Biomedical engineering student contributes to cancer research
Combining her passion for medicine and her mechanical engineering training, Maulee Sheth decided to continue her education in biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. Contributing to valuable research work in the realm of cancer cells and tumors, Sheth was recently named Graduate Student Engineer of the Month by UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
Why did you choose your field of study?
I am a mechanical engineer by training, and am particularly passionate about medicine. Biomedical engineering became this perfect intersection where my background and interests met. A professor with a similar background refers to themselves as a 'biomechanical engineer', and I've (unofficially) adopted the term as well.
Maulee Sheth. Photo/Provided
For the kind of work that I wanted to do, the proximity of CEAS to the UC College of Medicine and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital was something that I really valued.
My work has been strongly supported by research and collaborations on the medical campus. Although I started here during COVID-19 and didn't have the chance to fully engage with the program beforehand, the strong village I've found in my lab and the biomedical engineering community — from my mentors to my peers — every day since, has added immense value to my time here.
Can you describe your research work?
I first became interested in mechanobiology when I joined my undergraduate research lab at Purdue. Around the same time, I started reading the Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee which is essentially a biography of the disease since the time it was discovered. When I joined the Esfandiari lab at UC, I worked on a review paper looking at the dysregulation of bioelectric cell states in cancer only to realize that there is a lot of crosstalk between these cues. That is pretty much where my thesis research stemmed from.
To describe it a little — the microenvironment in which cancer tumors grow is a dynamic world where nearly everything changes to promote the disease. One significant change is the increased stiffness of the surrounding tissue, which triggers a cascade of events.
My research focuses on mechanosensitive ion channels that sense and transduce these stiffness-driven mechanical cues in 3D tumoroids, where we mimic both soft and stiff microenvironments in vitro (in a dish). By studying a 3D system, we get a step closer to capturing the complex cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions that occur in real tumors compared to traditional 2D models.
Another side of my work examines the effect of matrix stiffness on the secretion and cargo of extracellular vesicles, or EVs, derived from these tumoroids. EVs effectively communicate cancer-promoting signals to distant sites in the body to aid in metastasis (the spread of cancer cells) - quite like priming the soil for the growth of a cancer cell if it colonizes there. However, how different biophysical cues influence EVs is relatively unknown.
And since EVs are present in all biofluids, there is untapped potential here to utilize them for diagnostics and therapeutics. Overall, I hope to provide some pieces of the puzzle that take us closer to understanding and, eventually, better mitigating the disease.
What are some of the most impactful experiences during your time at UC?
I served as a solid mechanics adjunct lecturer for a cohort of our biomedical engineering undergraduates during the summer of my first year. As a first-time instructor leading a class of 70 students, it was incredibly rewarding to see both my students and myself evolve over the course and beyond.
Our lab collaborated with the Takiar-Wise-Draper lab at the UC College of Medicine which I initiated for my project. As an active advocate of multidisciplinary research, this gave me first-hand experience closely working with biologists and physician-scientists as an engineer. Our labs continue collaborating on other projects now and I am grateful to have found a wonderful team of people to work with.
Of what accomplishments are you most proud?
Maulee Sheth is part of the Esfandiari lab at UC and conducts cancer research. Photo/provided
Reflecting on my time at UC, it feels like I've come full circle — from being nominated for the Graduate Student Engineer of the Month award as a first-year student, to receiving it in my fourth year.
Earlier this year, I received an honorable mention for UC's Excellence in Teaching Award for Graduate Student Assistants and was nominated for the Scientific Excellence Award (top 10% abstract-based) by the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society's Americas chapter.
My favorite moment, though, has to be when I bumped into a former student in the Mantei Center elevator, and he told me my summer course made him almost enjoy mechanics — something he had dreaded before!
When do you expect to graduate? What are your plans after earning your degree?
I expect to graduate in the spring or summer of 2025. Post-doctorate, I plan to transition into a postdoctoral fellowship in academia, where I will continue leveraging engineering to better understand biology.
Do you have any other hobbies or involvements you'd like to share?
Outside of the lab, I love to read, hike, and run. Being an avid reader also makes me enjoy writing (which is especially helpful when we are drafting manuscripts)! I also find attending and presenting at conferences invigorating — I've had the opportunity to share our work at national and international meetings, including two oral research talks and six poster presentations. I am also the founding president of the UC chapter of the Biophysical Society. My vision with this has been to create common ground for student researchers across CEAS, the College of Medicine, and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center to come together, foster cross-disciplinary research, and have some fun while at it!
Featured image at top: UC's Mantei Center. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
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