Prof gets $2.1 million from NIH

Adela Ben-Yakar, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received $ 2.1 million through two National Institutes of Health grants to discover genes that affect nerve regeneration in model organism, C. elegans, using a novel laser nanosurgery technique and integrated microfluidic devices. One grant will focus on developing integrated microfluidic platforms for high-throughput, in-vivo nerve regeneration studies on-a-chip. The second grant will involve identifying the genes that regulate the regeneration processes by combining the precise laser nanosurgery with genetic analyses.