Opportunity Details

Details about the opportunity you selected and the mentor are shown below. It is your responsibility to contact the mentor to discuss collaborating with them this summer. If your mentor invites you to submit an application, you can access that from the front page of this site. Upon completion of the application, it will be sent to the mentor for approval before being passed on to the Summer Scholar Selection Committee, which will make the decisions.

Faculty Information
	Irene Georgakoudi
	Irene.Georgakoudi@tufts.edu
	Assistant Professor
	P: (617) 627-4353
	F: (617) 627-3231
Address:
	Biomedical Engineering Department 4 Colby Str., Rm. 153
	Medford, MA 02155

Opportunity:
	non-invasive characterization of biomineralization
Summary:
	Mineralization is a key process in the formation of tissues such as bone. It is also prevalent in diseases, such as atherosclerosis and breast cancer. Current means of characterizing mineral deposition and organization are invasive and provide limited information on the dynamic nature of this process, especially at its early stages. This project will focus on the use of light scattering spectroscopy as a novel, non-invasive approach to characterize mineral deposition on silk and silk-silica composite biomaterials. The information would acquire would have immediate and significant implications for tissue engineering and disease diagnostic applications
Contact Via:
	E-mail
What is the timeframe for this research opportunity?
	8-10 weeks
Prerequisities for students?
	Physics 12, BME 101 and/or Physics 31 (desired but not required), familiarity with Matlab
Responsibilities for students?
	Student will be responsible for operation of the instrument we have developed in house to acquire light scattering spectroscopic data from the samples. Student will acquire and analyze data using Matlab-based software. He/she will present results/progress during weekly group meetings