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NEUROENGINEERING AND REGENERATION

NEURO-ENGINEERING RESEARCH
Our research aims to unveil the basic mechanisms underlying neuronal development and leverages this knowledge towards obtaining improved methods for manipulating and promoting neuronal regeneration. Neurons develop into a wide-variety of shapes with important implications for neuronal function and connectivity. Following nerve injuries, the process of spontaneous nerve regeneration is incomplete. Our approach is multidisciplinary and merges engineering, biology and material sciences, at the micro and nano scale. We analyze neuronal responses by implementing morphometric measurements, electrophysiological protocols, simulations and bioinformatics. Moreover, in order to target the nervous system and key injured, diseased tissue, we develop drug-delivery technologies, i.e. novel carriers and biolistic setups.
Our focus.
Acoustic manipulation is an emerging non-invasive method enabling precise spatial control of cells in their native environment. Applying this method for organizing neurons is invaluable for neural tissue engineering applications. Here, we used surface and bulk standing acoustic waves for large-scale patterning of Dorsal Root Ganglia neurons and PC12 cells forming neuronal cluster networks, organized biomimetically. We showed that by changing parameters such as voltage intensity or cell concentration we were able to affect cluster properties. We examined the effects of acoustic arrangement on cells atop 3D hydrogels for up to 6 days and showed that assembled cells spontaneously grew branches in a directed manner towards adjacent clusters, infiltrating the matrix. These findings have great relevance for tissue engineering applications as well as for mimicking architectures and properties of native tissues
Our team.

Orit Shefi, PhD
Principal Investigator

Ganit Indech
PhD student

Michal Natan
Lab Manager

Sharon Cohen
Postdoc

Gaddi Blumrosen
Research Associate

Alon Richter-Levin
PhD student

Elina Haimov
Postdoc

Eli Varon
PhD student
PROF. ORIT SHEFI

Orit Shefi is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University. She is the head of the Neuro-engineering and Regeneration laboratory and a member of the Bar Ilan Institute of Nanotechnologies and Advanced Materials. In 2005, she earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Physics at Tel-Aviv University. From 2005-2008, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego. Her research focuses on nanotechnologies for neuronal engineering, 3D platforms for directed neuronal regeneration, magnetic manipulations of cells, and drug delivery tools.

PROF. ORIT SHEFI
OUR RESEARCH

NEURO-ENGINEERING RESEARCH
Our research aims to unveil the basic mechanisms underlying neuronal development and leverages this knowledge towards obtaining improved methods for manipulating and promoting neuronal regeneration. Neurons develop into a wide-variety of shapes with important implications for neuronal function and connectivity. Following nerve injuries, the process of spontaneous nerve regeneration is incomplete. Our approach is multidisciplinary and merges engineering, biology and material sciences, at the micro and nano scale. We analyze neuronal responses by implementing morphometric measurements, electrophysiological protocols, simulations and bioinformatics. Moreover, in order to target the nervous system and key injured, diseased tissue, we develop drug-delivery technologies, i.e. novel carriers and biolistic setups.