Ski accident survivor Matt Schuelke making a difference through undergraduate diabetes research at Beckman Institute

Since the age of five or six, Matt Schuelke knew he wanted to be a doctor. That desire became all-too clear on the slopes of Wausau, Wis.

During his junior year at Fremd High School, Schuelke was seriously injured in a skiing accident. He went off a jump, came down head first on a rock, which slipped between his goggles and his helmet, cracked his skull, and drove the bone into his brain. He was rushed to emergency neurosurgery, where the bone was pulled out and the wound washed out. The doctors initially told the family that in three months he might be able to think again.

“I had a lot of people from my church were praying for me, and I ended up coming out of the hospital in five days with no residual therapy,” Schuelke recalled. “I realized through my own personal faith that while the prayers in my church affected a lot, the way the Lord pulled me through was with incredibly talented surgeons. I saw first-hand the impact a physician could have on a patient.”

Six years later, after some life-changing experiences from the University of Illinois, including significant ones in undergraduate research, the bioengineering major has been accepted into multiple MD/PhD programs, and is looking forward to making a difference in the world of medicine.

At Illinois, it didn’t take long for Schuelke to stand out.

“He knew how to ask really good questions and sat back and digested material,” said Jennifer Amos, a senior lecturer and chief academic advisor for bioengineering. “ He is also very personable, has shown to be a great leader, and relates well to his classmates.”

At the end of Schuelke’s sophomore year (in 2011), Amos recommended him for a summer internship at the Mayo Clinic, the first for an Illinois undergraduate student in bioengineering.

Although Schuelke had been focusing primarily on using his bioengineering degree as a precursor to medical school and becoming a clinician in the field, it was at the Mayo Clinic that he began to see the impact he could have as a researcher as well.

Schuelke worked under Dr. Michael Yaszemski, an Air Force brigadier general whose Tissue Engineering and Biomaterial Laboratory is partly funded by the defense department to research tissue regeneration projects for post-battle injuries. As a physician-scientist himself, Yaszemski is a practicing spinal surgeon as well as a researcher.

“I shadowed him in a clinic and when he would leave a patient’s room, he’d often say, ‘That’s why we’re doing this in the lab,’” Schuelke reported.

Schuelke helped Yaszemski’s research by using polymer chemistry to develop a new material for segmental nerve defects, which is especially beneficial for severed limbs.

“Because we had never had an undergrad go before, we had him come back to campus and present his work to both the faculty and student body, His presentations were like a grad student defending a paper.”

Next Amos recommended him for an internship with Wawrzyniec Dobrucki, a senior research scientist at Beckman Institute for Advance Science and Technology who directs the Molecular Imaging Laboratory in the Biomedical Imaging Center (BIC).

Dobrucki is in year three of a four-year American Heart Association-funded project to develop individualized treatment strategies for diabetes patients, especially after a heart attack. The strategies involve non-invasive imaging to document the processes of angiogenesis (the physiological process through which new blood vessels form from pre-existing vessels). It also involves assessing the amount of RAGE (receptor for advanced glycosylation end), which are the products of the reaction between the peptides and sugars that accumulate in diabetic patients, especially when they are not controlled.

“There is a whole body of literature suggesting that the content of the RAGE can give some idea about the severity of the infarct (heart attack or stroke),” Dobrucki said. “We try to relate the imaging indices and biomarker indices and allow us to design individualized therapy. Right now the guidelines are to give the same dose of the same drug to all the patients. The ultimate goal would be for the patient to come to the hospital and perform the blood test and the imaging test and based on those two indices; the doctor can design a therapy.”

Schuelke impressed Dobrucki enough that after one semester, he encouraged Schuelke to apply for an American Heart Association Scholarship for Undergraduate Fellowship. Schuelke received the scholarship, which allowed him to work on the research project for 10 weeks last summer.

“For many universities, the main focus is on post-doctorate researchers,” Dobrucki said. “The University of Illinois, however, has very talented undergraduate students in engineering. They are not only interested in imaging from the engineering point of view, but also in bridging the gap between engineering and medicine.  Matt is one of those people that can understand the whole concept from the engineering point of view, but also apply it in the living animal. “

Schuelke’s next role was to perform open-heart surgery on rats to create an infarct (heart attack) then use an imaging agent on two groups of animals -- diabetic and non-diabetic – and investigate the differences in angiogenic response.

“He had to expose the beating heart and put the ligation on the left ascending coronary artery,” Dobrucki explained. “He not only had to get clean access to the beating heart, which beats 250 times per minute, but also put a very small ligature underneath the very small vessel that you almost don’t see. You need to have very precise movements and Matt proved to be a very skilled surgeon.”

Schuelke co-authored abstracts on the research, serving as the lead author on one, which have been accepted by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging as well as the American Diabetes Association.

While the process of angiogenesis is important to the recovery of cardiac patients, its study is also useful in the study of cancer patients. Schuelke has taken the finding of his research and made presentations at two cancer poster sessions.

Dobrucki’s next step is to translate his research to large animals like pigs where the physiology is much closer to human going towards the approval by the FDA for clinical imaging. His research could also eventually be instrumental in preventing a heart attack by identifying which plaque is likely to become unstable before it causes blockage.

That’s the kind of research that Schuelke is interested in being a part of down the road. It’s his experience in the lab that has set him apart as he has successfully applied to be one of the 170 students annually admitted into National Institute of Health-sponsored programs.

“All these programs require at least a year to a year-and-a-half of semi-to-full-time research,” Schuelke said. “I’ve received a lot of experience through Illinois connections to apply competitively to these programs.”

“I have been mentoring many students over the years and I would say that Matt is one of the best that I have ever worked with,” Dobrucki said. “His strength is the fact that he can be very independent.  It took him less than two weeks to start doing the surgeries on living animals. I’ve never seen a student who had never worked with the animals before be so proficient.”

“What sets Matt apart is his ability to perform,” Amos added. “He absorbs everything he learns in the classroom. Usually it takes years of grad school for people to digest the content in the classroom and find a paper or an experience and really connect them together. He already does that.”

“I have seen first-hand that research can translate from the bench to the bedside,” Schuelke said. “As someone who wants to both do research and see patients, I really want to have the interplay between the two.”

Schuelke is a far cry from where he could be had his injuries from his accident led to more severe complications. Today, he’s nearing completion of his bachelor’s degree from one of the top engineering universities in the world after playing a big role in transformational research and taking advantage of extracurricular activities like band and Campus Crusade for Christ; he’s been accepted into four MD/PhD programs; and in June, he’s getting married to Mary Eshelman, who he met at the Illinois.

In the future, his work could be the reason someone else gets that second chance for those experiences and helps change the world.

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If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Mike Koon, writer/editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-1256.