This project is of a highly interdisciplinary nature, at the interface of microengineering, biophysics and medicine, will focus on developing new methods for improved and accurate detection and assessment of traumatic brain injury (TBI) as well as understanding, monitoring and controlling the cellular and tissue responses to therapeutic treatments.
TBI is a leading cause of death worldwide. TBI is caused by sudden shock or impact to the head. This can cause mild to severe injury to the brain and needs diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible to prevent further irreversible damage. However, TBI is hard to diagnose at the point-of-injury.
We are developing a portable, hand-held Raman spectroscopy device that can be used to assess patients as soon as the injury occurs, allowing rapid diagnosis and assessment of severity through the eye. We have previously shown that the device can detect TBI in animal brain and eye tissues after the animal has died. We have also developed decision support tools for the device, using artificial intelligence, to rapidly classify TBI.
Whilst post-mortem assessments demonstrate feasibility, acute changes in living tissues may differ and display a much richer and more complex pattern of molecular responses. This PhD project will benefit from a unique existing human-comparable small animal model of TBI in tree shrews, adding Raman measurements to existing and planned experiments. This will test the device in-vivo for the first time to show that we can detect the same biochemical changes after TBI in living animals as in post-mortem tissues and examine the time course of molecular changes after injury. Our model induces a closed-head mild TBI, similar to 80% of clinical cases. We will image the animals over time after injury to determine if the imaging system will effectively differentiate between TBI and control animals during the acute, subacute, and chronic stages of neurotrauma. Assessments of visual function and endpoint histology will complement the imaging study.
The multidisciplinary nature of this project will enable developing strong collaborations and integrating scientific findings with related projects as well as building broad skills-set that will maximize the knowledge and chances in making an impact on the world’s academic and industrial stages.
This PhD project is part of CDT in Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine, a partnership between the University of Glasgow, University of Birmingham, Aston University and National University of Ireland Galway. The CDT will train the next generation of interdisciplinary (engineering, chemistry, physics, maths and biology) leaders in developing in vitro tissues, sensing and diagnostics to develop humanised in vitro systems to drive better drug screening.
For more information about the benefits of the programme, funding, eligibility and EDI support please refer to our main CDT advert.
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