Movers & Shakers RESEARCHER WITH A LONG VIEW FOR CORNEAL PRESERVATION RECEIVES MAJOR FELLOWSHIP You could say Dr. Janet Elliott, P.Eng. , has a view from the top, when it comes to her field of expertise. The very top. If there was any doubt, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) quashed that by naming the chemical engineering professor one of its fellows. AIMBE Fellowships, after all, are reserved for the top two per cent of the organization’s membership, which comprises engineers from around the world. A leader in thermodynamics research, Dr. Elliott, of the University of Alberta ’s Faculty of Engineering, studies the effects of low temperature on the preservation of structurally intact tissues and cells—also known as cryobiology and cryopreservation. These days, she’s directing her efforts at using cryobiology and cryopreservation to improve how healthy corneas are preserved before transplant. Here’s the challenge. As monolayers of endothelial cells (they line the cornea) are frozen and thawed, they degrade. Because of this, donor corneas currently must be transplanted within two weeks. But this critical supply problem may soon be a thing of the past. Last December, Dr. Elliott—along with collaborator Dr. Locksley McGann, research associate Dr. Leah Marquez Curtis, and graduate student Nasim Eskandari—published a research paper sharing a way to successfully freeze and thaw endothelial cells in monolayers. “Many cells in suspension are easy to cryopreserve, and recently we improved cryopreservation of endothelial cells in suspension. But in tissue structures, they’re really hard. You can’t preserve corneas because of the endothelial monolayer,” says Dr. Elliott in a U of A story. “We just cryopreserved that.” With this discovery, the medical community is closer to being able to store cryopreserved vascular and corneal endothelial layers for drug research, disease modelling, and longer-term storage and transplantation. Dr. Elliott says she is both humbled and proud to be elected to AIMBE’s fellowship. “It’s good for Canadian researchers to have their accomplishments recognized internationally and
LATITUDE
DR. JANET ELLIOTT, P.ENG. The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering classifies her as among the top two per cent of its membership.
for U of A researchers to have their work recognized internationally,” she says. “The thing I’m happy about is that your reputation comes out of your research, and the research is what I’m proud of.” Dr. Elliott has not escaped APEGA’s eye. Interestingly, her one Summit Award is not directly related to research outcomes: she received the Excellence in Education Summit Award in 2017 for her exemplary contributions to teaching and learning at the U of A. Together with a professor from the U of A’s Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, she created a novel, joint-degree program leading to a master’s or doctorate degree in engineering and medical science. As evidence of the program’s quality, its first graduate was invited to do a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School—without even applying.
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