Mary Clare McCorry, Ph.D. 2017

Mary Clare McCorry received her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering in 2017. She worked in Dr. Larry Bonassar’s lab designing tissue engineered meniscal constructs and studying biomechanical and chemical mechanisms of action of cells to build functional tissues. Her research was highly interdisciplinary and translational, working closely with Lara Estroff in Materials Science and Engineering, Lisa Fortier in the College of Veterinary Sciences, and Suzanne Maher at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

After finishing her Ph.D., McCorry was offered an opportunity to work at the Food and Drug Administration through the AIMBE Scholars program. As an AIMBE Scholar, she led science policy initiatives and coordinated collaborations between experts in academia, industry, government and non-profit organizations. Her AIMBE project was with the program for Pediatrics and Special Populations in Office of the Center Director (OCD) at Center for Devices and Radiological Heath (CDRH) where she worked to organize and lead the development of projects associated with the Pediatric Medical Device Development Public Meeting. To better understand industry needs and concerns in the context of regulatory guidelines, she worked with industry representatives, industry trade organizations, professional organizations, and clinicians. She also investigated trends in medical devices indicated for use in pediatrics, examining the three medical device evaluation pathways for innovative devices: Premarket Approvals (PMAs), Humanitarian Device Exemptions (HDEs), and De Novos. Through her experience as an AIMBE scholar, she learned how regulatory process and decision-making influences the market from early stage discovery and ideation to post-market monitoring. 

Currently, McCorry is the Director for Technology and Process Development at the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI). ARMI is a non-profit organization which operates the BioFabUSA Manufacturing Institute funded by the Department of Defense. The goal of the program is to achieve scalable, consistent and cost-effective manufacturing of cells, tissue and organs through the development of manufacturing technologies. At ARMI, she is advising the development of several scalable, modular, automated and closed tissue manufacturing production lines as well as leading Institute-based Technology Working Groups focused on advancing tissue and organ manufacturing. Additionally, she is responsible for directing technical partnerships for collaboration on Institute funded projects. The field is growing rapidly, and McCorry is excited to be a part of an organization that is paving the way to bring tissue technologies to market.