CIMIT Site Miner Mark Grinstaff, PhD, named Distinguished
Faculty Fellow at BU

Mark Grinstaff, PhD, an associate professor at Boston University and a CIMIT site miner at that institution, recently was named a Faculty Fellow at BU. Dr. Grinstaff was one of three educators honored as part of a new program created by Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen.

This is a five-year endowed title, and the honor includes a discretionary fund for the faculty member’s laboratory.

Dr. Grinstaff is a key leader on a research team that in 2008 won CIMIT’s annual Edward M. Kennedy Award for Healthcare Innovation. That group is known as the Cancer Advanced-Technology Team and it is developing an imaging system to limit the spread and/or recurrence of the disease. Other team leaders were Dr. Yolonda Colson of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Dr. John Frangioni of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dr. Grinstaff joined the faculty as an associate professor, and has a joint appointment at the College of Engineering, College of Arts and Sciences and the medical school. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focus includes biomaterials, tissue engineering, drug delivery, macromolecular chemistry and engineering, and nano-devices.

He is part of teams seeking to develop new treatments for osteoarthritis that includes non-invasive detection techniques and creating a biopolymer that serves as a joint bio-lubricant, and the above-mentioned effort to create chemotherapy-eluting strips for the prevention of locally recurrent lung cancer.

Kenneth R. Lutchen, PhD, dean of the College of Engineering, said, "Dr. Grinstaff is extraordinary in his capacity to bridge the basic science of biopolymers and biomaterials to practical applications that will explicitly improve patient quality of life. He has also emerged as an icon on how to mentor undergraduate and graduate students to make these connections. He is a true scholar-teacher-innovator."