Miriam Wissam Saab
Ciclo: XXXV
Data inizio: 31/10/2019
Curriculum: Biotecnologie mediche
Borsa: UniCT
Titolo tesi: Biochemical and molecular characterization of a novel model of traumatic brain injury in adult zebrafish
Abstract: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most prevalent neurological disorders characterized by a high degree of disabilities. TBI is the major cause of death under the age of 40, involving over 10 million patients worldwide, every year. Indeed, humans are extremely limited in their ability to repair their brains after any acute and chronic neurodegeneration. Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and human brains share 70% of gene homology, its brain structure is analogous to mammalian anatomy, consequently, Zebrafish is increasingly used as a valid animal model to mimic various human pathologies. One of the most interesting properties is that adult Zebrafish show high organ regenerative capacities including central and peripheral nervous systems, with fast and complete recovery of damaged areas. So far, all scientific efforts have been focused on mapping genetic clusters of neuroregeneration, while no one has examined the entire energetic transcriptome of the adult zebrafish during neuronal recovery. In the present Ph.D. project dedicated to TBI, one of our goals is to take advantage of the interesting properties of the Zebrafish (Danio rerio), including its uncommon capacity to trigger neuroregeneration processes in response to an injury. Despite Zebrafish being commonly used as a valid animal model to investigate many different human pathologies, in literature, there are very little data concerning TBI, none of which focused to study the brain cell energy metabolism before and after TBI. Since several data from numerous studies using the well-known “weight drop” impact acceleration model of TBI in the rat, developed by Marmarou et. al (1994), our idea is concerning to adapt a novel TBI model for Zebrafish to reproduce the aforementioned “weight drop” model of TBI and, particularly, to study the effects of a mild TBI on neural cells metabolism. However, to have reliable results, it was mandatory to set up a reproducible surgical procedure and sample processing of the Zebrafish brain, also in consideration of the scarce information available in the literature on metabolic parameters of brain fish.
Tutor: Lazzarino
Data Conseguimento Titolo: 23/11/2022
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriam-saab-363188253/
Email: mirisaab@gmail.com
Periodi all'estero- Sede e data: German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) - Bonn, Germany Data 15/01/2022 – 15/07/2022
Esperienze post-Dottorato ed attuale occupazione: Assegnista di Ricerca presso Università di Catania - Dip. di Scienze Biomediche e Biotecnologiche (BIOMETEC) Data Maggio 2023 – Maggio 2024