Bianca Cerqueira & Lauren Cornell’s company NovoThelium was featured in SA Express News!
Bianca Cerqueira and Lauren Cornell company NovoThelium was featured on the My San Antonio from the Express-News! Their company hopes to revolutionize nipple reconstruction using tissue engineering technology so that reconstructed nipples maintain projection, pigmentation, and sensation.
Bianca Cerqueira is a doctoral candidate in Biomedical Engineering at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio/University of Texas at San Antonio. She has a Bachelor of Science in Physiology and Neurobiology from University of Maryland. Bianca began her career in science at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the Department of Casualty Research studying blood additive solutions. While in graduate school, she researched effects of chronic intermittent hypoxia (a model of sleep apnea) on transient cerebral ischemia in rodents utilizing multimodal MRI, behavioral tests, and histology. Cerqueira has many years of experience in cell culture, nucleic acid testing, medical imaging, small animal surgery, IACUC and IRB protocols, Good Laboratory Practice, project management, and experimental design with a focus on translational research.
Lauren Cornell is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Translational Science at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University Of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She has a Bachelor of Science in Genetics from Texas A&M University. Cornell began her career in science at the University of Oxford in the Zoology department studying the origin of mankind and later moved on to focus on tissue engineering in the areas of materials development, nanoparticles, and guided nerve growth. She is currently participating in a post-graduate fellowship at the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research in the Department of Ocular Trauma where she is principal investigator on a corneal graft replacement research project. For the past five years, her research has focused on tissue engineering methods, with focus on stem cells, decellularization and sterilization methods of multiple tissue types, animal models and surgical techniques.