User:Rn8383/Melody Swartz

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Overview

Mrs. Swartz grew up in Illinois with a growing curiosity for biology and a willingness to do scientific experiments. She acquired her undergraduate degree from John Hopkins university and her PhD from MIT. In 2006 she was named in the "Brilliant 10" for engineering by popular magazine. This was due to her work with current interactions with human intercellular fluids which was an essential for tissue engineering.

The article begins talking about Melody Swartz academic and professional history in the biomedical field. Swartz got her bachelors degree at john Hopkins university and PhD at MIT. She's worked at various universities as an assistant and full professor and then director of the college's institute of bioengineering. as a bioengineer, Swartz researches the lymphatic system and how it can relate to things like cancer & asthma. Swartz has various honors and awards alongside her published work, she has published many papers relating to her school of engineering, most of them having heavy medical connotations.

Overview
Melody A. Swartz (born April 1969) is a professor and vice dean for faculty affairs at the University of Chicago. Pioneered research in engineering complex tissues. Her most cited work "Capturing complex 3D tissue physiology in vitro" has been cited over 1784 times. Her research is focused on understanding the role of the lymphatic system regulating immunity in homeostasis and diseases, particularly cancer. She was previously director of the Institute of Bioengineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023, the Royal academy of Medicine of Belgium in 2023 , and the National Academy of Medicine in 2020.

Education
Dr. Swartz was born in Illinois. She got her undergraduate degree of Chemical Engineering at John Hopkins University (1991) and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998). She did her Postdoctoral work in the Pulmonary division at Harvard Medical School.

Career
Dr. Swartz began her career working at Northwestern university in Evanston, IL, from 1999-2004 as an assistant professor in the chemical, biomedical and bioengineering departments. Dr Swartz served various roles in the Swiss EPFL(Federal institute of technology Lausanne) from 2003-2016. first as an assistant professor in the institute of bioengineering, then becoming an associate professor in 2007, finally getting a professorship in 2010 and becoming the institute's director in 2012 until 2014.

In 2014 Dr. Swartz took over a part time role in the EPFL as she began to transition to working in the University of Chicago’s Ben May department of Cancer Research and the Pritzker school of molecular Engineering, of which she jointly became a professor of both. Dr. Swartz is a member of multiple committees at the university of Chicago including the committee on immunology and the committee on cancer biology.

Dr. Swartz is a member of many college Boards and advisory councils. Dr. Swartz is a part of MIT’s Koch Institute’s scientific advisory board and has previously served as a strategic scientific advisory board member for the Basel Research Center for Child Health.

Academia
Dr. Swartz main focus of research throughout her career has been topics relating to Cancer, Lymphatic immunology and Immunotherapy.

Dr. Swartz most cited article "Capturing complex 3D tissue physiology in vitro". It was published in March 2006. She talks about creating 3D tissue models in the vitro software. Discussing some design principles for recreating the interwoven set of both biochemical and mechanical cousin the cellular microenvironment and implementing these principles. Emphasizing the involvement of epithelial tissues in 3D models. She mentions two crucial foundations that were crucial for the future of the field. First foundation was the spatial arrangement of cell-surface receptors and the temporal sequence they are presented. The other was a toolbox of biomaterials that should be used for the formation and maintenance of 3D tissues in vitro. This article has been cited 2806 times most recently in 2024 in the article “The potential of graphene coatings as neural interfaces”

Editorial positions
Dr. Swartz is on many journals' editorial boards. She has served on the editorial board of angiogenesis, a journal covering topics on cellular and molecular mechanisms(2011-present). Dr. Swartz is also on the editorial boards of Cancer Immunology Research (2013-present) and Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology (2015-present).

Honors
Dr. Swartz has received various honors and awards throughout her career.

On February 7, 2023, Dr. Swartz was elected 1 of 106 new members of the national academy of engineering for her work towards cancer immunotherapy and vaccination. Also on that day Dr. Swartz was announced as one of eight international members of the royal academy of Medicine of Belgium for her work in lymphatic vascular biology, immunology and immunotherapy.

On October 19th, 2020 Dr. Swartz was announced as a new member of the national academy of medicine.

In 2018 Dr. Swartz was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2012 Dr. Swartz was made a fellow of the Macarthur Foundation.