Oluwatomisin (Tomisin) Adebayo

BioE PhD Proposal Presentation

3:30pm, Friday, November 13th, 2026

Location: Suddath Room, IBB 1128

Zoom Link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/98553969898?pwd=U3vz1wmih9cpJJ6DUllWQdLeBrRwbu.1

Advisor: Dr. Melissa Kemp (Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University)

Committee Members:

Dr. Facundo Fernandez (School of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Dr. Randolph Ashton (Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Dr. Saurabh Sinha (Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering & H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University)

Dr. Shuichi Takayama (Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University)

INVESTIGATING EARLY NEURAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SPATIOTEMPORAL METABOLIC CHARACTERIZATION OF HUMAN NEURAL ROSETTES

Neural tube formation is a fundamental process during early embryonic development that establishes the brain and spinal cord. Disruption of this process can result in neural tube defects, including spina bifida and anencephaly. Although cellular metabolism is increasingly recognized as an important regulator of cell fate and tissue organization, the spatial and metabolic changes accompanying early neural development remain poorly understood. Neural rosettes, which recapitulate key structural features of the developing neural tube, provide an in vitro model for investigating the relationship between cellular organization and metabolic activity. While conventional fluorescence microscopy can characterize neural rosette structures, it does not provide direct information about their spatial molecular composition. Additionally, bulk metabolomic approaches lack the spatial resolution needed to distinguish molecular differences between lumen-associated regions and surrounding cells. This research seeks to address these limitations by integrating matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) with fluorescence microscopy to characterize spatial and temporal lipid-associated metabolic changes during neural rosette development. The central hypothesis is that neural rosette formation is accompanied by spatially organized lipid remodeling that changes throughout differentiation and responds to alterations in the cellular microenvironment. Aim 1 will develop and validate a computational framework using dimensionality reduction and unsupervised clustering to identify spatially distinct metabolic states and evaluate their correspondence with neural rosette structures. Aim 2 will investigate how exogenous lipid exposure influences the temporal metabolic and structural development of neural rosettes. Aim 3 will characterize lipid remodeling under constrained and unconstrained differentiation conditions using micropatterned cultures to determine how geometric confinement influences the spatial organization and progression of metabolic states. These studies will establish an integrated approach for linking spatial metabolic organization with neural rosette development, providing new insight into lipid-associated processes during early human neural differentiation.