Development of the Advanced Microphysiological Brain Injury Technology (AMBIT) Platform

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a devastating medical condition that affects a significant number of people in the US with clinical evidence reporting that repeated TBIs, even mild in magnitude, can result in long-term cognitive defects and neuropathology, such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). However, in mild and especially repeated TBI, the mechanisms for pathology and possible therapeutic strategies are not well-studied, nor are there effective platforms to study these clinically relevant problems. In view of this scientific gap, the broad goal of this proposal is to build upon our existing animal cell-based blood-brain barrier on chip, to engineer and validate a human induced pluripotent cell (iPSC)-derived BBB-chip. The human BBB-chip is intended to be used as: (I) a platform to study the mechanisms for neuropathology following mild and repeated TBI (mrRBI); and (II) a platform for drug safety and efficacy testing.