Abstract:
Nanomedicine, or the use of materials with at least one dimension less than 100 nm, has led to improved disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. This talk will cover recent advances in the use of nanomaterials to prevent, diagnose, and treat cardiovascular diseases. Specifically, nanomaterials (such as carbon nanotubes) when coupled with stem cells have been shown to reverse stroke damage and return motor function to stroke-induced rats. Moreover, vascular stents with nanotextures have been shown to improve endothelialization to reduce thrombus formation and reclogging of arteries. Further, new cardiac patches with conductive nanomaterials (such as graphene) have been shown to regenerate cardiomyocyte functions (such as growth and contractile function) to regenerate healthy cardiac tissue in the area of heart tissue damage due to heart attacks. In this manner, this talk will highlight how cardiovascular nanomedicine is being used to significantly improve numerous cardiovascular diseases in unprecedented ways.
Biography:
Thomas J. Webster’s (H index: 126; Google Scholar) degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (B.S., 1995; USA) and in biomedical engineering from RPI (Ph.D., 2000; USA). He has served as a professor at Purdue (2000-2005), Brown (2005-2012), and Northeastern (2012-2021; serving as Chemical Engineering Department Chair from 2012 - 2019) Universities and has formed over a dozen companies who have numerous FDA approved medical products currently improving human health in over 30,000 patients. His technology is also being used in commercial products to improve sustainability and renewable energy. He is currently helping those companies and serves as a professor at Brown University, Saveetha University, Hebei University of Technology, UFPI, and others. Dr. Webster has numerous awards including: 2020, World Top 2% Scientist by Citations (PLOS); 2020, SCOPUS Highly Cited Research (Top 1% Materials Science and Mixed Fields); 2021, Clarivate Top 0.1% Most Influential Researchers (Pharmacology and Toxicology); 2022, Best Materials Science Scientist by Citations (Research.com); and is a fellow of over 8 societies. Prof. Webster is a former President of the U.S. Society for Biomaterials and has over 1,350 publications to his credit with over 55,000 citations. He was recently nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Prof. Webster also recently formed a fund to support Nigerian student research opportunities in the U.S.
