If your doctors and stroke hospital aren't closely following this, then you don't have a functioning stroke hospital.
Penn State researchers hope to ‘improve millions of lives’ through biomedical stroke rehabilitation
The Chemical and Biomedical Engineering building on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021 in University Park, Pa.
In any given year in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates around 795,000 people will have a stroke. On a smaller scale, every 40 seconds, someone has a stroke, and every 4 minutes, someone dies from a stroke.
A stroke occurs when the “blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted or reduced, preventing brain tissue from getting oxygen and nutrients,” according to Mayo Clinic.
Most recently, researchers at Penn State, the University of California Los Angeles and the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation received funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to develop biomaterials to aid in post-stroke recovery.
This $2.29 million multiple program grant will allow researchers of multiple disciplines to work together in developing new biochemically engineered materials aimed at improving stroke rehabilitation.
Amir Sheikhi, Penn State assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering and principal investigator for the Bio-Soft Materials Laboratory through the university, is at the forefront of this research.
Sheikhi’s laboratory consists of 25 undergraduate research assistants and 10 graduate students, and it’s currently recruiting post-doctoral students.
Juliana Dominick, a former undergraduate research assistant at Penn State, spoke highly about her experience within the lab and with Sheikhi.
“In the lab, I was given the opportunity each week to do something meaningful,” Dominick (junior-biomedical engineering) said. “We were presenting research every week — authoring papers — and we were just encouraged to simply learn.”
Dominick said she was worried about feeling overwhelmed as an undergraduate, but the Ph.D. students were always available to instruct and give advice.
“Even when I decided to leave the lab, Dr. Sheikhi was supportive,” Dominick said. “He understood that research was not necessarily the career I wanted to pursue, and we have remained in contact since then.”
For Alexander Kedzierski, an integrated third-year undergraduate student and master’s candidate, the opportunities he has been presented with in the B-SMaL laboratory have been “irreplaceable.”
“Dr. Sheikhi rewards hard work,” Kedzierski (junior-biomedical engineering) said. “I made the decision to stay over the summer last year, and now, I have the responsibility to manage my own project.”
Furthermore, Kedzierski said the atmosphere in the lab is something he’s never seen before.
“Everyone is supportive of each other,” Kedzierski said. “We have a huge Persian population in our lab, so all of us are actively involved in learning about different cultures.”
Kedzierski said he’s currently spending the majority of his time working on his Schreyer Honors College senior thesis and master’s thesis, which will both focus on advanced granular biomaterials.
Mica Pitcher, a third-year graduate student and the most senior member of the lab, concurred with the statements the undergraduate members of the lab made.
Penn State student Samantha Bryn said she “grew up outside,” going to a creek with her dad —…
“I am a chemistry student, but I have felt really welcomed by the chemical engineering department,” Pitcher said. “I have been encouraged to do the research that I am most passionate about.”
According to Pitcher, the lab has grown “tremendously” since she joined and will continue to increase in numbers as the research continues.
Sheikhi’s research has taken him all over the country. During his Ph.D. work at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Sheikhi worked on developing minimally invasive therapeutics for stroke rehabilitation.
After he earned his Ph.D., he continued his research at Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology and the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
Sheikhi is also an active member of more than 10 professional societies and organizations, including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society and the Materials Research Society. He is also a distinguished recipient of AIChE’s “35 under 35” award.
“My research team is dedicated to developing the biomaterials for tissue regeneration, specifically granular hydrogels,” Sheikhi said. “With stroke in mind, the goal of these hydrogels is to achieve full functional recovery in humans.”
According to the CDC, in the past, the treatment for strokes varied. For the patient, the main point of rehabilitation was to adapt and improve the cognitive and physical deficits associated with strokes.
On the biochemical engineering side of treatment, hydrogels were developed and used, but they did not encourage cell growth or reduce inflammation in any way — restricting its efficacy in stroke rehabilitation, according to Science Daily.
Ischemic strokes cause damage to the brain by interrupting its blood supply, which leads to what is called necrosis — or neuronal cell death.
“The hydrogel that we are engineering will be optimally effective in stroke recovery,” Sheikhi said. “The hydrogel will decrease inflammation and maximize vascularization, which would ultimately resolve the two main complications we see in stroke.”
The mechanism behind the granular hydrogel is a process called “axonal neurogenesis.”
In the brain, the axon is the part of the neuron that carries nerve impulses away from the cell body. When a stroke occurs, this communication is severely lessened or even completely cut off. Depending on the site of the stroke, this could cause a myriad of effects.
According to Sheikhi, the granular hydrogel will detect and recruit the right type of cells — neurons, glial cells — to assist in the process of neurogenesis in the axons of the cell.
Once the hydrogel has recruited the cells needed at the necrotic stroke core, new connections will be created, and the brain’s “plastic” nature will adapt to these new connections, Sheikhi said.
“The process by which the hydrogel is injected into the brain is minimally invasive,” Sheikhi said.
The granular hydrogel is injected into the brain stereotaxically — which is a method that uses a three-dimensional coordinate system to locate small targets within the brain.
“Not only is our protocol minimally invasive, but it is also completely safe,” Sheikhi said. “The granular hydrogel that we have developed is both biodegradable and results in minimal side effects.”
In the next 10 years, Sheikhi said he hopes to see drastic improvement in the functional recovery of stroke patients. Specifically, he hopes to target the paralysis that’s common post-strokes.
“My big goal is kind of lofty,” Sheikhi said, “but I hope to take this treatment method to hospitals and improve millions of lives that have been affected by stroke.”
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