BME Summer Seminar Series
Wednesday, June 28th, 2023
9:30-10:30 AM EST
Via Zoom Meeting – link below*
Evaluation links:
Damilola Lawore:
https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eDrJMoYL3pBuYV8
Zach Davis:
https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2fUdVWt2rkmmQPI
Characterizing the Anti-Cancer Potential of Vaginal Microbes and Metabolites
Damilola Lawore (Doug Brubaker/Leopold Green, advisors)
Abstract:
Several studies have shown interactions between the human microbiome and health, but the functions of the microbiome and its products are not fully elucidated, in part because systematic methods to functionally characterize microbes and their functions
are lacking. Here, we propose a systems biology concept to characterize microbes and their products termed the
Pharmacobiome. The Pharmacobiome is the characterization of a microbe and its products in terms of known drugs and pathways by studying associations between the microbiome and disease states, phenotypes, pathways, networks, known drug functions
and how the human clinical demographic characteristics impact the above associations. One application of this concept could be for the precision treatment of cancers using microbial products by characterizing the
Anti-cancer Pharmacobiome. Here, we examine this concept by integrating vaginal microbiome multi-omics data from patients with and without bacterial vaginosis with cell line drug screening transcriptomics data to identify vaginal microbes and microbial
products with therapeutic potential against female reproductive cancers.
The correlations calculated from the human data (Microbiome composition-protein; microbiome composition-RNA; metabolite-protein; metabolite-RNA), generated gene and protein
lists upregulated or downregulated by microbes and metabolites. The microbes/metabolites gene signatures were further compared to the gene signatures of Cisplatin and Paclitaxel to assess which microbes and metabolites has similar host fingerprints to the
drugs. The microbes and metabolites with p £ 0.05 were considered significantly similar to the drug and were classified into 2 tiers.
Although the drug perturbations were on breast cancer cells and the omics data were from the vaginal tract, literature suggests that both origins share some similar
gene expression patterns due to hormonal regulations, making them comparable but also capable of exhibiting type-specific behavior. Our results suggest that some microbes and metabolites might be capable of inducing mucosa gene expression patterns similar
to some known chemotherapeutic drugs.
MRI to determine interface mechanics in soft tissue
Zach Davis (Deva Chan, advisor)
Abstract: Articular cartilage is a soft-tissue that covers the ends of bones and lubricates motion within the joints. Defects in the articular cartilage affect almost 1 million Americans per
year and can lead to major disabilities such as osteoarthritis. Many of the surgical interventions to repair these defects include implants that contain cells, tissue, healing agents, and other factors to restore biochemical content and mechanical function
throughout its depth. It is necessary to confirm that both mechanical function and biochemical content are restored through both benchtop and in vivo tests. For confirming mechanical integration on the benchtop, a pushout test is used to determine the failure
force of a suspended repair defect. However, this method cannot be used in vivo since it is destructive. An MRI method called displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) has been used to look at strain responses to physiological loads non-invasively.
DENSE has been used to look at cartilage mechanics in vivo, in situ, and in vitro. The next stage in developing DENSE for repair applications is to optimize the post-processing to look at the interface, or the area where the repair fill meets with native cartilage.
Currently, we are developing an MRI safe loading device to apply cyclic loads within an MRI to be run in sync with the DENSE sequence. We will make gels that contain different stiffness ratio of “native” to “repair” portions to create a mechanical interface
similar to ones used in repairs. Image processing pipelines will be tested to determine the optimal pathway to view the interface. Non-invasively determining the strains at an interface can be used to evaluate the mechanical integration not only in cartilage,
but in other soft tissues as well.
https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/98231659969?pwd=T21Oa1B6QzFyQzFvckMzS1doNGlJUT09
Meeting ID: 982 3165 9969
Passcode: biomedical
Liz Rowen
She/Her
Graduate Program Assistant
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering
Martin C. Jischke Hall of Biomedical Engineering
206 S. Martin Jischke Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2032
o: 765-494-1197
