News
May 2024, Catherine was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award in the College of Engineering
Catherine has done great research in Alzheimer's disease. Well deserved.
April 2024, Dr. Huang's group awarded the 2024 Best Poster Award at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), Middle Atlantic Section Spring Conference
Ryan Forte, Rebecca Goehring, and Michael Fogliano implemented what they learned from Dr. Huang's Bio-Data analysis to solve a real-world problem on Marijuana usage data analysis. This project was well presented by them in the conference. Great job!
May 2023, Tianhua was awarded the DVS AIChE Outstanding Graduate Award
Tianhua is the first student at Villanova getting this great award.
June 2022, Dr. Huang was awarded a research grant with his college Dr. Elmer from BMS on gene therapy
In this award from BMS ($$83,265), we will study molecular profiling of anti-viral gene (AVG) signatures in CAR-T product.
Mar-2020, Betty and Tianhua's paper was accepted by the journal ACS Omega. Their work was also selected as the cover image of the journal.
They found that the combination of Fosfomycin with either caffeic acid or chloro-genic acid is of potential to be used in the clinical treatment of Listeria infections. This is of significant clinical value in treating antimicrobial-resistant Listeria monocytogenes.
Feb-2020, Betty and Tianhua won the first place in E-Week Graduate Poster Competition in the category of Technical Excellence on their project "Virtual Screening of Synergistic Plant Compounds with Antibiotics Against Drug Resistance Listeria Monocytogenes"
Congratulations, Betty and Tianhua, for their excellent work.
Oct-2019, Betty and Tianhua made a poster presentation on their project "Virtual Screening of Synergistic Plant Compounds with Antibiotics Against Drug Resistance Listeria Monocytogenes"
Betty and Tianhua developed an integrated computational and experimental approach to identify the cocktails of Fosfomycin and natural compounds to eliminate Fosfomycin-resistant Listeria monocytogenes, a deadly foodborne pathogen.
Jan-2019, Brooks published a paper on quantifying cytokine release syndrome, a deadly side-effect of T-cell therapy
Brooks developed an interesting approach to quantify the severity of cytokine release syndrome and propose a rationale to determine the inhibition sequence of cytokines during T-cell therapy. Here is the link for the news: https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/engineering/newsevents/newsarchives/2019/facResearch/huang.html
Jan-2019, Tianhua Zhai joined BESEL as a Ph.D.
Welcome.
Sep-2018, As a co-PI, Dr. Huang got a $300K grant from The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL)
In this project, we collaborate with Dr. William Kelly in optimizing the growth of T cells by manipulating extracellular cytokine concentrations. We will analyze transcriptomic data and develop kinetic models to facilitate the experimental investigation. Here is the link for the news: https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/engineering/newsevents/newsarchives/2019/facResearch/Kelly.html
May-2018, Xianhua Li got the Outstanding PhD Graduate Award in College of Engineering
Xianhua finished her PhD research "Scale-Up Study of Bioreactors Using 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling".
Jan-2018, Fangyuan (Betty) Zhang joined BESEL as a Ph.D. student
Welcome.
Sep-2017, Brittany Macshane joined BESEL as a MS student
Welcome.
Jun-2017, Brendan Gorman and Ryan Searcy received Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellowship (VURF)
Brendan's project is "Design of Wetland Microbial Fuel Cell", while Ryan's project is "Full Body Cholesterol Modelling and Therapeutic Options"
August-2017, Brooks Hopkins joined BESEL as PhD students,
Brooks is a part-time student. Welcome.
May-2017, Dr. Huang was invited to give a talk of his inverted-classroom approaches to educate college and high-school students with MATLAB
CAST is the largest professional community in process systems engineering of chemical engineering in USA. Dr. Huang gave a presentation on "Inverted-classroom Approaches to Educate Undergraduate and High-school Students MATLAB in Process Control and Modeling".
