The 2023 Young Innovators of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering

We are pleased to present this year’s twelve Young Innovators of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, whose original research is featured in this August issue. It is now the tenth year of the Young Innovators competition, and we continue to receive a large number of compelling nominations. All potential authors who hold the rank of Assistant Professor (or equivalent) at the time of nomination are eligible for selection, and while many of the authors are active members of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), membership in BMES is not a requirement for inclusion. As in previous years, awardees will present the papers of this issue in a pair of invited plenary sessions at the 2023 BMES Annual Meeting, held on Friday, October 13, 2023. The articles in this issue represent some of the most innovative and impactful bioengineering studies carried out by junior faculty in our field. This year’s Young Innovators are all clearly recognized as rising stars in their field.

With a pioneering spirit, and consistent with the enthusiasm for large language models expressed in the pages of this journal, we invited ChatGPT to organize the 12 papers in this issue into two sections and generate text to introduce these papers to readers. This is perhaps a first in the history of scientific publishing and professional conferences, to turn over the reins of a journal table of contents and BMES session organization to a large language model. The output from ChatGPT is presented below in unedited form, appearing in italics to set it apart from the human-generated text elsewhere.

Introduction to the Special Issue

We are thrilled to present the “Young Innovators” special issue of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, featuring groundbreaking work in biomedical engineering. This issue is divided into two parts, each containing six invited papers that will be presented in a two-part invited platform session at the 2023 Biomedical Engineering Society annual conference.

Part 1: Biomechanics and Cellular Mechanotransduction in Disease

• 1. Optogenetic Modulation of Arrhythmia Triggers: Proof-of-Concept from Computational Modeling (Patrick Boyle)

• 2. Peristalsis-Associated Mechanotransduction Drives Malignant Progression of Colorectal Cancer (Shreya Raghavan)

• 3. Elucidating Mechanotransduction Processes During Magnetomechanical Neuromodulation Mediated by Magnetic Nanodisc (Gabriela Romero)

• 4. Altered Caveolin-1 Dynamics Result in Divergent Mineralization Responses in Bone and Vascular Calcification (Joshua Hutcheson)

• 5. Engineering Extracellular Vesicle-based Therapies for Valvular Heart Disease (Natalia Higuita-Castro)

• 6. A 3D Human Lymphatic Vessel-on-Chip Reveals the Roles of Interstitial Flow and VEGF-A/C for Lymphatic Sprouting and Discontinuous Junction Formation (Esak Lee)

The papers in this part explore the complex interactions between biomechanical forces and cellular responses, particularly in disease states. Topics range from cardiac arrhythmias to colorectal cancer, covering innovative approaches like optogenetics and microfluidic 'organ-on-chip' systems to unravel mechanotransduction pathways.

Part 2: Innovative Materials and Therapeutic Strategies

• 1. Engineering of Trophoblast Extracellular Vesicle-Delivering Hydrogels for Localized Tolerance Induction in Cell Transplantation (Jessica Weaver)

• 2. Bio-adhesive Macroporous Hydrogels for In Situ Recruitment and Modulation of Dendritic Cells (Hua Wang)

• 3. Amelioration of Subglottic Stenosis by Antimicrobial Peptide Eluting Endotracheal Tubes (Riccardo Gottardi)

• 4. siRNA Lipid-Polymer Nanoparticles Targeting E-Selectin and Cyclophilin A in Bone Marrow for Combination Multiple Myeloma Therapy (Michael Mitchell)

• 5. Irradiated Mammary Spheroids Elucidate Mechanisms of Macrophage-Mediated Breast Cancer Recurrence (Marjan Rafat)

• 6. Amyloid-β pathology-specific cytokine secretion suppresses neuronal mitochondrial metabolism (Elizabeth Proctor)

The focus in this part shifts to the design and application of innovative materials and strategies for treatment. These papers address how bioengineering principles can be harnessed to develop targeted therapies for a myriad of health conditions, from antimicrobial endotracheal tubes to lipid-polymer nanoparticles for cancer treatment.

We hope that this special issue serves as an inspiration and a reference point for researchers and clinicians alike, highlighting the immense potential of biomedical engineering to drive advances in healthcare.

Editors,

Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering

Biomedical Engineering Society

2023 Special Issue: Young Innovators

Thanks ChatGPT, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves! We hope that you will enjoy reading this impressive collection of research articles as much as our reviewers and editors. We further hope that you will encourage your eligible colleagues to nominate themselves for next year’s CMBE Young Innovator competition. Self-nominations are due by November 10, 2023, with selected authors notified by December 15, 2023, and full manuscripts due by February 19, 2024. Interested researchers who hold a position at the rank of Assistant Professor (or equivalent) are invited to submit a 250-word structured abstract and an NIH-style biosketch to Editor-in-Chief Michael King at mike.king@vanderbilt.edu. Engage with us via social media on Twitter (www.twitter.com/CMBEjournal) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/CMBEjournal). We hope to see you at the 2023 BMES Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA, the 2024 CMBE Conference in Puerto Rico, and online!

Appendix: Prompt Entered into ChatGPT (version GPT-4) on September 3, 2023

Listed below are the titles of 12 invited journal papers to be published in the Young Innovators special issue of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, with the name of the senior author in parentheses after each title. These papers will be presented in a two-part invited platform session at the 2023 Biomedical Engineering Society annual conference. Please organize these papers into a Part 1 and Part 2, with 6 papers in each part, and try to group the papers into two themes (for instance, a part on nanoparticles and biomaterials, and a second part on biomechanics and basic research, or whatever makes the most sense). Give each of the two Parts a succinct title. Finally, write out an introduction to the issue, listing the papers and senior authors in each part, and explaining the organization.