Weiss named Rising Star in Engineering

Dar Weiss, an associate research scientist in biomedical engineering, has been selected as a Rising Star in Engineering in Health by Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities. The award honors dedication and perseverance as well as academic potential in the field of biomedicine.

Weiss is a member of Dr. Jay Humphrey's research group where he applies multiscale approaches and multimodality imaging techniques to study biomechanical mechanisms of diverse vascular diseases and their potential treatment. He has expertise in complex biomechanical experimentation particularly in regard to local characterization of extracellular matrix defects that lead to aortic aneurysm and dissection and the confounding role of hypertension. His current work for which he recently also received a Young Investigator Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society, identifies novel characteristics of collagen fiber stability and integrity in Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic condition, which also promises to give insight into general aortic aneurysm disease.

Weiss received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering at Tel Aviv University, where he designed and developed a novel peripheral catheter for intravenous procedure. This novel catheter was shown to minimize biomechanical interaction with the vein wall and to dramatically reduce the risk for vein inflammation and thrombosis. Weiss is interested in establishing an independent research group to study the multiscale mechanism responsible for the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease while focusing on the genotype-phenotype interplay in vascular tissue and identification of therapeutics targets.