Andrés García, PhD, was awarded the Clemson Award for Basic Research at the 2012 World Biomaterials Congress this week in Chengdu, China. The Society for Biomaterials is a national society which promotes advances in all phases of materials research and development by encouragement of cooperative educational programs, clinical applications, and professional standards in the biomaterials field. Each year, the Society for Biomaterials solicits nominations for outstanding work for three different Clemson Award categories.

García is being recognized for his research which focuses on engineering biomaterials that promote tissue repair and healing, quantitative analyses of mechanisms regulating cell adhesive forces, as well as cell-based therapies for regenerative medicine.

These integrated cellular engineering strategies have provided new insights into mechanisms regulating cell-material interactions and established new approaches for the rational design of biomaterials and cell-delivery vehicles for regenerative medicine applications, including bone repair, vascularization and inflammation.
 
García has co-authored papers in leading biomaterials, tissue engineering, and cell biology journals as well as several patents and invention disclosures. His research has received funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), Arthritis Foundation and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He serves on the editorial board of leading biomaterial and regenerative medicine journals as well as NIH and NSF review panels.

García joined Georgia Tech as assistant professor in 1998 and is currently a professor and Woodruff Faculty Fellow in the Georgia W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and chair of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Bioengineering Program which is housed in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. 

Throughout his career García has received several distinctions, including the NSF CAREER Award, Arthritis Investigator Award, Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials and Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award. In addition, he has been recognized as a Top Latino educator by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and has been elected a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering by the International Union of Societies of Biomaterials Science and Engineering. 

García received a B.S. in mechanical engineering with nonors from Cornell University in 1991. He received his M.S.E. and Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania after which he then completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in cell and molecular biology at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He received NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Ford Foundation dissertation and post-doctoral fellowships.

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