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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Sruti Bheri
BME PhD Thesis Proposal Presentation
Date: February 18th
Time: 2:00 - 3:00 pm (EST)
Link: Zoom ( https://emory.zoom.us/j/96715712854?pwd=aXNDdzJrSTAvUlRxSHRTNlpDcENLZz09)
Meeting ID: 967 1571 2854
Passcode: 123456
Faculty Advisor:
Michael E. Davis, PhD
Committee Members:
Manu Platt, PhD
Vahid Serpooshan, PhD
Hee Cheol Cho, PhD
Julie Champion, PhD
Title: Engineering small extracellular vesicle-derived vehicles carrying optimized microRNA for cardiac repair after myocardial infarction
Abstract: Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. One promising therapy involves delivering small extracellular vesicles (sEVs), released from cardiac relevant cell types, to the infarct. These sEVs are 30-150nm vesicles containing protein and/or nuclear cargo. Despite their reparative potential, sEV therapies have several issues due to their cellular origin, including variable sEV yield and uncontrolled and low-density cargo encapsulation. Synthetic mimics (SUVs) have been developed which allow optimized cargo loading but these have high toxicity, compromised membranes and poor uptake. Therefore, there is a need for cell-free vehicles with sEV-like membrane and uptake, which allow delivery of higher concentrations of custom cargo. Our goal is to engineer such a vesicle to deliver tailored microRNA cargo, and induce cardiac repair post-MI. We hypothesize that sEV-like vesicles (ELVs) engineered using a natural membrane and loaded with customized cargo will improve cardiac tissue repair after MI compared to that of unmodified sEVs or SUVs. Aim 1 will focus on ELV synthesis and in vitro functional responses. Aim 2 will assess ELV potency in a rat MI model. Finally, Aim 3 will determine parent cell effects on ELV membrane composition and, in turn, ELV uptake and functionality.
