Elected As AIMBE Fellow – ISU News Item

• Professor Surya Mallapragada was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for her distinguished contributions to medical and biological engineering as well for demonstrated interest, concern, and involvement with critical issues affecting these fields.

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Alumni Awards Announcement – Purdue University News Item

• The youngest person to be so honored, she is currently an associate professor of Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University. In 2002 she was named by MIT's Technology Review Magazine as one of the World's Top 100 Young Innovators.

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DOE Pulse Research Highlight- Bioinspired Polymers

• "It's extremely important to learn from nature," says Mallapragada, who recently took over as director of the newly renamed Materials Chemistry and Biomolecular Materials program within DOE's Ames Laboratory. "Through collaborative study, we hope to create a new body of knowledge, both experimental and theoretical, to answer several important questions at the intersection of materials, nanotechnology and biology and use those answers to design new bioinspired materials."

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Science Daily article – Bioinspired Polymers

• AMES A group of bioinspired polymers are being studied by researchers at the Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory to understand how they are able to form and react to stimuli similar to the way proteins, lipids and DNA react in nature. Unlocking how these soluble block polymers are able to self-assemble could potentially lead to a variety of uses such as controlled release systems for sustained and modulated delivery of drugs or gene therapies.

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Azom.com – A to Z of Materials – Bioinspired Polymers

• A group of bioinspired polymers are being studied by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory to understand how they are able to form and react to stimuli similar to the way proteins, lipids and DNA react in nature. Unlocking how these soluble block polymers are able to self-assemble could potentially lead to a variety of uses such as controlled release systems for sustained and modulated delivery of drugs or gene therapies.

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Technology Review TR100 Winners 2003

• Surya Mallapragada, currently an associate professor in Chemical Engineering at the Iowa State University, has distinguished herself in the field of polymeric materials for medical applications within just ten years of completing her B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. She has received many accolades over the years including being named one of the top 100 young innovators by MIT’s Technology Review magazine in 2002.

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USA Today (Society for Advancement of Education) June 2003

• Using microscale channels cut in ultrathin biodegradable polymers, Surya Mallapragada, a chemical engineering professor at Iowa State University, Ames, and an associate in materials chemistry at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, is working to regrow nerve cells. The technique has been proven to work for peripheral nerve regeneration in laboratory rats.

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Crossing Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Science – NSF Director Rita Colwell highlights Mallapragada’s work in “Foundations for Scientific Leadership”

• Even the work of individual scientists – such as Surya Mallapragada, an Iowa State University researcher named one of the world’s top 100 technical innovators for 2002 by Technology Review – highlights the multidisciplinary flow of contemporary science. In research supported by DOE and NSF, the materials chemist and chemical engineer is combining biomolecular chemistry, advanced IT capabilities, and nanotechnology in a technique to regenerate nerve cells, which are not amenable to methods used with other types of cells.

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ASEE PRISM article – Nerve regeneration

• "We're essentially mimicking what nature does," Mallapragada says. Now that they've proved it works on the peripheral nervous system, she and her colleagues are turning their attention to the central nervous system, specifically trying the procedure on rats' optic nerves.

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Technology Review – Emerging technologies and their Impact

• This is the second time Technology Review has picked such a group. The first was in 1999, our magazine's centennial year. That was a wonderful experience, but we've learned a lot in the last three years, and we think this installment is even more exciting than the first.

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Global Indus Technovators Award

• allapragada’s other area of research, controlled drug delivery, may one day allow us to administer chemotherapy to treat cancer effectively without side effects, treat diabetes without needles, and cure innumerable diseases with gene therapy. Mallapragada is synthesizing ‘smart’ polymers that respond to certain stimuli in the environment, such as temperature, pH or the presence of specific molecules. She has encapsulated insulin in polymer gels that sense the level of glucose in the blood stream and release insulin as required.

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Brain talk Communities – Neural Tissue Engineering

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Innovations Report – Nerve Regeneration

• "Nerve cells aren’t able to easily bridge gaps of more than one centimeter," says Surya Mallapragada, an Ames Laboratory associate in Materials Chemistry and a chemical engineering professor at Iowa State University. "Peripheral nervous system (PNS) axons – the part of the nerve cell which carries the impulses – normally have a connective tissue sheath of myelin guide their growth, and without that guidance, they aren’t able grow productively."

