Please note this preliminary exam will now be held virtually ONLY. IBSC BME Preliminary Exam Announcement for Edmond Rogers (R. Shi, advisor) Research Title: Elucidating Pathological Correlations between Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer's Disease Committee Members: Major professor: Riyi Shi Members: Joseph Rispoli, Fang Huang, GuangJun Zhang Date/Time: Thursday February 10th at 10am *NEW* Location: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/94760432982 (No in person meeting in MJIS 2001.) Abstract: One of the greatest consequences of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) are the resulting long-term effects, especially in milder cases where the damage is initially subclinical and thus lacking acutely observable manifestations that can compound significantly over time. Among these chronic issues, Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is one of the most serious. While a link between TBI and AD has been established, it has not yet been mechanistically elucidated. Multiple hypotheses have been postulated based on various animal/clinical models, which have contributed a great deal to our knowledge base and implicated several key pathways. While extremely valuable, these in vivo procedures and analyses are physiologically and ethically complex: there is currently no model capable of visualizing TBI-induced sub-cellular damage in the seconds immediately following injury, and the subsequent associated long-term changes. It is clear that additional investigative tools are needed, and while in vitro methodologies generally offer the type of resolution required, no such model replicates this phenomenon. Therefore, we introduce the "TBI-on-a-chip" concussive model prototype, with a series of concomitant targeted-experiments to address this currently unmet need. We hypothesize that both the primary, mechanical injury and long-term associated damages (secondary injury) can be successfully recapitulated in vitro, and utilized for mechanistic studies into trauma induced neurodegeneration. Further, we hypothesize that aggregation (β-amyloid) can be initiated by force-solo and demonstrated in our proposed system, further linking TBI with AD. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate translational discoveries by exploring the mechanisms underpinning TBI, acute and chronic, and the link to neurodegeneration. -- Bmeroundtable-list mailing list Bmeroundtable-list@ecn.purdue.edu https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECN/mailman/listinfo/bmeroundtable-list