Microhammer Aids Understanding of Brain Trauma

Date: 

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Professor Megan Valentine is featured in the website of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) with the article "Microhammer Aids Understanding of Brain Trauma".

The article published in August 2017 relates to her collaboration with ME Professor Kimberly Foster and Dr. Adele Doyle of the Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) at UC Santa Barbara to develop a Microhammer. “The microhammer is just what it sounds like: a microscale machine that can hit cells one at a time,”  Valentine explains, “our method will allow us to study the role of force and impact on large numbers of individual cells with extremely high precision, and will allow us to track the cell-level changes over time”. Professor Valentine adds: “No other technology has this capability and we are excited to see where this project leads." 

The work is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary, involving researchers from various backgrounds including engineers, biologists, physicists and medical professionals who have to work together to find a common language. "This is a terrific opportunity and we have had a lot of success through these brainstorming sessions” she says, “we have found creative solutions that no one of us would have been able to accomplish working alone.” 

 

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