SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT
“Neuroscience on a chip”
Chandra Kothapalli, Ph.D.
Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering,
Cleveland State University
During neurogenesis, axons travel long distances through dense brain tissue before connecting
to the intended target, resulting in a highly sophisticated network. Having a detailed
knowledge of the mechanisms of axon growth and guidance is essential for understanding the
nervous system's development, functioning, and to effectively treat damages of the nervous
system by injury or disease. However, studying axon guidance by diffusible or substratebound gradients is challenging with current techniques. In this talk, I will discuss our recent
efforts towards the design and development of two microfluidic devices to study axon
guidance in vitro. The first high-throughput device was designed specifically to study axon
outgrowth and guidance in three dimensional biological scaffolds, under controlled
chemogradients of Netrin-1, brain pulp and Slit-2. The second device was developed to
investigate the biological mechanisms of survival, axonal outgrowth and target identification
of corticospinal motor neurons, a rare cell population and an integral part of the motor circuit.
Both devices occupy a unique position at the interface of neuroscience, developmental cell
biology, advanced biomaterials, and microfluidic technology and have a very strong potential
as new tools for neuroscience research.
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
12:00 – 1:00 pm
Room SI 117
Pizza and refreshments will be served before the seminar.