Ronan O'Connell, a fifth-year doctoral student in bioengineering (BIOE) at Rice University, has been awarded a two-year, $64,072 American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship to improve the treatment of damaged hearts using stem cells.
O’Connell, a native of Scotland, works in the lab of Caleb Bashor, assistant professor of BIOE and biosciences. His research focuses on using stem cells to regrow areas of the heart left damaged after a heart attack. He proposes building customized DNA sequences to change the way stem cells behave so they more closely resemble the cell types naturally found in the heart.
O’Connell earned his B.S. and M.Eng. from the University of Glasgow in 2017.