March 17, 2023 Yesilkoy receives Trailblazer Award for cancer detection project Written By: Tom Ziemer Departments: Biomedical Engineering Categories: Faculty|Grants|Research Filiz Yesilkoy, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has received a Trailblazer R21 Award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support her work developing an innovative cancer detection platform. Yesilkoy, whose lab uses photonics and nanotechnology to create biomedical sensors, plans to build upon liquid biopsy capabilities by using novel electromagnetic metasurfaces, paired with unique imaging techniques and machine learning modeling to enable rapid, noninvasive detection in a portable setup. The Trailblazer R21 Award program supports early career researchers working on an emerging, high-potential project.