Nerve Guidance by a Decellularized Fibroblast Extracellular Matrix.

Spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries require the regeneration of nerve fibers across the lesion site for successful recovery. Providing guidance cues and soluble factors to promote neurite outgrowth and cell survival can enhance repair. The extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a key role in tissue repair by controlling cell adhesion, motility, and growth.

Correction: 3D printed nervous system on a chip.

Correction for '3D printed nervous system on a chip' by Blake N. Johnson et al., Lab Chip, 2016, 16, 1393-1400.

3D Printed Anatomical Nerve Regeneration Pathways.

The custom scaffolds are deterministically fabricated via a microextrusion printing principle which enables the simultaneous incorporation of anatomical geometries, biomimetic physical cues, and spatially controlled biochemical gradients in a one-pot 3D manufacturing approach.

3D printed nervous system on a chip.

Bioinspired organ-level in vitro platforms are emerging as effective technologies for fundamental research, drug discovery, and personalized healthcare. In particular, models for nervous system research are especially important, due to the complexity of neurological phenomena and challenges associated with developing targeted treatment of neurological disorders. Here we introduce an additive manufacturing-based approach in the form of a bioinspired, customizable 3D printed nervous system on a chip (3DNSC) for the study of viral infection in the nervous system.

Viral population dynamics and virulence thresholds.

Viral factors and host barriers influence virally induced disease, and asymptomatic versus symptomatic infection is governed by a 'virulence threshold'. Understanding modulation of virulence thresholds could lend insight into disease outcome and aid in rational therapeutic and vaccine design. RNA viruses are an excellent system to study virulence thresholds in the context of quasispecies population dynamics.

Mechanisms controlling virulence thresholds of mixed viral populations.

The propensity of RNA viruses to revert attenuating mutations contributes to disease and complicates vaccine development. Despite the presence of virulent revertant viruses in some live-attenuated vaccines, disease from vaccination is rare. This suggests that in mixed viral populations, attenuated viruses may limit the pathogenesis of virulent viruses, thus establishing a virulence threshold.

Limited trafficking of a neurotropic virus through inefficient retrograde axonal transport and the type I interferon response.

Poliovirus is an enteric virus that rarely invades the human central nervous system (CNS). To identify barriers limiting poliovirus spread from the periphery to CNS, we monitored trafficking of 10 marked viruses. After oral inoculation of susceptible mice, poliovirus was present in peripheral neurons, including vagus and sciatic nerves.