“Nanoengineered Intracellular Forces and their Interplay with Neurons” 

Anja Kunze, Ph.D.*
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Department of Bioengineering
University of California, Los Angeles

Seminar will be made available via videoconference in the Health Sciences Research Building, room E 160 and Technology Enterprise Park, room 104, also on your computer at http://vidyo.bme.gatech.edu.

Mechanical forces can play different roles in the brain. They appear during the process of brain development, nerve fiber growth and branching, and they also can initiate neural cell death due to severe brain damages. The latter example specifically impacts therapeutic outcomes of brain implants and surgery. To use mechanical forces in the brain to our advantage, we need a better understanding of how we can engineer them, and how functionality of neurons and other brain cells are impacted. Due to complexity of in vivo experiments, most current approaches are based on externally applied forces. These techniques, however, show restriction when it comes to transferring them into the compact brain tissue. My research uses the ability of superparamagnetic nanoparticles, which I call nanomagnets, to enter the intracellular environment and to apply forces within a magnetic field gradient to the cell in the low-pico newton range.

In this talk, I will introduce nanomagnets on-chip to exert parallel forces to an array of neuronal cells. I will also present results that suggest the possibility to engineer the location of intracellular proteins through nanomagnetic forces. The nanomagnetic approach is broadly applicable to a diverse range of brain diseases, and other cell phenotypes. It could help us to fine-tune the biomechanical role in neuronal functional models, or may enable us to incorporate mechanical stimulation in neuro-therapeutic implants

Faculty Host: Ross Ethier, Ph.D.