Former Clarinet Player & Drum Major Wins Molecular Imaging Award

Former Westwood band clarinet player (and Drum Major) Suraj Makhija, a senior biomedical engineering student at the University of Texas, won a 1st Place Poster Award at the World Molecular Imaging Congress.

Makhija’s abstract titled “High-Yield, Silver Seed-Mediated Synthesis of Gold Nanoplates for Photoacoustic Imaging,” competed with approximately 20 other posters in the Photoacoustic and Ultra…sound Contrast Agents category. Makhija’s research focuses on a new method to produce gold nanoplates, a relatively new particle used for combined photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging. Makijia’s research, supervised by graduate student Geoffrey Luke, has developed a way to more efficiently produce gold nanoplates from a silver seed. This method sheds light on nucleation mechanisms to control morphology of metal nanoparticles for imaging applications.