Michel Modo
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Biomedical Engineering
A stroke can leave behind a cavity where brain tissue has died, and the adult brain does not regrow it on its own. One approach is to implant a hydrogel made from extracellular matrix (ECM), the natural scaffolding between cells.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
stroke
brain tissue regeneration
regenerative medicine
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2031
What they work on
- Develop and optimize a gadolinium-gold nanoparticle contrast agent that labels newborn neural progenitor cells when injected into the lateral ventricle, making them visible on T1-weighted MRI.
- Track non-invasively the route and timing of neural progenitor migration from the subventricular zone (SVZ) through damaged tissue into an ECM hydrogel implanted in a stroke cavity.
- Visualize when and where immune cells gather around and invade ECM hydrogels in stroke cavities using multi-color 19F MRI, with PFTBC labeling the hydrogel and PFCE labeling immune cells.
- Mark distinct phases of peripheral immune cell invasion with 19F MRI, and test how removing immune cells, especially macrophages, affects hydrogel breakdown and brain tissue regeneration.
More about the research
This bioscaffold can draw the body's own cells into the cavity and produce new brain tissue. Which cells arrive, by what route, and on what timeline remains poorly understood, because tissue slices only give snapshots. Both projects develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods to watch these cells move into the bioscaffold over time in the same living animal.
Why it matters
Regrowing brain tissue lost to stroke and other acute brain injuries remains a major challenge in regenerative medicine. Imaging tools that show how new neural cells and immune cells move into an implanted ECM hydrogel could help researchers improve these bioscaffolds. In the long term, the tools could help researchers find ways to steer scaffold breakdown and tissue restoration.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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