Innovation Institute
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If ever there was a time to celebrate the power of innovation, it is in the wake of the wave of innovation unleashed by the SARS CoV-2 pandemic.
At the University of Pittsburgh, taking on the world’s biggest challenges is in our DNA, and our faculty, students and staff rose to the occasion to develop innovative solutions to directly confront Covid-19. They also persevered to keep progressing on the commercial translation of their pre-pandemic discoveries.
The University of Pittsburgh Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship presented its Celebration of Innovation on April 22, 2021, on YouTube.
The Celebration of Innovation recognizes the accomplishments of Pitt innovators who have achieved important milestones for the commercialization of their work to make an impact on the world and on people’s lives. These include being issued a patent, or having their technology or creation licensed or copyrighted, including the formation of
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IMAGE: Dr. Balazs is one of 120 newly elected members to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. view more
Credit: Aimee Obidzinski
PITTSBURGH (April 26, 2021) . Anna C. Balazs, an award-winning University of Pittsburgh Distinguished Professor in the Swanson School of Engineering, has added one of the nation s top honors to her portfolio. The National Academy of Sciences announced today that Balazs is among its 120 newly elected members, recognizing distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Balazs, who also holds the John A. Swanson Chair of Engineering in the Swanson School s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, is internationally recognized for her theoretical and computational modeling of polymers. For the past decade, her research has focused on mimicking biological processes in polymeric materials which could contribute to the advancement of soft robotics or squishy robots.
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Credit: Raj Kumar Manna
PITTSBURGH (March 16, 2021) . During the swarming of birds or fish, each entity coordinates its location relative to the others, so that the swarm moves as one larger, coherent unit. Fireflies on the other hand coordinate their temporal behavior: within a group, they eventually all flash on and off at the same time and thus act as synchronized oscillators.
Few entities, however, coordinate both their spatial movements and inherent time clocks; the limited examples are termed swarmalators 1, which simultaneously swarm in space and oscillate in time. Japanese tree frogs are exemplar swarmalators: each frog changes both its location and rate of croaking relative to all the other frogs in a group.
New model to better predict risk of abdominal aortic aneurysms
An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) can be a ticking time bomb if undiscovered in time. However, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are developing a new model to better predict at-risk patients. And the tools they are using apply mechanical testing to the human body - which is itself a complex machine.
An AAA occurs when the aorta weakens and begins to irreversibly dilate, like a slowly inflating balloon. If left untreated, the risk of rupture increases and has a 90 percent rate of mortality, making AAA the 15th leading cause of death in the United States with more than 15,000 deaths reported annually.
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IMAGE: Animation from simulation demonstrating spatio-temporal control of rotors via a cascade reaction. GOx-coated rotor (magenta) lies on the left side of the chamber, while CAT-coated rotor (green) lies on the. view more
Credit: A. Laskar
PITTSBURGH (December 18, 2020) . The gear is one of the oldest mechanical tools in human history1 and led to machines ranging from early irrigation systems and clocks, to modern engines and robotics. For the first time, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering have utilized a catalytic reaction that causes a two-dimensional, chemically-coated sheet to spontaneously morph into a three-dimensional gear that performs sustained work.