Grinstaff Receives Inaugural DeLisi Award and Lecture
The College of Engineering has honored interdisciplinary scientist, Professor Mark Grinstaff (Chemistry, BME, MSE, MED), with the inaugural Charles DeLisi Award and Distinguished Lecture. Professor Grinstaff will present the Lecture on Thursday, April 2 at 4 p.m. in the Photonics Colloquium Room (PHO 906). In the lecture, “Clinically Informed Biomaterial Design and Engineering,” he will explore how over the past two decades, he and his students have translated ideas from the laboratory into new devices and materials for clinical applications.
The award – established by a generous gift by Professor and Dean Emeritus Charles DeLisi, widely considered the father of the Human Genome Project – is in recognition of Mark Grinstaff’s significant contributions to his field, both as an academic researcher and as an entrepreneur who has co-founded four companies that are translating his ideas into clinical products. In addition to his joint appointments in Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering, Professor Grinstaff directs the Center for Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnology (CNN) and an NIH-funded Translational Research in Biomaterials Training program, and is the inaugural College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Translational Research and inaugural recipient of the Innovator of the Year Award from BU’s Office of Technology Development. He was also named a College of Engineering Distinguished Faculty Fellow and a Kern Faculty Fellow.
The Grinstaff laboratory, which is currently comprised of more than 20 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, Advanced Energy Consortium, the Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology, and other agencies. They have advanced several major biomaterials that range from a joint lubricant that could bring longer- lasting relief to millions of osteoarthritis sufferers, to a highly absorbent hydrogel that not only seals wounds, but can later be dissolved and gently removed.