On November 8th, the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering celebrated its 12th annual Pruitt Research Day. We hold our celebration near the birth date of Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt Sr. whose vision and generosity helped found the department. Dr. Pruitt was always most excited to hear about and discuss the achievements and research being conducted by our students. This year, the Keynote speakers were Drs. Scott A. Banks and Shannon Brown Fedenko.
Dr. Brown Fedenko is a double gator, with a BS in Agricultural & Biological Engineering and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. Before starting her doctoral degree, Shannon worked in Process Development for the tissue banking industry, where she discovered her love of regenerative medicine. She returned to UF to pursue a doctoral degree where she researched nano-scale drug delivery under the supervision of Dr. Blanka Sharma (as Dr. Sharma’s first graduate student!). After graduate school, Shannon joined a Gainesville-based start-up company to develop regenerative medicine and cell-isolation technologies. On the side, Shannon volunteers as a veterinary technician and runs an agricultural business.
At Pruitt Research Day, Suzanne presenting her research in a talk titled, “Engineering Hydrogels to Investigate the Role of Extracellular Matrix Cues on Natural Killer Cell Functions” and Jessica presented her research in a poster titled, “Manganese Dioxide Nanoparticles as a Chondroprotective Therapy for Osteoarthritis.”
It was amazing reconnect with former Sharma Lab members and see their incredible career paths.
Great work!