May-2017, Robert Ferrari, Jaclyn Guglielmi and Xianhua Li won 1st prize in the 2017 Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium
“Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) Scaling Up Study”focused on the high demand for cost-effective methods for converting the chemical energy in wastewater into bioenergy. MFCs are capable of producing electricity from wastewater under ambient conditions through the biodegradation of organic compounds by exoelectrogenic microorganisms. One of the biggest challenges for the practical implementation of MFCs in wastewater treatment plants, however, is to successfully scale up MFCs. This study investigated the performance and scalability of MFCs through a combined experimental and computational approach.
Aug-2016, Dr. Huang and his colleagues were recognized for an outstanding paper
A team of Villanova University Chemical Engineering faculty were recognized with the American Society for Engineering Education's (ASEE) Martin Award. "
Aug-2016, Robert Hanes joined BESEL as a part-time PhD student
Robert will study the metabolism of exoelectrogenic microorganisms in the biofilm of microbial fuel cells. Welcome.
July-2016, Xianhua Li finished a CFD project funded by Janssen Pharmaceuticals
With the help of Drs. Kelly and Huang, Xianhua Li developed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) platform to study optimal operation parameters of biorectors Ambr15 and Ambr250.
Oct-2015, Xianhua Li and Nick Ribaudo's first paper on identifying malfunctioned components in signal transduction pathways from artificial clinical data was accepted by the journal "BioMed Research International"
We proposed a kinetic-model based approach to infer the malfunctioned reactions/molecules by quantifying the similarity between the profiles shown in the clinical data and the output profiles predicted from the model in which certain reactions/molecules are malfunctioned. This is Xianhua's first journal paper. Congratulations.
Aug-2015, Nick Ribaudo and Dr. Huang gave poster presentations in FOSBE 2015 conference
Nick introduced the approach developed by us to study the uncertainty in the metabolic networks on microbial biomass growth rate, while Dr. Huang's talk was related to the pertubation in microbial metaobilsm triggered by antibiotics. FOSBE conference is one of the best professional conferences in systems biology.
May-2015, Zhaobin Xu graduated as the first Ph.D. of BESEL
Congratulations Nick. He found his first job as a postdoctoral researcher at Tsinghua University in Beijing, the top 1 engineering school in China
Apr-2015, Nick Ribaudo got the Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellows (VURF) 2015
Congratulations Nick. He did research on developing a Fluent-based model to simulate 3D microbial fuel cells.
Mar-2015, Zhaobin Xu's paper on the influence of environmental nutrients on biofilm formation was accepted by the journal "BioMed Research International"
We proposed the first systems-biology approach to quantify P. aeruginosa biofilm formation upon the change of nutrient availability of amino acids, ferrous ions, sulfate, and phosphate, in the environment. BioMed Research International is an open-access journal with an impact factor of 2.706.
Jan-2015, Brett Davis joined BESEL as a MS student
Welcome Brett.
Jan-2015, Zhaobin Xu's paper on modeling the kinetics of acute phase proteins was published in the journal "Processes"
We developed this first comprehensive model to predict the dynamics of acute phase protein expression in IL-6-stimulated HepG2 cells (a human hepatoma cell line). The model was used as an in-silico platform for screenig potential drug targets to regulate the secretion of haptoglobin, fibrinogen, and albumin. We got invited to contribute this paper to a special issue in Systems Biology, i.e., Modeling and Analysis of Signal Transduction Networks, published in the journal Processes, a new open-access journal.
Dec-2014, Xueer Chen graduated as a MS student
Xueer finished her thesis titled "Modeling Microbial Fuel Cell in FLUENT with Biofilm Thickness Features". Congratulations.
Nov-2014, Chenyao Zhang's paper on modeling MDC was publised in Environmental Science & Technology
Our paper titled "A Mathematic Model of Dynamic Behavior of Microbial Desalination Cells" is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the No.1 journal in environmental field and the area of bioelectrochemical systems with an impact factor of 5.481. The paper is based on Chenyao’s senior research project. She is the co-first author of the paper. The major contribution of this paper is that we develop the first mathematical model for microbial desalination cells ( MDCs) in which electricigen bacteria produce electricity from wastewater and the produced electricity in turn removes the salt from saline/sea water.
