Bioreactor
Every day, 153 people in the United States alone die from injuries that include traumatic brain injury, and those who survive can face lasting effects.
High impact head injuries that lead to misfolded tau protein are associated with several widespread pathologies such as Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain injury, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and Parkinson’s. These serious neurodegenerative diseases share symptoms of progressive axonal failure through the structural degradation of the axon’s building blocks, its microtubules. Understanding the strain and strain rate limits that our brains can withstand may help us engineer better solutions to delay and perhaps even reverse these tauopathies.
How might we...
gain a better understanding of how tau protein microtubules break down under high strain rates?
Our Design
We have redesigned an ASG Bioreactor to simulate high strain rates on neuron axons. We hope to simulate varying stretch rates of axons to observe the impacts on the tau microtubules within the axons.
In doing so, we have both adapted the entire mechanical structure to the needs of high repetition, high velocity stretching, and also eliminated high risk, tedious steps in the usage process like the following:
10 minutes of glue application per trial
Stay tuned!