Home Department: Biology
Mentor: Sarah Heilshorn, Materials Science & Engineering

“Bio-Mimetic Recombinant Proteins for Peripheral Nerve Injury”

Current therapies for treating peripheral nerve injury are severely lacking: as few as 50% of patients achieve full functional recovery. To address these limitations, the Heilshorn lab has proposed the design of a family of recombinant protein-based materials that can be optimized for bio-chemical and bio-mechanical signals. This summer, Hana will characterize and validate a new protein-engineered material for this family of hydrogels and fine-tune the protocol for its expression and chemical modification.