrian for jumpstarting the "Transgender Mouse Project"
and pioneering this incredible model. Your work pioneering the
path for many researchers and labs. Best of luck becoming the
most amazing MD/PhD physician-scientist!
Summer 2021-
CONGRATULATIONS to Andrea for receiving a highly completive F31 award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development entitled "Engineering a biomimetic matrix to promote development of human ovarian follicles in vitro".
Emily Thomas joins the Shikanov lab as a PhD graduate student! WELCOME! Super excited to work with you!!!
CONGRATULATIONS to MONICA WALL!!! Monica unconditionally passed her PhD qualifying exam and was advanced to PhD candidacy. Great job! Looking forward to see how she combines immunology and tissue engineering to advance the field of immunological tolerance.
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Cynthia Dela Cruz de Freitas for being awarded a Postdoctoral Translational Scholars Program (PTSP) from MICHR! Cynthia will develop an adolescent mouse model for transgender youth that will help guide clinicians in counseling for fertility preservation in adolescent and adult transgender patients and give an insight into the reproductive consequences of the hormonal treatment for cross-sex transition.
CONGRATULATIONS to Gillian Rubenstein! Her thesis "Empowering Biological Reproductive Decision-Making for Transgender Men: Evaluating the Impact of Exogenous Testosterone on Extraovarian Structures Using a Transgender Mouse Model" has been awarded HIGHEST HONORS by the Women’s and Gender Studies Undergraduate Committee. Her honors thesis represents an important intellectual milestone and we are delighted with recognition of this challenging academic opportunity and contribution to the field of feminist thought. Huge thanks to Gillian's mentor, Hadrian Kinnear!
Winter 2021-
CONGRATULATIONS to Andrea who delivered an outstanding presentation entitled "Transcriptome profiling of ovarian follicles to identify targets for promoting early folliculogenesis in vitro" at the Tri-Institutional Symposium on Reproductive Biology and Infertility in Pittsburgh and won the title of the "Best Talk"!
CONGRATULATIONS to Claire, who was awarded the Marian Sarah Parker Prize- Graduate prize. This award is presented to an outstanding female graduate student, who has demonstrated academic excellence, leadership qualities and outstanding contributions to the University and community.
Jordan H. Machlin joins the Shikanov lab as a PhD graduate student! WELCOME!
Check out the video BME department prepared for the graduate student recruitment
featuring the research in our lab. Special thanks to Hadrian, Andrea and Despina
for preparing the presentation!
https://bme.umich.edu/research/virtual-lab-tours/
Fall 2020 -
CONGRATULATIONS to Hadrian! The Animal Care & Use Program is pleased to announce that Hadrian Kinnear,
a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program, is the recipient of the inaugural Excellence in Research Animal
Care & Use Award! Established in 2019, the Award celebrates staff excellence within the research community in the
categories of Excellence in Animal Welfare, Outreach & Education, and Innovation & Collaboration.
Hadrian studies the reproductive consequences of testosterone administration for female-to-male gender transition
in collaboration with the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
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Despina Pavlidis joins the Shikanov lab as a PhD graduate student! WELCOME!
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CONGRATULATIONS to Andrea Jones and Margaret Brunette!!! Andrea and Margaret unconditionally passed their PhD qualifying exam and were advanced to PhD candidacy. Great job!
Fall 2019 -
CONGRATULATIONS to Claire for receiving a highly completive F30 award "Engineering the ovarian microenvironment and deciphering folliculogenesis in a biomimetic matrix"
CONGRATULATIONS to Hadrian for receiving a highly competitive F31 award HD100163-01 :"Reversibility of Testosterone-Induced Reproductive Changes in Adult Female Mice".
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. James R. Day who defended his thesis and moved to Boston to start his position at AbbVie! Thank you James for all the great work you have done!
Congratulations to Hadrian who is the 2019 recipient of the inaugural Excellence in Research Animal Care & Use Award sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Animal Care and Use Program. This award celebrates staff and students dedicated to excellence in humane research animal care and use. Hadrian’s commitment to the highest quality of animal use, from experimental design to technique refinement, is commendable. He is a trusted mentor and leader for many of his colleagues in the development and use of animal models. Well deserved!
Winter 2019 -
We are in the news!
Congratulations to Hadrian Kinnear and his co-authors, for receiving the SRI Poster Award at the SRI conference in Paris!
Congratulations to Andrea Jones, who was awarded the STAR (Student Travel Achievement Recognition) award and nominated for an outstanding contribution to the Society for Biomaterials’ 2019 Annual Meeting being held in Seattle, WA, April 3-6, 2019. The title of her abstract is “Rescuing the Primary: Lessons Learned from Inter-follicular Synergy.”
