Presenting my research at the IBE 2023 Research Conference poster reception in front of many biological engineering and biomedical engineering leading experts.

Author: Neel Patel | Major: Biomedical Engineering | Semester: Spring 2023

Intro to Neel’s research: The goal of my research is to use mechanical stimulation as a drug-free way to prime mesenchymal stem cells for osteogenic differentiation. This way, our novel treatment is scalable, sterile, and noninvasive for potential clinical applications. 

The IBE (Advancing Biology-Inspired Engineering) 2023 conference took place at a conference hall near Iowa State University. This conference attracted fellow biomedical engineers as well as biological engineers. While the conference was biological engineering focused, one of the key concepts of the conference was to connect biological and biomedical engineering at a deeper level to advance future technologies. This ideology was highlighted by many speakers including keynote speaker Dr. Raj Rao from the University of Arkansas Biomedical Engineering faculty. Going on this trip to explore the connection between chemical/biological engineering and biomedical engineering was beneficial in my research career, due to the numerous amazing presentations, networking opportunities, and student poster presentations.

This trip was critical in advancing my research career, as this was the first research conference in my scientific career. Getting exposure to scientific talks, presentations, and vocabulary is critical to advancing my biomedical engineering skill set. Particularly in my research, this conference exposed me to numerous ways to tackle a problem and bring light to problems that need to be addressed in my research. I was also given great feedback on my research at the conference. One scientist said to further examine a claim I stated in my conclusion from my research. While the claim was grounded with evidence, he suggested finding a method to quantify the synergistic treatment prescribed in my research. In fact, the scientist himself does not know of a good method to quantify synergistic effects of treatments in research. This is a common yet poorly understood concept in quantitative analysis and requires more research to find the best method to convey the results.

While the trip helped advance my research career, I was also able to advance my personal biomedical engineering career. I met numerous scholars from prestigious universities such as Harvard, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins. I was able to engage in conversations with many of these people and followed up by connecting with them on LinkedIn. Many of their career paths were inspiring to learn about. This information was amazing to learn and absorb, as I can apply some of their lessons to my own career path. Engaging with experts in the field of regenerative medicine and biology was amazing to see the diversity of ideas that people use to create their own bio-tech startups. This is something that I would like to do in the near future.

While there were many great guest speakers and amazing keynote presentations, I also had the opportunity to present my research at a poster presentation during the last day of the conference. My poster was judged in front of biological engineering and biomedical engineering field experts. I gained many comments on feedback to improve my research to better address the concerns in my field, but I also received many praises for my research. In fact, many researchers were shocked at the high-quality research that I conducted as a mere undergraduate. I learned many things from this poster presentation, including scientific communication skills, condensing information, and pitching my research to field experts. While my poster did not place in the top three among the undergraduate posters, I was greatly impressed with the new skills that I learned from this conference by observing others and applying them.

My piece of advice for undergraduate students presenting their research to a field of experts is as follows: It’s not scary. These community experts are here to observe the novel work that researchers are conducting and are likeminded curious individuals. Many of these experts are also great resources to ask research and career questions. I am so thankful to have gone on this trip to learn these facts now rather than later on in my career. The mistakes that I made at this conference are mistakes that I can now improve upon to further advance my research career. As I go on to Georgia Institute of Technology for my master’s in biomedical engineering, I will be utilizing the skillset developed from this conference in my future endeavors post-grad. I am grateful to the Honors College Research Grant for funding this experience and allowing me to develop my research and biomedical engineering career.