MEMP PhD Thesis Defense: Hannah Jackson

Monitoring and Treating Neurological Conditions Through Focal Interfacing with the Brain

Neurological dysregulation serves as the fundamental basis for a spectrum of debilitating disorders such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. Despite considerable efforts, our current comprehension of these disorders and ability to treat them remains limited. