When:
Thursday, May 15, 2025
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM CT
Where: Ryan Hall, 4003, 2190 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Cost: Free, no registration required
Contact:
Benjamin Keane
(847) 467-3371
Group: Center for Physical Genomics and Engineering (CPGE)
Category: Academic
1:30pm on Thursday, May 15 @ Ryan Hall Room 4003, Evanston Campus
In-Person Only, Refreshments Provided
Prof. Kamm is the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
With our aging population, neurodegenerative diseases are on the rise, far outpacing increases in other common diseases. Recent advances from the pharmaceutical industry have produced new drugs capable of reducing the rate of decline in patients with Alzheimer’s disease with many more in the drug development pipeline. This, combined with improved understanding of the factors that influence a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, has given rise to increased interest both in the delivery of drugs to the brain and their efficacy in alleviating symptoms or preventing disease progression. Innovative in vitro platforms are needed to explore novel modalities of drug delivery to the brain and enable pharmaceutical companies to screen for new therapeutics. In this presentation, neurovascular models will be presented that recapitulate in vivo morphology and function and can be used both to quantify transport across the blood-brain barrier and replicate their effects in models of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.
About Roger Kamm
Professor Kamm began his career at Northwestern University earning a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He subsequently earned both a master’s and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Since 1978, he has been a professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Professor Kamm was one of the founding members of the Biological Engineering Department when it was created in 1998. Kamm’s research focuses on problems at the interface of biology and mechanics, formerly in cell and molecular mechanics, and now in complex in vitro systems. Current interests are in developing models of healthy and diseased organ function using microfluidic technologies, with a focus on vascularization, cancer and neurological disease. Kamm is a member of the National Academies of Medicine and Engineering. He is co-founder of AIM Biotech, a manufacturer of microfluidic systems for 3D culture.