BME Seminar
Friday, March 6th, 2020
UTEB 150 at Storrs & Videoconferenced to UCHC CG-079B
12:00-1:00 pm
“Regenerative Engineering of the Rotator Cuff Tendon-to-Bone Interface via Controlled Delivery of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 and its Mimics”
Presented By: Anu Prabhath, M.S., Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. Biomedical Engineering, Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering, UConn Health.
Abstract: Surgical repair is recommended for full-thickness tears of the shoulder rotator cuff; however, failure rates after surgery may be as high as 90%. Our research aims to improve early post-operative tendon-to-bone interface tissue quality by controlled delivery of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and its mimics. IGF-1 is integral for adult tendon growth; however, its clinical use is limited by a short half-life, denaturation, and disruption of homeostasis. To overcome these limitations, we engineered a surgically- implantable and biodegradable delivery system for controlled and localized delivery of IGF-1 and its mimics in the rotator cuff, and we tested it in a rat rotator cuff acute repair model. Our highly translational and engineered approach for improving repaired rotator cuff tissue quality finds immediate application as a biological augmentation patch to minimize tear progression in partial thickness tears and can be modified for other enthesial interfaces such as in the achilles and the temporomandibular joint.
Biography: Anupama (Anu) Prabhath is a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Cato Laurencin’s laboratory at UConn Health, where her research focuses on using morphogenetic factor delivery for regenerating complex tissues. Anu’s graduate research and teaching training began at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, where she developed nanomaterial substrates for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy-based detection of microbial contaminants in drinking water, and she used surface engineering to improve biocompatibility of coronary stents. At UConn Health, she successfully co-led a collaboration with the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Basel. Her research has been recognized as an outstanding contribution to the Society for Biomaterials and she received the STAR award in the Orthopaedic biomaterials category in 2019 and an honorable mention in 2018. She was also awarded the Graduate Fellowship for Innovation by General Electric (GE) in 2019. Anu plans to continue working at the interphase of translational academic research and corporate R&D after completing her Ph.D.
For more information, contact: Wendy S Vanden Berg-Foels at wendyv@engr.uconn.edu