On Friday, December 3rd @ 11:00AM ET, we welcome Prof. Maribel Vazquez from Rutgers University as she presents, "Microfluidic Modeling of Retinal Stem Cell Transplantation."

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

Microfluidic Modeling of Retinal Stem Cell Transplantation

Retinal neurons and glia respond to insults and imbalance in the retinal microenvironment via changes in morphology, adhesion, migratory behaviors, and reactive gliosis. These responses can be neuro-protective or neuro-degenerative depending upon the disease and/or its state. Current regenerative therapies have investigated the transplantation of retinal stem cells to replace damaged neurons and modulate glial scarring. Further, recent anatomy studies have suggested that the composition of different neuronal and glial populations in the Nervous System are able to influence self-repair processes. Variance in cell population densities and their relative subtypes has been implicated as a biological contributor to health disparities in treatment outcomes. Our work builds bioengineering systems that leverage microfluidics and whole eye explants to quantitatively examine the behaviors of transplantable stem cells and modulate their responses to externally-applied stimuli to aid neuroprotection of damaged retina.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Maribel Vazquez, Sc.D., Professor and Principal Investigator, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Dr. Vazquez joined the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University in 2019. Prior to that time she was a professor and co-founder of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the City College of New York. She began her career in industry working for Intel Corporation and then completed a Doctor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Her research develops microfluidic devices to examine cell migration and differentiation in the Nervous System.  Recent projects from the laboratory have begun to prototype hybrid microfluidic--ex vivo approaches to promote the integration of transplanted retinal stem cells.

ABOUT THE 2021-2022 BME SEMINAR SERIES

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University is proud to host an annual weekly seminar series on the latest developments and research in Biomedical Engineering. The weekly series takes place on Friday mornings at 11:00AM Eastern and includes a variety of renowned academics from top universities to talk about their specific research and experience. This is a hybrid event.