Summer 2018
CONGRATULATIONS to James! James received the BME’s EDGE award that comes with $4,000 provided by the Endowment for the Development of Graduate Education (EDGE) fund. This award is presented to a single outstanding Ph.D. student each year.
CONGRATULATIONS to Yi and Jiwon on publishing a new manuscript in Nature Communications with our collaborator, Prof. Akira Ono.
CONGRATULATIONS to Claire!!! Claire unconditionally passed the PhD qualifying exam and was advanced to PhD candidacy. Great job!
Winter 2018
CONGRATULATIONS to Hong and Uzi on publishing TWO book chapters about ovarian follicle culture in three-dimensional hydrogel-based cultures in the “Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering, Methods and Protocols” edited by Kanika Chawla.
CONGRATULATIONS to Hong on publishing a new manuscript “Detection of lindane and 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene toxicity at low concentrations in a three-dimensional ovarian follicle culture system” in the Reproductive Toxicology!
CONGRATULATIONS to James who has been selected to receive the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship that supports outstanding doctoral students!
CONGRATULATIONS to Hadrian!!! Hadrian unconditionally passed the PhD qualifying exam and was advanced to PhD candidacy. Great job!
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Hong Zhou on receiving an Honorable Mention of her abstract “Dynamic transcription factor activity networks in response to ovarian follicle culture environments”. Her abstract was nominated as an outstanding contribution to the Society For Biomaterials’ 2018 Annual Meeting being held in Atlanta, GA April 11-14, 2018. Plan to attend her talk! Congratulations
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Elizabeth Constance for defending her fellowship thesis and giving an outstanding grand rounds at the Department of Obstetric and Gynecology at the University of Michigan! Constance Grand Rounds
CONGRATULATIONS to James and Anu on publishing a new manuscript “Immunoisolating poly(ethylene glycol) based capsules support ovarian tissue survival to restore endocrine function” in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research.
We made the news 🙂 What a great way to start 2018! Our lab was quoted in an article “To Give Cancer Survivors a Chance to Conceive, Scientists are designing Artificial Ovaries” about artificial ovaries published January 1st in “The Scientist”
Fall 2017
CONGRATULATIONS to James and Anu on publishing their manuscript “The impact of functional groups of poly(ethylene glycol) macromers on the physical properties of photo-polymerized hydrogels and the local inflammatory response in the host” in Acta Biomaterialia. What a wonderful way to finish 2017!
CONGRATULATIONS to Hong who defended her PhD thesis : “Bioengineering the ovarian follicle environment”. Great job Dr. Zhou!
CONGRATULATIONS to Claire on receiving the Derek Tat award! This award is given annually to a BME PhD student going into their second year, who best exemplifies the outstanding, early stage researchers qualities.
CONGRATULATIONS to Claire on receiving GAANN fellowship for 2017-2018 academic years!
CONGRATULATIONS to Hadrian Kinnear, MD/PhD student who joined the Shikanov lab.
Summer 2017
CONGRATULATIONS to Claire Tomaszewski on receiving the Rackham summer fellowship.
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Yi Li, he joined our lab as a postdoctoral fellow.
CONGRATULATIONS to Jennifer Park, a medical student from the University of Connecticut completed her 8-week long research.
Nikola Milasinovic visits us again to do research on polymers.
CONGRATULATIONS to the Shikanov Lab for obtaining funding from the California National Primate Research Center Pilot Program to start our first study in non-human primates!
CONGRATULATIONS to Drs. Moravek and Shikanov on obtaining an American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) research grant to investigate the Reproductive Consequences of Testosterone Administration for the Female-to-Male Gender Transition.ldwell and Steven Niedzielski present at the 2013 UROP symposium with their research project titled Synthetic Hydrogel Design.
Fall 2018 -
Andrea Jones and Margaret Hammersley join the Shikanov lab as PhD graduate student! WELCOME!
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Hong Zhou and Claire and our wonderful collaborators, Dr. Joe Decker and Melissa from Profs. Shea and Arnold laboratories for their help and contributions to our recently published manuscript: “Synergy of Paracrine Signaling During Early-Stage Mouse Ovarian Follicle Development In Vitro”, published in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering.
For this work we were awarded the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator award!
Fall 2016
Dr. Sudipta Dutta joins Shikanov Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. WELCOME!
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Anu David and his co-authors James Day, Alexa Cichon, Adam Lefferts and Marilia Cascalho on acceptance of their manuscript to the Annals of Biomedical Engineering: “Restoring Ovarian Endocrine Function with Encapsulated Ovarian Allograft in Immune Competent Mice”
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Anu David, who was awarded the first place in the Student and Young Investigator Section for the poster entitled “Immunoisolation of the implanted ovarian tissue using synthetic poly (ethylene glycol)-vinyl sulfone (PEG-VS) and TheraCyte” presented at the TERMIS-AM 2016 Annual Conference, San Diego.