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NewsRx- Nerve Regeneration

• Using microscale channels cut in ultra-thin biodegradable polymers, researchers are working to regrow nerve cells. The technique has been proven to work for peripheral nerve regeneration in laboratory rats.

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Femina - Fast Track

• She has developed a way to help guide neurons so they grow in the right direction. In medical science, that could mean enabling the paralysed to walk or the blind to see. How she did it: By using plastic tubes with micropatterns inside them to guide nerve growth. This plastic is introduced into the body. Degradable as it is, it chemically breaks down after a few months and is eliminated from the body. Her winning attitude: "Just believe in yourself and the sky is the limit!"

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India Abroad Article – TR100 award

• Simple as it may sound, Mallapragada's solution is path-breaking, especially if you consider that every year, over 200,000 peripheral nerve repairs are attempted on people suffering from nerve injuries, an affliction that complicates successful rehabilitation more than any other form of trauma..

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Science Blog – Nerve regeneration

• Ames Laboratory researcher’s microscale channels steer neurons to rewire damaged nerves

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VISIONS Magazine – profile

• Chemical engineering associate professors Surya Mallapragada and Balaji Narasimhan are recipients of TR 100 awards, given by Technology Review to individuals under the age of 35 whose innovative work is having a profound impact on today’s world.

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Professor Creates Polymer To Guide Regeneration Of Damaged Nerve Cells

• An ISU professor's experiments with nerve regeneration may hold the key to helping the paralyzed walk. Using an ultra-thin biodegradable polymer placed in the peripheral nervous cell, Surya Mallapragada, associate professor in chemical engineering, has been able to generate the regrowth of nerve cells. Mallapragada's polymer cut micro-scale grooves to guide nerve cells that have been severed in the peripheral nervous system. These grooves guide the cells to grow in the right direction.

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Top Female Professors

• Some female professors said the attractions of Ames in general, and the College of Engineering in particular, brought each of them here from all over the United States and the world.

  A far-from-exhaustive listing of Iowa State's best includes Julie Dickerson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Surya Mallapragada, associate professor of chemical engineering; and Sarah Ryan, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering.

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Ames Lab News Release - Nerve Regeneration

• Using microscale channels cut in an ultrathin biodegradable polymer, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory is working to regrow nerve cells. The technique, which may one day allow the paralyzed to walk and the blind to see, has been proven to work for peripheral nerve regeneration in laboratory rats. 

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Ames Lab Insider – Nerve Regeneration

• It takes a powerful microscope to actually see what Surya Mallapragada has developed, but its impact could be huge, especially for millions of people with various forms of paralysis. Micrographs showing tiny nerve cells growing along in an orderly fashion demonstrate how important this breakthrough could be in the ability to rewire broken nerve circuits in the human body.

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Biotechnology Update – Plastics Make Perfect

• Plastics have paid off for Surya Mallapragada, an Iowa State associate professor of chemical engineering. Mallapragada has been named one of the world's top 100 young innovators by Technology Review, a technology magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

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Outlook India – Profile of Surya Mallapragada’s research

• Chaos And Laptops Surya Mallapragada, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Iowa State University

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South Asian Outlook

• Responding to South Asian Outlook, whether she would return to India, country of her birth, to give the benefit of her research and work abroad, she says, “It is difficult for me to do this sort of work in India at this point since Chemical Engineering in India has not yet embraced biomedical engineering.”

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U. S. Department of Energy- Research News – Polymer plus Quaiscrystals, A Puzzling Interaction

• One of Mallapragada's research areas involves the use of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene in replacement hip joints. "The big problem with polyethylene is that there is a lot of wear. The polyethylene is in the form of a cup. A metal ball rotates in the polyethylene socket, and there is constant friction causing wear on both materials," Mallapragada explains. Not only does this impact the mechanical integrity of the replacement joint, but as the ball and socket wear, particles from these materials lead to bone loss causing the joint to loosen, she says.

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