Jonathan Grasman Seminar

Speaker:
Jonathan M. Grasman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
NJIT

Title:
3D Tissue Systems to Study Tissue Innervation

Abstract:
The reconstruction of soft tissue injuries resulting from traumatic events such as severe car crashes, cancer resections, or battlefield injuries involve multiple tissues including skeletal muscle, skin, and vascular and neural networks.  The current standard of care for these complex injuries is an autologous tissue graft, which has a reduced functional outcome and is limited by re-innervation and re-vascularization, demonstrating a compelling need to understand the mechanisms by which re-innervation can be enhanced in regenerating or repaired tissues.  In this talk, I demonstrate the complexity of large scale, traumatic skeletal muscle injuries and describe the need to study tissue innervation as a means to accelerate and improve regenerative outcomes.  In the second part of the talk, I discuss our strategy to recapitulate developmental cues in a 2D co-culture system to probe how the vascular network secretome can enhance axonal growth.  Finally, the findings from our 2D system will be translated into a facile 3D tissue system where I demonstrate the ability to guide neural network formation utilizing secreted factors found in vascular systems.  Importantly, this tissue system has been developed into a laceration-based traumatic injury model and shows promise in being able to serve as one of the first models of neural repair from traumatic injury.  Taken together, these strategies comprise a comprehensive toolbox with which to study and understand tissue innervation.

Biography:
Jonathan Grasman, PhD is an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Professor Grasman received his bachelor’s degree with high honors from the University of Pittsburgh and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His doctoral research with Dr. George Pins focused on developing novel methods to design tunable structural and biochemical properties of fibrin microthreads in the context of skeletal muscle regeneration as an NRSA predoctoral fellow. He was subsequently an NRSA postdoctoral fellow in the biomedical engineering department at Tufts University, where he worked with Dr. David Kaplan on developing tissue systems to study the co-development of vascular and neural networks. His research interests include tissue engineering and biomaterials development and customization, particularly focused in skeletal muscle tissues and the study of innervation and vascularization.