Erin Lavik facts for kids

Erin Baker Lavik, born in 1973, is a smart scientist and professor. She teaches engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Lavik creates special materials called polymers and tiny particles called nanoparticles. These materials are designed to help protect our nervous system. She is also a respected member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Discovering Science

When Erin was seven, she got a chemistry set. This sparked her interest in science. As a teenager, she even broke her parents' windshield with a catapult! She went to National Cathedral School. She took advanced physics classes at St. Albans School.

Erin wasn't sure what she wanted to be. She thought about being a vet or a high school teacher. But her mother met a scientist named Martha Gray. Martha's job sounded very interesting to Erin.

College and Early Research

Erin studied materials science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She earned her bachelor's degree in 1995. She also studied theatre and still writes plays today. She continued her studies at MIT. She earned her master's degree and PhD in 2001. Her PhD research looked at how electrical properties of cerium(IV) oxide work.

While at MIT, Dr. Lavik did amazing research. She created special polymer scaffolds. These scaffolds were like tiny structures. She put neural stem cells onto them. Then, she put these implants into paralysed rats.

The scaffolds were designed to be like a real spinal cord. They had tiny channels for nerve cells to grow through. Dr. Lavik tested her design on 50 female rats that couldn't move their lower bodies. Seven out of ten rats with her scaffold-stem cell design could walk again! This was a huge step in helping people with spinal cord injuries.

After graduating, she became a professor at Yale University. There, she kept working on polymer scaffolds. These scaffolds were made to imitate the spinal cord. In 2003, she was named to the TR100 list for her innovative work. She was also nominated for a WIRED RAVE Award in 2004.

In 2004, Dr. Lavik wrote a play called Galileo Walking among the Stars. In this play, Galileo, Kepler, and Gene Kelly build a spaceship. In 2008, she was recognized as one of the top women in innovation in Connecticut.

Career and Innovations

Dr. Lavik became an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. She worked on tiny technologies called nanotechnology. She also studied polymers that can break down safely in the body.

Today, she is a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She wants to find ways to treat injuries and diseases. She works on tissue engineering. This means growing new tissues to replace damaged ones. She also studies diseases of the central nervous system, like glaucoma and retinal degeneration.

Stopping Bleeding with Nanoparticles

Dr. Lavik has explored how nanoparticles can help stop internal bleeding. These tiny particles attach to blood cells that form clots. This helps to stop bleeding quickly. The nanoparticles are given through an IV. They have a special molecule that binds to a glycoprotein on blood cells.

These nanoparticles are made from special materials like poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid). Dr. Lavik tested them using pig's blood. She found the best nanoparticles that helped stop bleeding. Her team found that these nanoparticles could cut bleeding time in half!

Dr. Lavik and her team hope that doctors and emergency workers could carry these nanoparticles. They could use them to treat serious traumatic injuries. In 2010, she received a special award for this discovery. It was the National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. This award helps her research how nanoparticles can treat traumatic injuries to the central nervous system.

She also studied how the size and type of molecules on the nanoparticles affect how well they work. She has looked at spinal cord injury. She wants to find the best time to give nanoparticles after a serious injury.

Engineering Eye Tissues

Besides nanoparticles, Dr. Lavik also works on solutions for retinal degeneration. This is a condition that affects the eye. She uses a technique called screen printing to create human eye tissues. This method layers adult stem cells to build new tissues. The National Eye Institute recognized her technique in their 3-D Retina Organoid Challenge. She also wrote a chapter in the 2013 book Retina about delivering medicines to the eye.

Promoting Science and Collaboration

Dr. Lavik is part of the Women in Science and Engineering group at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She believes it's important to have more different kinds of people in science. In 2014, she became a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

In 2016, she gave a TEDxBroadway talk. She talked about how theatre and engineering are similar. She explained that teamwork is important in both science and theatre.