Home Department: undeclared
Supported by: Dean of Research and VPUE
Mentor: Sarah Heilshorn, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, of Chemical Engineering, and of Bioengineering

Shamik Mascharak, a rising junior, is currently conducting research in Professor Sarah Heilshorn’s lab, investigating electrospun elastin-like protein matrices as clinically relevant substrates for endothelial cell motility and migration. He hopes to identify key design principles of this substrate so that it may be used to induce rapid monolayer formation and healing in engineered vascular grafts. In his free time, he enjoys practicing martial arts (Tae Kwon Do, Muy Thai), writing music, and, recently, teaching himself guitar. In the future, he hopes to be involved in the application of biomaterials to patients as a physician-scientist.

Poster presented at the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium on August 26, 2013:

Modifying Collective Physiology of Endothelial Cells on Electrospun Elastin via Nanoscale Control of Cell-Matrix Interactions

Shamik Mascharak¹, Patrick Benitez¹, Sarah C. Heilshorn²
[Departments of Bioengineering¹, and Materials Science & Engineering², Stanford University]