Our beloved Research Assistant and all round emotional support engineer, Kell Sprangel, has transitioned out of the lab to truly start her future career in Maryland.

While we will miss her terribly, we are very excited for her to be closer to her family, life-long friends, the ocean, real beaches, and fresh crab.

We can not wait to hear about all the awesome environmental work she will undoubtedly do. She did a fantastic job in the lab building  some strong foundations for our “Home Hive” and associated routine processes. Her impacts will undoubtedly be felt for years to come.

We are proud to be sending such a hard-working, resilient, and reliable Buckeye out to represent us!

We are so excited to share that we have a new lab logo! Now with anatomically correct bees!

As this year wraps up, we are proud to announce the graduation of a few of our lab members!

Allison Smith has graduated with a research-based Master of Science degree in biomedical engineering. Jacob Barnes, Joellen Knepfle, Jacob Peri, and Devin Medved have all graduated this past year with their Bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering.

Jacob, Joellen, and Jacob all plan to pursue further education through either medical school or a Master’s degree program. Devin has accepted a research and development job as a mechanical engineer for Stryker.

We appreciate all of the time and effort they contributed to the lab and its projects and wish them all the best of luck in their future endeavors!

Dr. McBride-Gagyi (left) and Allison Smith (right)

Two of our graduate researchers are now board members of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student Association! Congratulations!

Kaitlyn Cimney and Ben Brooks have been active members of the association and have now taken on the responsibility of being board members. Kaitlyn is the BMEGSA Vice President and Ben is the Professional Development Chair.

The two will be helping others within the biomedical engineering department now more than ever. Kaitlyn will be helping to organize the BMEGSA events and working to further improve departmental relationships.

Ben will be helping to host the graduate student seminar in the coming academic year, an event which highlights the research that graduate students within the department are doing. Graduate students are then able to share their work with anyone that wants to learn more.

We’d like to formally welcome our newest lab member Mingrui (Ray) Qiu. Ray has joined the lab as a graduate researcher and will be working closely with Ben Brooks to investigate the impact of infection in bone defect repair and the use of biomaterials to combat infection and improve repair outcomes in a rat model.

Ray graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology with a B.Eng. in biomedical engineering in 2024 and has joined the McBride-Gagyi lab as a Master’s student.

We are excited to see what his research brings!

Learn more about Ray on our People Page!

We would like to congratulate our graduate students that participated in the Hayes Advanced Research Forum back in February. The forum showcases the wonderful research conducted by Ohio State Graduate Students and postdoctoral scholars. All three of our graduate students here in the lab shared their projects with a podium presentation during the forum.

Ben Brooks presented A novel additively manufactured liquid phantom for micro-CT quantification of tissue mineral density.​

Kaitlyn Cimney presented on her ongoing project Cerclage Wire as an Affordable Plate Fixation Alternative in Murine Femoral Critical Sized Defect Models.

Allison Smith presented on her master’s thesis project An Improved Potting Method for Torsional Testing of Intact or Injured Mouse Femora.

Congratulations to our lab members that presented at the Orthopaedic Research Society annual meeting back in February!

Our graduate researchers Kaitlyn Cimney and Allison Smith traveled to Phoenix, Arizona to present their posters on Cerclage Wire as an Affordable Plate Fixation Alternative in Murine Femoral Critical Sized Defect Models and An Improved Potting Method for Torsional Testing of Intact or Injured Mouse Femora respectively.

The lab also had two other posters at the event. Lead-Based Nanoparticle Contrast Agent for Post-mortem Vascular MicroCT Imaging and Effects of Estradiol (17-α) on Osteoarthritis and Bone Development in Genetically Heterogenous Het3 Male Mice.

The posters also feature work from Ben Brooks, Trinity Dort, Adam Kling, Anna Le, Jacob Peri, CJ Replogle, Robert Smallwood, and Kell Sprangel.

The full posters can be found on our Presentations page!

Kaitlyn Cimney (shown below)

Allison Smith (shown below)

Congratulations to our very own Kaitlyn Cimney for her fantastic presentation at the Engineering in Healthcare: Industry and Research Symposium back in January. Her presentation was on Cerclage Wire as an Affordable Plate Fixation Alternative in Murine Femoral Critical Sized Defect Models, which is part of her ongoing research. Kaitlyn’s work and presentation won second place in the symposium!

We would also like to shout out our undergraduate students that shared their research during the symposium. Megan Bennett, Anna Le, and CJ Replogle all shared their work with research posters. Anna and CJ shared their posters on Lead-Based Nanoparticle Contrast Agent for Post-mortem Vascular MicroCT Imaging and Effects of Estradiol (17-alpha) on Osteoarthritis and Bone Development in Genetically Heterogeneous Het3 Male Mice.

Megan’s Poster (shown above) detailed her work on Patient Demographics and Standard of Care Diagnostics as Risk Factors for Bone Reconstruction Failure in Masquelet’s Induced Membrane Technique: A Retrospective Chart Review.

We are incredibly proud of all of our lab members and their hard work and achievements.

We’d like to welcome the addition of two graduate students to the lab! Allison Smith, who has previously worked in the lab as an undergraduate researcher, has returned to the lab as a graduate student.

We are also excited to welcome Benjamin Brooks back to OSU as a graduate student. Ben was previously in the lab as a BUCKEYE REU student in the summer semester of 2023.

Allison and Ben have spent their first semester as graduate students working in the lab together to establish a mechanical testing procedure for torsional testing on small rodent bones with the aim to use the protocol on MIMT studies in the future.

Learn more about Allison and Ben  in the Graduate Researchers section of our People Page!

Allison Smith

Ben Brooks

Our wonderful graduate researcher, Kaitlyn Cimney, traveled all the way to Baltimore, Maryland to attend the BMES conference in October. Kaitlyn was there as a representative for the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student Association to recruit people for Ohio State’s BME graduate program.

Kaitlyn (left) is shown at the OSU BMES table at the conference