Manufacturing Meets Medicine

with Leila Ladani, Arizona State University
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
12:00 - 1:00 PM, 117A Randloph Hall

 The COVID-19 pandemic has manifested the remarkable role of medical technology in saving lives and the positive impact the human-technology partnership has in a vivid and clear manner. In particular, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been used for medical applications long before other technologies realized the unique aspects of AM. In fact one major application of AM was and has been biomedical implants. This talk focuses on new NRT program at ASU that focuses on design and manufacturing of biomedical devices and implants. The program requirement and opportunities are discussed. This NSF funded program provides support and opportunities for STEM PhD students working on design and manufacturing of biomedical devices and implants to connect with medical community, shadow doctors in Mayo Clinic, participate in MedTech accelerator at ASU, be trained on marketing and commercialization aspects of their research and many others. The goal of the program is to bring STEM and medicine training trajectories together paving the path to close the knowledge gap for STEM students. Specifically, some of the research areas that are covered in this program, such as use of additive manufacturing in medical application and emerging technologies for imaging and cancer detection are discussed. 

 Leila Ladani received her doctorate in mechanical engineering from University of Maryland at College Park, in 2007. Prior to that she received her master's degree in mechanical engineering in heat and fluid (with honor) and another master's degree in solid mechanics and her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. She is internationally recognized for her research on advanced and multi-scale manufacturing and mechanics of materials. Ladani’s research, academic involvement and outreach has been supported and recognized by NSF, NAE, NASA, US. Department of State and many others. She has been invited speaker for more than 35 talks, most recently in October of 2022, as invited speaker at MS&T conference in Pittsburgh, PA. She was invited attendee of National Academy of Engineering Frontier of engineering conference and has been selected as ASME EPPD Women Engineer. She was selected as Connecticut Women of Innovation Finalist in the category of Academic Innovation and Leadership. She is the editor of Journal of Materials Science and Engineering A and has published more than 150 refereed manuscripts and patents. She is an ASME Fellow.