CONGRATULATIONS to James Day! James passed the PhD qualifying exam and was advanced to PhD candidacy. Great job!
Dr. Shikanov presented a seminar “Synthetic matrix to engineer ovarian follicle environment” at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium.
Dr. Shikanov was invited to speak at the CELLMATRIX meeting in Berlin, Germany about synthetic hydrogels for directing the development of ovarian follicles.
AnneMarie Opipari, a UofM medical student who performed research in Shikanov lab over the summer, presented her research at the symposium in Medical School. Congrats!
Claire Tomaszewski is joining the Shikanov Lab as a graduate PhD student! WELCOME!
Congratulations to Dr. Lisa Green who attended the ASRM meeting in Boston and delivered a podium talk on improving the outcomes of in vitro culture of small primary ovarian follicles.
Summer 2016
Congratulations to Dr. Lisa Green on delivering an outstanding presentation at the 18th International Congress of Animal Reproduction in Le Vinci in Tours, France.
Congratulations to Dr. Jiwon Kim on defending his thesis: “Functional and Tunable Synthetic Hydrogel for Reproductive Tissue Engineering”.
Congratulations to Dr. Jiwon Kim and the co-authors, Amanda, Jake, Anu and Hong, on acceptance of their manuscript “Synthetic hydrogel supports the function and regeneration of artificial ovarian tissue” in npj Regenerative Medicine.
Congratulations to Dr. Anu David and James Day on acceptance of their review: “Immunoisolation to prevent tissue graft rejection: current knowledge and future use” in Experimental Biology and Medicine!
Congratulations to Dr. Lisa Green on acceptance of her review: “In vitro culture methods of prenatal follicles” in Theriogenology!
Congratulations to Prof. Shikanov on receiving the Michigan-Israel award for excellence in stem cell biology in collaboration with Prof. Hanna from Weizmann Institute.
Congratulations to Prof. Shikanov on acceptance of oral and poster presentations at the WBC2016 in Montreal, Canada.
Winter 2016
Congratulations to Prof. Shikanov for receiving the NSF CAREER award.
Fall 2015
Jiwon gave a talk on “Engineering artificial ovary using PEG” and Uziel had a poster titled “Design of Polyethylene Glycol Hydrogel to Support Angiogenesis and Folliculogenesis in vitro” at the TERMIS World Congress in Boston 2016.
We had a full house at our session “Reproductive Tissue Engineering ” and had a great opportunity to meet with our colleagues from NU, Wake Forest, Belgium, and Israel.
Summer 2015
Hong was awarded second place for her oral presentation at MARTS (Michigan Alliance for Reproductive Technologies and Science Conference). Congratulations!
Winter 2015
Congratulations to James Day for being awarded a National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship!
Jiwon’s paper entitled “Characterizing natural hydrogel for reconstruction of three-dimensional lymphoid stromal network to model T-cell interactions” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research-Part A. Congratulations!
Winter 2014
Congratulations to Dr. Shikanov, who received a 2013 Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award, which offers support for three years at $100,000 direct cost per year. The name of the awarded project is: Engineering a Construct to Recover Endocrine Function in Children with Ovarian Failure.
Congratulations to Dr. Shikanov for being named an Outstanding Research Mentor for 2013-2014. Dr. Shikanov was nominated by Malika Malik: “My freshman year I had a hard time adjusting to college and was not able to find a community to encourage my academic success. She has made sure I was able to balance my workload, when I was having difficulty in classes I was able to go to her for explanations of concepts. Every week Ariella takes time out of her busy schedule to arrange an individual meeting to discuss not only research but my personal and academic goals. Talking to her brings clarity to the overall purpose of my academics and gives me strength to make the best out of every situation.”
Fall 2013
Graduate students Hong Zhou and Jiwon Kim present their research at the annul BMES meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Research Assistant Malika Malik presents at the ABRCMS 2013 conference at Nashville, TN with her research project, Optimization of 3D Hydrogel for Ovarian Follicle Culture.
Summer 2013
Summer UROP students Angelica Okorom and Malika Malik present at the 2013 summer UROP symposium with their research projects titled Design and Optimization of 3D Hydrogel System for Ovarian Follicle Culture.
Winter 2013
MECHENG 450 senior design project, 3D Bio-printer for hydrogels. Team 13: Mark Trost, Abby Grajek, James Doetsch, and Gregory McEwan. These senior Mechanical Engineering students presented at the 2013 Design Expo.
UROP students Kavinmozhi Caldwell and Steven Niedzielski present at the 2013 UROP symposium with their research project titled Synthetic Hydrogel Design.
