Prof. Swindle-Reilly elected Chair, Ophthalmic Biomaterials Special Interest Group
Assistant Professor Katelyn Swindle-Reilly has been elected Chair of the Ophthalmic Biomaterials Special Interest Group (SIG) for the Society of Biomaterials, 2021-23. This appointment supersedes her 2019 election to the position of Program Chair of the same organization. Now, she will lead the Ophthalmology Special Interest Group's activities on the development and biocompatibility testing of materials for the augmentation and replacement of diseased ocular tissues and the development and testing of drug delivery systems to the anterior and posterior segments of the eye.
The Society for Biomaterials includes clinicians, researchers, and students from medical device manufacturers, academic research labs, and operating rooms across the country. Its annual meeting is an interdisciplinary gathering which serves as a critical pathway to identifying issues with current technologies, and for translating academic research to clinical practice.
The Ophthalmology Special Interest Group focuses on a number of areas, including wetting of surfaces; surface modification and protein adsorption of polymers used for refractive devices; transport through polymers, drug delivery systems and technologies; vitreous replacement fluids; retinal tamponades, and glaucoma drainage devices for the regulation of intraocular pressure.
Swindle-Reilly, who joined Ohio State in 2016, has enjoyed a variety of success so far in her early career.
She has received several grants from the Ohio Lions Eye Research Foundation, most recently (November 2020), a Disaster Relief Grant to further her research on Ocular Drug Delivery. She was also one of 12 recipients of Ohio State's Institute for Materials Research (IMR) Kickstart Facility Grants. In the spring of 2019, Swindle-Reilly was one of three finalists for the Ohio State University Early Career Innovator of the Year Award.
In 2018, Dr. Swindle-Reilly won the Lois Hagelberger-Huebner Young Investigator Award from the Ohio Lions Eye Research Foundation for her work with Dr. Matthew Ohr in Ohio State's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science regarding treatment options for people with wet age-related macular degeneration. The technology they are developing tailors drug release from biodegradable polymer microparticles for sustained release of Bevacizumab (an anti-VEGF drug used to treat the condition) into the vitreous portion of the eye, and could greatly reduced the frequency of ocular injections as a result.
Professor Swindle-Reilly holds five patents, with the most recent obtained on June 23, 2020.
