October 23, 2006
Bioengineering graduate students Craig Hashi and Yiqian Zhu were the winners in the Graduate Category of the Collegiate Inventors Competition. Craig Hashi is a member of Bioengineering Professor Song Li’s tissue engineering lab, and Yiqian Zhu works under supervision of Professors William Young and Guo-Yuan Yang at The Center for Cerebrovascular Research at UC San Francisco. The team won the national competition with their tissue-engineered vascular grafts, a revolutionary idea which may replace failure-prone grafts harvested from a patient’s body. The grafts are formed from long, thin strands of a polymer, which are formed into a very thin mat and seeded with bone marrow stem cells. Once the cells have had a chance to grow, the mat is rolled into a tube and ready to implant as a vascular graft and a fully-functioning blood vessel. Chances of rejection are greatly reduced because the patient’s own cells could be used to create the graft.
For 15 years, the Collegiate Inventors Competition has recognized and encouraged undergraduate and graduate students on their quest to change the world around them. With over $75,000 in prizes awarded to the top inventors and their academic advisors each year, the Competition is one of the most prestigious honors available to college and university innovators. The contest is sponsored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation.
This is the same revolutionary technology that earned the Li Lab team first place in the BMEideanational competition.
Congratulations again Craig and Yiquian!