Written by: Grant Martin
Ho-Wook Jun, Ph.D., a professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, or AIMBE, College of Fellows.
The election by peers and members of the College of Fellows cited Jun’s “pioneering translational research in biomaterials, biomedical devices and therapeutics.”
Jun, a UAB faculty member since 2006, is a co-founder and chief scientific officer of the Endomimetics LLC, a company that develops Bionanomatrix coatings for cardiovascular stents and other medical implants. Bionanomatrix is a peptide-based biomaterial that promotes healing and improve outcomes following medical device implantation and other procedures. The Birmingham-based Endomimetics currently resides in Southern Research’s Station 41 biotechnology startup hub near the UAB campus.
Last year, Endomimetics received its most recent Small Business Innovation Research grants: a $300,000 Phase I grant to support automation and evaluation of a novel 3D in vitro functional assay for use in atherosclerosis drug discovery and development, and a $2.8 million Phase II grant to support research to evaluate the potential of Bionanomatrix to improve performance of flow diverters used in the treatment of brain aneurysms. These are just the latest of about $10 million in SBIR funding since the founding of Endomimetics in 2009.
Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to medical and biological engineers, and Fellows comprise the top 2 percent of engineers in these fields. Membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering and medicine research, practice or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.”
Other UAB faculty inducted into AIMBE include Jeffrey Holmes, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering; and Jianyi “Jay” Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
AIMBE Fellows hail from the United States and more than 30 countries, and they are employed in academia, industry, clinical practice and government. AIMBE Fellows include four Nobel Prize laureates and 27 Presidential Medal of Science and/or Technology and Innovation awardees, and 233 have been inducted to the National Academy of Engineering, 120 to the National Academy of Medicine and 51 the National Academy of Sciences.
At UAB, Biomedical Engineering is a joint department in the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine and the School of Engineering.