Aug-2014, Xianhua Li joined BESEL as a PhD student
Welcome.
Aug-2014, Dr. Huang organized and Chaired one section in IFAC 2014, South Africa
Dr. Huang organized and chaired the section "Modeling and Analysis of Biological Networks" in IFAC 2014 World Congress Conference. He gave a talk titled "Modeling Framework for Investigating the Influence of Amino Acids on the Planktonic-Biofilm Transition of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa". IFAC conference is one of the top international conferences in process control and modeling.
Aug-2014, Dr. Huang was selected as an Outstanding Reviewer for the journal Automatica (2012-2013)
Automatica is the most prestigious journal in process control and modeling. Every year Automatica identifies around 20 names (from a pool of about 2000 reviewers) as outstanding reviewers for the one-year period July 1 - June 30, just preceding the selection. The selection is done following a nomination process that involves the Editors and Associate Editors of Automatica, and is based on outstanding performance an individual shows as a reviewer, consistently during the indicated period. Dr. Huang was selected as an outstanding reviewer for Automatica for 2013, covering the review period July 1, 2012, to June 30, 2013.
Aug-2014, Kilho Lee's paper accepted by Chemical Engineering Education
Kilho's paper titled "MATLAB Based Teaching Modules in Biochemical Engineering" was accepted by Chemical Engineering Education. In this paper, we showed a teaching module for solving and analyzing ODE models developed in the field of Systems Biology. Interactive teaching strategies were tried and the effectiveness of these strategies was summarized. The MATLAB programs along with the teaching module can be downloaded here.
Summer-2014, Clement Ekaputra, a high-school junior, designed PID controllers for microbial fuel cells in BESEL
Clement Ekaputra, a 16 year old senior at Great Valley High School in Malvern, PA, used MATLAB Simulink to model and control the processes within microbial fuel cells. He presented a poster in a symposium for senior college students to present their summer research projects at Villanova University. Based on his research result, a manuscript was submitted to ASEE 2015 to share our experience for educating high school students with mathematical modeling skills. Charlotte Eberle received Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellowship (VURF), Apr-2014
June-2013, Charlotte received the VURF award and conducted research on developing a Fluent-based platform to simulate the dynamics of microbial fuel cells.
May-2013, Kilho Lee graduated as a master student
Kilho finished his thesis "Systems Biology Approach to Quantify the Metabolism of Escherichia Coli for Generating 3-Hydroxypropionic Acid from Glycerol". Congratulations.
Apr-2013, Dr. Huang organized and chaired one section in Metabolomics 2013 conference
Dr. Huang was in the conference organizer committee for Metabolomics 2013 in Chicago IL. He also chaired the Systems Biology section.
Jan-2013, Zhaobin Xu's paper was accepted by PLoS One
Zhaobin's paper titled "A Systems-Level Approach for Investigating Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Formation" was accepted by PLoS One, one of the top journal in Systems Biology with an impact factor 4.02.
Aug-2012, Kilho Lee and Xueer Chen joined BESEL as master students
Welcome.
May-2012, Dr. Huang joined IFAC Policy Committee
Dr. Huang was selected to serve a three-year term on the policy committee of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). There are only eight faculty members worldwide serving on this committee and Dr. Huang is one of three U.S. representatives.
Apr-2012, Kyle Brundin received Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellowship (VURF)
Kyle received the VURF award and conducted research on engineering E.coli to produce hydrogen from glycerol obtained from the waste stream.
Aug-2011, Zhaobin Xu joined BESEL as a PhD student
Zhaobin joined BESEL as a PhD student. Welcome.
Aug-2011, Dr. Huang joined Villanova and set up BESEL
Dr. Huang joined Villanova University as a tenured-track Assistant Professor. He is the founder of BESEL