The Case-Coulter Translational Research Partnership (CCTRP) is accepting applications for 2016. The purpose of CCTRP funding is to support collaborative translational research projects that address unmet or poorly met clinical needs. CCTRP seeks to reduce the market risk of promising new clinical products arising from the research programs of biomedical engineering and other Case Western Reserve University faculty.
 
The newly, revised Request for Applications (RFA) and pre-proposal templates can be found online. Feel free to contact the CCTRP office with any questions. All eligibility requirements and deadlines can be found in the RFA.

The Case Western Reserve University and local community are invited to explore engineering firsthand at the annual Engineering Challenges Carnival, which will be held Saturday, Feb. 13 from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. in the Thwing Excelsior Ballroom in the Thwing Center.
 
Part of the annual Engineers Week celebration, the this free public event engages local pre-K through eighth-grade students and their families, encouraging them to learn about science and engineering through demonstrations and hands-on activities led by Case Western Reserve students.

Before Ozan Akkus, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, applied for federal funding to build a souped-up version of a chemical analyzer, 11 fellow professors from various disciplines, as well as an art conservation group at the Cleveland Museum of Art, signed on in support, wanting to use the new device.
 
Akkus is turning a Raman microscope—one of the workhorses of chemical analysis—into FastRAM, a device that can provide images of materials in seconds to minutes instead of hours to days. The instrument would also allow researchers to analyze dynamic processes such as chemical reactions as they occur, which current technology cannot.

Undergraduate students are invited to participate in the 2016 Spartan Challenge entrepreneurship competition, which offers more than $20,000 in prizes.
 
The contest consists of two stages:

The Business Concept Stage, where teams of students develop an executive summary with the basic information about their concept and an elevator pitch, and the Business Planning and Mentorship Stage, where six finalists are paired with business leaders, entrepreneurs and experts to help them refine their concept.

Experts will mentor students throughout the challenge.

Anant Madabhushi, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD), and his team were issued three patents in digital pathology and computer-assisted disease prognosis.
 
US Patent 9,177,105, titled “Quantitatively Characterizing Disease Morphology with Co-Occurring Gland Tensors in Localized Subgraphs,” describes a novel methodology for quantitatively describing disease morphology via gland directional entropy in medical images. The algorithm involves the use of second-order statistics to describe local disorder in gland orientations via co-occurring gland tensors. This technology is being used for predicting disease outcomes in prostate cancer histopathology and on high-resolution MRI.