BME PhD Defense Announcement for Paula Sarmiento (D. Little, advisor)

Everyone is invited to attend the public presentation beginning at 10:15am.

Title: Integrated Multiomics of Rotator Cuff Tendons

Date & Location: June 10th 2025, 10:15am, MJIS 2001

Zoom Meeting: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/93992107752

Advisory Committee:

-Dianne Little (Chair)

-Douglas Brubaker

-Sarah Snelling

-Luis Solorio

-Vikki Weake

Abstract:

Tendon degeneration and rupture cause chronic pain and movement restriction. Tendinopathies range from acute to chronic degeneration leading to micro-or macro-scale partial or complete tears. Most tears fail to heal naturally. Tear repair is currently done through surgical procedures, yet they lead to fibrosis due to extended inflammatory stages and limited matrix remodeling. For example, around 460,000 rotator cuff tears are currently repaired in the U.S. each year and retear rates can be up to 90%. Tissue engineering works towards eliminating these shortcomings. Tendon-engineered approaches supply scaffolds and functional cells to aid regeneration. Engineered novel approaches are evaluated through specific tendon-related outcomes (e.g., expression of tendon-related genes, development of highly aligned collagen). These outcomes evaluate only a small fraction of the tendon phenotype and therefore don’t rule out dedifferentiation or an unhealthy phenotype. Hence, promising results can inadvertently lead to debilitating states in unevaluated areas (e.g., fibrosis, metabolic dysregulation). Implementation of Omics platforms to profile tendon biology could define better outcomes and increase our understanding of engineered tendon approaches. Omics characterize molecule types (i.e. genetic information, proteins, metabolites) in a sample without the bias and restrictions of current targeted methods used to quantify known markers. The overarching goal of this thesis is to use omics for unbiased characterization of native tendon tissue, identify if tendon anatomic site and intrinsic factors have an effect on engineered tendon outcomes, and then evaluate how our current differentiation and engineered tendon approaches mimic native tissue.