THESIS DEFENSE: Impact of Mechanotransduction in the Context of Central Nervous System Diseases

INEB PhD student Daniela Rocha defended her thesis on December 21st 2015 at FEUP, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. The thesis is entitled "Impact of Mechanotransduction in the Context of Central Nervous System Diseases" and it was developed in the area of Biomedical Engineering.

Supervised by Ana Paula Pêgo, Ph.D. - INEB - Instituto de Engenharia Biomédica and i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde; and co-supervised by João Relvas, Ph.D. - IBMC - Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular and i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Daniela's work strived to understand the chain of alterations that occur in the aftermath of a central nervous system (CNS) lesion and how these condition the progress of the tissue response and ultimately of the disease, requires a systematic approach, as scar formation results from a plethora of events. Cells within tissues are continuously exposed to physical forces and the CNS is no exception. Several CNS disorders have now been intimately correlated with mechanotransduction issues. As such, this thesis aimed at exploring the impact of mechanotransduction in the CNS, specifically in pathological conditions, envisaging its modulation towards the design of new complementary CNS regenerative therapies. In particular, the work presented explored the impact of mechanotransduction on CNS key cellular players and subsequent signaling activation pathways.

Overall, besides developing two new in vitro culture systems which can be of added value in future neurodegenerative mechanism studies, as well as in drug screenings envisaging the development of new therapeutic approaches, we have established mechanotransduction as a key modulator of CNS cell behavior in pathological conditions.