Dr. Denise Hocking

Dr. John Lueck

The Empire Discovery Institute (EDI), a non-profit New York drug discovery and development accelerator involving a partnership between the University of Rochester, the University at Buffalo, and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, was created to transform academic discoveries into new medicines for commercialization. The EDI is supported by >$100 million in funds from both Empire State Development and Deerfield Management Company, a healthcare investment firm.

In the inaugural year of EDI's Medicines Discovery Award Program, Drs. Denise Hocking and John Lueck each received awards to support their innovative research programs in drug development. Dr. Hocking's award will support her work support her work in advancing the use of a novel chimeric fibronectin protein for wound healing. Dr. Lueck's award will support his research program's efforts to develop and test engineered tRNAs to treat a wide range of genetic diseases resulting from nonsense mutations.

Additional information of the EDI and the Medicines Discovery Award program can be found using the following link: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/deerfield-and-empire-discovery-institute-partner-to-advance-life-sciences-r-d-in-rochester-buffalo

Melinda Vander Horst

Melinda Vander Horst (graduate student-in-residence; BME) was awarded 1st place in the Student Paper Competition (Biomedical Acoustics) at the 179th Annual Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Her paper, entitled "Time and Dose-dependent Effects of Pulsed Ultrasound on Dermal Wound Repair in Diabetic Mice" was recently accepted for publication in the journal, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, with co-authors Carol Raeman, Diane Dalecki and Denise Hocking.

Congrats Melinda!