PH.D. STUDENT AWARDED CURTIS CARL JOHNSON MEMORIAL AWARD

Xinhua Chen, an Old Dominion University doctoral student in biomedical sciences, was awarded the Curtis Carl Johnson Memorial Award for a student platform presentation by the Bioelectromagnetics (BEMS) Society at its 2007 conference in Kanazawa, Japan, in mid-June.

The title of the talk was "Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields Inhibit B16-F10 Melanoma Tumors By Enhancing Apoptosis and Reducing Angiogenesis".

"She made an oral presentation of her work and made such an impression on her audience that they gave her this prestigious award," said Karl Schoenbach, the Batten Endowed Chair for Bioelectrics Engineering and director of the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics, which ODU operates with Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Chen earned an M.D. and qualified as a surgeon in China before coming to the United States to enter the biomedical sciences Ph.D. program jointly administered by ODU's College of Sciences and EVMS. Karl Schoenbach and R. James Swanson, a professor of biological sciences and graduate program director, jointly advise Chen.

Swanson and Chen are part of a Reidy Center team that has published research findings showing that pulses of electricity shorter than a millionth of a second can cause complete remission of melanomas on the skin of mice.

Two years ago, Schoenbach and Frank Reidy, the industrial entrepreneur for whom the bioelectrics center is named, announced to an academic audience in Beijing that they were interested in recruiting graduate students for bioelectric research. "Ms. Chen was the most qualified candidate," Schoenbach said. "In fact, she had been judged to be among the top 100 undergraduates in China. We were fortunate to attract her to our program."

Added Swanson: "She is a super student and has really already become a valuable colleague in these efforts."