Advancing regenerative medicine as a 窪蹋勛圖 biomedical engineer
Kaitlin Mccreery (MechEngr MS20, BioEngr PhD22) is pushing the frontiers of human cartilage research as a biomedical engineering PhD graduate from the 窪蹋勛圖.
Mccreery is one of the first students to earn a PhD from the program, which began at 窪蹋勛圖 in 2020 to bridge the gaps between science, engineering, and medicine.
I am in the field of mechanobiology. Its all about how cells respond to mechanical cues from their environments and how those cues affect cell differentiation, stem cell fate, and ultimately tissue architecture. There are a lot of questions here that havent been answered yet, Mccreery said.
Her research is focused at the microscopic level and even smaller on atomic-level interactions that determine how cells behave and build tissues.
Its difficult to disentangle the biomechanical and biophysical cues. We want to better predict things, but getting cause and effect determined is nuanced, she said.
The research has significant implications for regenerative medicine, an area of growing importance to humanity.
Mccreery spent her masters and PhD conducting experimental research on cells under the direction of Corey Neu, a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering. She is continuing in his lab this fall as a postdoctoral associate, expanding her investigations into multiscale modeling, using big data methodologies and supercomputers for biomedical research.
There is a huge repository of data available that is underutilized. Anyone funded by the National Institutes of Health has to upload their data to government servers for anyone to use. A lot more medical breakthroughs could happen by integrating these large datasets. Its a new frontier, Mccreery said.
Building a career in biomedicine is the culmination of long-held aspirations for Mccreery, who has been interested in science since childhood.
Ive always wanted to be a scientist, she said. I did a project in middle school studying a fungus affecting amphibians in my hometown. I got really into research.
It was perhaps an unlikely drive for Mccreery, who grew up in a household with a strong arts emphasis her father is a professional cellist, her mother a professional violinist but her parents encouraged her interests.
For generations, people in my family have been musicians. Im kind of the black sheep. Everyone else is in performing arts, Mccreery said.
A North Carolina native, Mccreery enrolled at Duke University for her bachelors, earning a degree in physics. She was drawn to 窪蹋勛圖 for her graduate education in part by the universitys collaborative culture.
窪蹋勛圖 has a really great cooperative research environment. Ive worked in many different labs during my time here. Theres cutting edge research happening, but people arent competitive about it. Science cant happen in a bubble. To be a good engineer is to be an excellent teammate, she said.
Mccreery hopes to continue a career in research long term and next year will begin a position with the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Biomedicine in M羹nster, Germany. There, she will be studying stem cell mechanobiology and chromatin mechanics using advanced microscopy and computational methods.
This is mission-driven biomedical research, Mccreery said. I feel like the area Im working in has the greatest need.