Advancing vascular healing through bioengineering and innovation
Justin Svendsen, a promising graduate student at the Knight Campus, is making a significant impact through interdisciplinary research in biology, biochemistry and bioengineering, a unique academic journey that reflects the broad nature of his contributions. Recently awarded the prestigious NIH F31 fellowship, Svendsen’s work is driven by both scientific expertise and personal experience. He has applied what he’s learned to his research, which focuses on developing innovative biomaterials to enhance the body’s natural healing processes by boosting angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels. His research in vascular repair has the potential to improve treatments for a variety of injuries and diseases. As a PhD candidate in Professor Marian Hettiaratchi’s lab, Svendsen contributes to several high-impact projects, reflecting his broad expertise and commitment to improving patient outcomes. Through his research, mentorship and collaborations across disciplines, he exemplifies the Knight Campus mission to turn scientific discoveries into real-world solutions.
We recently sat down with Svendsen to discuss the impact of the NIH fellowship and his research, his reflections on his academic journey, and his thoughts on the future of bioengineering.
Question: Why did you choose bioengineering? It seems like you could have gone into chemistry or any number of other fields. Do you have a personal connection to any of the conditions you’re working on?
Answer: I’m a biochemistry trainee under a joint program between the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Institute of Molecular Biology. It’s a unique interdisciplinary area. During my undergrad, I worked in a structural biology lab and gained a deep appreciation for the engineering logic of biology while manipulating pre-existing proteins. I knew I wanted to pursue that further in graduate school. I was particularly drawn to the University of Oregon, initially having been drawn to Professor Parisa Hosseinzadeh’s research. I wanted to learn how to take naturally existing proteins in our bodies that might be broken and restore their function, or even engineer new functions to make them better. It was in this motivation to apply protein engineering to address challenges in treating human diseases that I became interested in Professor Hettiaratchi’s work. There are a set of injuries or disease states we may experience in life that are the result of accident or random chance that our bodies are incapable of healing from without therapeutic intervention. Even then, current therapeutic interventions may still fail to fully restore function in injured or diseased tissues, leaving much to be desired. No one should have to live a life of medical repercussion due to the random chance of events life may throw at us. That’s why I chose bioengineering.
Q: Thank you for sharing your experience. It's clear how your journey has influenced your passion for understanding biology. Turning to your research, angiogenesis is central to your work. Could you explain what angiogenesis is and why you're so passionate about it?
A: Angiogenesis is the process by which new blood vessels form from pre-existing ones. We’re talking about veins, capillaries, and arterial vasculature. When you get injured, like from a cut or a burn, damage occurs. This damage, along with factors like inflammation, or bacterial infection, provides physical and chemical cues to the vasculature to grow toward the wound site. This is our own little engineered self-healing response.
I’m passionate about this because I hear doctors frequently use the word "permanent" to describe healing outcomes from injuries. They’ll say, "You’re going to live with this for the rest of your life" or "I’ve never seen this injury heal before." With the advances we’re making in bioengineering, I believe we can reestablish healing in injuries that currently have poor therapeutic outlooks. My research focuses on helping people recover from severe injuries by promoting blood vessel growth, which is a critical first step in restoring the body’s natural healing process.
Q: You’ve been awarded two significant grants. Could you tell us about them and how you managed to secure both?
A: Definitely! The first is an NSF NRT traineeship, which I found through a flyer posted in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Sponsored by Victoria DeRose, a professor in the department, this program focuses on training Ph.D. candidates working on research related to developing probes and sensors for complex environments. Over the past six years, Professor DeRose’s NSF NRT grant has provided funding to more than 30 PhD students across the departments of chemistry, biology, bioengineering, geology, and human physiology. The application process was internal, where trainees submitted their projects to a board of University of Oregon professors overseeing the grant. I was fortunate to have my project selected, securing full-time funding for the 2023-2024 academic year.
The second grant is the NIH NRSA F31 fellowship, a three-year pre-doctoral award. This application was unique from the NRT in that it emphasized simultaneous evaluation in both the scientific merit of the proposed work, the professional development plan, and the mentee-mentor relationship. Together with my mentor Professor Hettiaratchi, we applied for the NIH NRSA F31, which provides $48,000 per year from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, with additional funding from the University of Oregon to fully fund my research. The application process provided a deep dive into both the science behind my thesis work and the mechanics behind grant writing while providing an opportunity for my mentor and I to map out an academic and professional development trajectory tailored to my goals of integrating into a career in academia. In turn, this grant was only made possible by the guidance and commitment Professor Hettiaratchi has shown towards my best outcomes in the mentor-mentee experience I have had the privilege to share throughout my academic journey.
Q: What is the potential impact of your work? Who could potentially benefit and how might your research help?
A: The potential impact is significant. By understanding and controlling the exact order of protein presentation during vascular regeneration, we can better understand how proteins regulate wound healing. This knowledge allows us to mimic the natural 'order of operations' by introducing proteins in this same sequence to wounds where healing has been disrupted. If we can successfully develop a therapy that improves or speeds up angiogenesis, part of any wound healing process, this could theoretically help with all types of wounds.
Q: You participated in the Oregon Innovation Challenge. What is the OIC and what drew you to the program? What’s the status of that project?
A: The Oregon Innovation Challenge (OIC) — led by Jeff Sorensen, director of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Oregon — is a four-month incubator program where participants develop their entrepreneurial ideas and compete for startup funding to bring their concepts to life. For the winners, the program offers much more than just financial support. OIC winners also participate in a summer professional development series that includes one-on-one project guidance and engaging fire-side chat seminars with guest speakers. These speakers, such as Tom Hui, serial tech entrepeneur, and Michale Crooke, former CEO of Patagonia, share their experiences and offer valuable advice to early-stage enrepreneurs.
I first met Jeff Sorensen at the Knight Campus Impact Week Orientation, where he mentioned he had just moved to Oregon the night before. During Impact Week, he discussed his initial plans for establishing an entrepreneurship center at the University, which immediately caught my attention. I later came across a flyer for the OIC showcase and decided to enroll. The program offers weekly mentoring sessions to help participants develop a five-minute pitch for their ideas, and the projects can be anything from buttons to sweatshirts. I was one of the few participants with a science-based project, which focused on creating a bacterially degradable polymer to deliver antibiotics only when bacterial activity is present. After some one-on-one mentoring and pitch development, I won $8,500.
Q: You’ve studied chemistry, bioengineering, innovation and entrepreneurship. Your career could take you in several different directions. Where do you hope to be 10 years from now?
A: That’s the hardest question. I want to pursue science for the sake of advancing knowledge, but disruptive technologies are often squashed, and pre-existing treatments are maintained because there’s an economy pushing them forward. For that reason, I’d like to be a serial entrepreneur while still doing primary academic research. I want to mentor and help translate ideas into practical solutions. I also hope to do a postdoc abroad and secure an early-career professorship. Ideally, I’d like to strike a balance between being an educator and an entrepreneur.
Q: You seem to have had some good fortune paying attention to fliers on bulletin boards! Is that your message to new bioengineering students?
A: It definitely seems that way! Honestly, it’s more about being open to offerings and willing to take advantage of the opportunities around you — mentorships, collaborations, grants — they’re available, whether you see them on a bulletin board or find out about them through a conversation with a professor. It might lead to something truly impactful.