BME Seminar Series: Victor Rodgers, UC Riverside

Treatments for Severe Edema of the Central Nervous System Using Osmotic Pressure

Abstract: Severe trauma to the central nervous system can cause long-lasting and often irreversible changes in motor, sensory and autonomic function, leading to reduced quality of life and increased morbidity rates in those affected. In particular, open skull injuries, severe stroke leading to hemicraniectomies and severe spinal cord injury are all characterized by the initial injury due to trauma, and by secondary cellular events that result in a further tissue damage. The period of secondary injury is accompanied by breakdown of the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB), hemorrhage, edema, ischemia, inflammation and tissue necrosis at and around the injury site.

In collaboration with the School of Medicine at UC Riverside, our lab is developing osmotic transport devices (OTD) to treat many of these cases. This presentation will discuss the scientific background with these devices and the results of this work in recent animal studies. 

Bio: Victor Rodgers is the inaugural Jacques S. Yeager, Sr. Professor of Bioengineering at UC Riverside. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Dayton, his M.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and his D.Sc. from Washington University in St. Louis. His primary research focus is on computational analysis and development of biomedical engineering medical devices. In 2006, he was elevated to AAAS Fellow (American Association for the Advancement of Science) for distinguished contributions to the dynamic aspects of modeling in bioengineering and bioseparations. In 2009, he was elected as an AIMBE Fellow, (American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering) for leadership in development of dynamic membrane separation techniques and a robust thermodynamic theory for the behavior of concentrated (crowded) protein solutions.