Building Innovative 3-Dimensional Culturing Platforms
Applications
Alzheimer’s disease has long been a terrible and costly burden to American citizens. As of 2016, 5.2 million people have been diagnosed, with a national annual cost of $221.3 billion, and is expected to grow to 13.8 million by 2050. Projections indicate that this number will rise as baby boomers enter into later stages of their lives. Despite its terrible cost to both society and to individuals, its exact cause still remains unknown [1].
The stages of Alzheimer’s can be identified by the following symptoms [2]:
Gradual forgetfulness, with the development and deepening of short term memory loss, including some loss of self-awareness
Progression into more advanced stages, leading to long term memory loss, speech impairment, and changes in personality
Combination of symptoms causing physical decline, eventually leaving the patient bedridden
This device could potentially work in conjunction with pharmaceuticals, allowing scientists to see the effects of these drugs on a neuronal level. The scope of this project could be extended beyond Alzheimer’s and can be applied as a disease model for other neurodegenerative disorders. The limited time frame that individuals with Alzheimer’s have to get treatment makes it all the more important to delegate resources towards this cause. Research into neurodegenerative diseases could be accelerated by the advent of these new technologies that mimic in vivo conditions of the brain.
