The Wiegand Summer Internship provides an opportunity for a high school senior, who resides in Allegheny County and who graduated in the spring of 2019, to spend 5 weeks learning first-hand about regenerative medicine research and scientific investigations in general.
The 2019 Wiegand Intern was Amadeus Stern, a graduate of Avonworth High School. Mr. Stern will be attending the University of Pittsburgh in the Fall. His internship was in the Thoracic Aortic Disease Research Laboratory under the mentorship of McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine faculty member Julie Philippi, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Phillippi also has a secondary appointment in the Department of Bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering.
Mr. Stern worked on a project focusing on Gelation Properties of Perivascular Extracellular Matrix. The purpose of the project was to better understand the influence of perivascular ECM on hydrogel formation and degeneration toward clinical translation for microvascular regeneration. Mr. Stern’s data will be part of an abstract submission to the North American Vascular Biology Organization, and he will be listed as a co-author.
The Wiegand Summer Internship is made possible through an endowment from Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Wiegand, friends and supporters of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The endowment is designed to provide an opportunity for a high school senior to experience the opportunities and excitement of a career in science and engineering, with a focus on regenerative medicine.