When: Oct 03 2019 @ 3:00 PM
Where: Krieger 205
Krieger 205

“Emerging Interface Problems in Soft Matter, Cell and Neuromechanics – Concussions and Traumatic Brain Injury”
Presented by Professor Christian Franck
Grainger Institute for Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Current prediction, prevention and diagnosis strategies for mild traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, are still largely in their infancy due to a lack of detailed understanding and resolution of how physical forces give rise to tissue injury at a cellular level. In this talk I will present some recent work on our current understanding of the origin of concussions and traumatic brain injuries and how cells in the brain interpret and react to the physical forces of trauma. Specifically, I will show that the path to a better understanding of traumatic injuries involves addressing a variety of soft matter and cell mechanics problems along the way. Finally, I hope to motivate and propose some solutions on how we might improve our prevention and diagnosis of these injuries by working together across disciplines.
Professor Christian Franck is a mechanical engineer specializing in cellular biomechanics and new experimental mechanics techniques at the micro and nanoscale. He received his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia in 2003, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2004 and 2008. Dr. Franck held a post-doctoral position at Harvard investigating brain and neural trauma. He was an assistant and associate professor in mechanics at Brown University from 2009 – 2018, and is now the Grainger Institute for Engineering Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and the Director of Panther, an ONR funded research hub for addressing next generation protection solutions against traumatic brain injuries. His lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed unique three-dimensional full-field imaging capabilities based on confocal microscopy and digital volume correlation. Current application areas of these three-dimensional microscopy techniques include understanding the 3D deformation behavior of neurons in the brain during traumatic brain injuries, the adhesion and migration behavior of human neutrophils in 3D environments, and the role of non-linear material deformations in soft matter.