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Molly Shoichet wins Society for Biomaterials Clemson Award

January 11, 2012

Prestigious award given for outstanding contributions to biomaterials literature

TORONTO, ON — The Soci­ety for Bio­ma­te­ri­als, a pro­fes­sion­al soci­ety that pro­motes advances in bio­med­ical mate­ri­als research and devel­op­ment, has named IBBME core pro­fes­sor Mol­ly Shoichet the recip­i­ent of this year’s Clem­son Award for Con­tri­bu­tions to the Lit­er­a­ture. This award rec­og­nizes sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the lit­er­a­ture on the sci­ence or tech­nol­o­gy of bio­ma­te­ri­als.

Dr. Shoichet has pub­lished over 400 papers, patents and abstracts and has giv­en over 250 lec­tures world­wide. Her research cur­rent­ly focus­es regen­er­a­tive med­i­cine, drug deliv­ery and tis­sue engi­neer­ing strate­gies to over­come dis­eases in the brain and after breast can­cer. Her work brings togeth­er poly­mer sci­ence with neu­ro­science and with can­cer biol­o­gy. Shoichet and her team are design­ing inno­v­a­tive strate­gies to over­come dev­as­tat­ing dis­eases such as stroke, spinal cord injury, blind­ness and breast can­cer. Her research has attract­ed inter­na­tion­al atten­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­try and acad­e­mia. She has won numer­ous awards and was elect­ed a Fel­low of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Cana­da in 2008, and in 2011 she was elect­ed a Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ence and appoint­ed to the Order of Ontario.

“In addi­tion to her out­stand­ing research con­tri­bu­tions, Mol­ly is an effec­tive lec­tur­er and has an abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate com­plex ideas in an inspir­ing, valu­able and refresh­ing man­ner,” said IBBME Pro­fes­sor Michael Sefton, who nom­i­nat­ed Shoichet for the award. “Mol­ly is rec­og­nized as a leader in neur­al tis­sue engi­neer­ing and I was pleased to nom­i­nate her for a Clem­son Award.”

Dr. Shoichet acts as co-Lead for IBBME’s research theme of Bio­ma­te­ri­als, Tis­sue Engi­neer­ing and Regen­er­a­tive Med­i­cine and was recent­ly appoint­ed the Institute’s Asso­ciate Direc­tor, Research. She is also appoint­ed to the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and Applied Chem­istry.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Sachiko Muraka­mi, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Offi­cer
Insti­tute of Bio­ma­te­ri­als and Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing (IBBME)
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Room 329, Min­ing Build­ing
Toron­to, Ontario  M5S 3G9
Office: 416–946-8019
Fax: 416–978-4317
comm.ibbme@utoronto.ca
ibbme.utoronto.ca