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Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) spent a record $71.6 million on research and development activities during the 2024 academic year, up 8% over the previous year, as expenditures grew on projects funded by federal agencies and nonprofit organizations. University researchers also launched 234 multiyear projects in 2024 and received a record $60 million in public and private awards for research activities.  “WPI’s extraordinary faculty, staff, and students are conducting research that tackles some of the world’s most pressing problems, and the awards they have received from government, corporate, and private funders are a testament to their innovative thinking,” said Bogdan Vernescu, WPI vice president and vice provost for research and innovation. WPI’s research growth follows a decade of investment and work by students, faculty, and staff. The university was recently designated an R1 institution, the top tier of American research colleges and universities, based on its 2023 research spending and doctorate degrees.  Newer data shows that WPI’s expansion of research and development continued in 2024. Information on research expenditures was recently submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF), and WPI published award data in late 2024. About 83% of all research dollars awarded to WPI during 2024 were provided by the federal government. The Department of Defense sponsored more than $15 million in awards to WPI, followed by the NSF with nearly $14 million in awards, and the Department of Health and Human Services with more than $9 million in awards. Other large federal funders included the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, each with more than $2 million in awards to WPI researchers.  State and local governments sponsored about 10% of the research funds awarded to WPI, and the remaining awards were sponsored by corporate, foundation, and other sponsors.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute researchers believe a new robotic technology they’re developing can help save lives by improving the process of matching kidney donors with people awaiting a transplant. Their approach seeks to advance medical evaluations that determine whether a donated kidney is viable to be transplanted.  According to the National Kidney Foundation, 90,000 people in the United States are on a kidney waitlist; each day, 12 die before a transplant can happen. While a shortage of donors is one reason for the long waitlist, another major factor is the number of donated kidneys that get discarded. Assessing a kidney for transplant involves examining the organ after it’s been removed from the donor to ensure the kidney is free of disease or structural anomalies.  Current methods for this assessment include either a biopsy, which involves a review of cells taken from a small sample of the kidney, or optical coherence tomography (OCT), a light-based handheld imaging technology that can provide a high-resolution snapshot of a limited section of the organ. Xihan Ma, robotics engineering PhD student, and Haichong (Kai) Zhang, associate professor of robotics engineering and biomedical engineering The assessment process risks wasting the organ because these exams take time and provide information about only a small portion of the kidney; both factors may hamper clinicians’ ability to accurately assess the organ and approve it for transplant while it is still viable.  Haichong (Kai) Zhang, associate professor of robotics engineering and biomedical engineering, and Xihan Ma, a robotics engineering PhD student, are using innovations in medical robotics to address this problem.  “With our robotic system, we can capture a scan of the whole kidney,” said Zhang. “With current approaches, the area of the kidney that can be assessed is inherently limited by either the size of the biopsy needle or the size of the OCT imaging probe, and thus the assessment of the organ is biased by which small part of the kidney the operator chooses to focus on.” Zhang and Ma have developed a robotic OCT system, which is a fully automated method of imaging an entire donated kidney to help a clinician make an assessment. The system was developed at WPI’s Medical FUSION (Frontier Ultrasound Imaging and Robotic Instrumentation) Lab. “Our motivation is to think about how we can streamline the process used to evaluate the viability of donated kidneys to be more reliable and accurate, and to not waste kidneys that potentially can be used to save lives of patients,” said Zhang. “We are integrating the strengths of medical robots to make imaging of donor kidneys more accessible and less user-dependent and to acquire images over a wider area of the organ, which can provide more concise and direct feedback to clinicians so they can make better clinical decisions.”

Following an internal search for the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, WPI has officially named Arne Gericke to the role he has held ad interim since July 1, 2022. At WPI, the dean of undergraduate studies leads efforts to ensure—and improve the quality and effectiveness of—all dimensions of the university’s undergraduate programs and the student academic experience, including courses, projects, academic advising, and undergraduate research. The dean of undergraduate studies also works to communicate the values of the WPI undergraduate program to both internal and external audiences. “Arne avidly champions undergraduate students and emphasizes the crucial role of faculty in both supporting and challenging them,” said WPI’s Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost Andrew Sears. “During the time he has served in an interim capacity, Arne has demonstrated an impressive ability to work with senior leadership, administrators, faculty governance, and faculty from across WPI to ensure that the WPI Plan continues to evolve to meet the needs of our current and future students. Not only is Arne passionate about elevating the value, visibility, and quality of project work and research for undergraduate students at WPI, he is also dedicated to expanding access to a WPI education by creating additional pathways, particularly for students from community colleges.” Gericke spent the year before his assignment as the interim dean of undergraduate studies serving as WPI’s associate dean of undergraduate studies. He joined WPI in 2011 as professor and head of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and served in those capacities for 10 years. In his research, Gericke studies signaling pathways at biological membranes and has led a lab of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral researchers at WPI focused on the biophysical characterization of lipid-mediated protein functions. Mutations in cell membrane-associated proteins can lead to a broad range of diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and clues to how mutations in certain proteins disrupt the lipid-mediated signaling pathways could lead to new diagnostic techniques and the potential to identify very early signs of disease.