BE 537 Neural Tissue Engineering
This course explores tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in the context of the central nervous system. The course begins with a brief review of anatomy and physiology of the central nervous system to aid in understanding the challenges to tissue repair of the brain and spinal cord. The majority of the course will cover material and biological approaches to restoring natural function. Topics that will be covered include drug delivery from cells and materials and induced pluripotent stem cells. There will be discussion of recently published papers, case studies, and group projects that focus on applying the concepts learned in the course. Drug and Gene Delivery This course explores various methods to deliver therapeutic drugs and modify gene expression. The course begins with a review of the anatomy and physiology of tissues that can be barriers to delivery of therapeutic molecules, including the kidney, liver, blood brain barrier, and tumors. The rest of the course will cover pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, small molecules, viral and non-viral mediated gene editing, gene silencing, synthetic biology approaches to targeted delivery, and a materials approach to drug delivery. There will be discussion of recently published papers, case studies, and group projects that focus on applying the concepts learned in the course. Biological Image Analysis The course is designed to provide practical knowledge and experience processing images acquired for biological research. Since this course focuses on practical application of principles of the course, students will be expected to have some exposure to either MATLAB, Python, or Java. The course begins with a brief overview of microscopy and different imaging modalities. The majority of the course will cover various methods associated with image pre-processing, registration, segmentation, and feature extraction. Students will be expected to demonstrate an abstract understanding of concepts taught in the course as well as reasonable proficiency in applying the concepts.
Prerequisite
Graduate Students Only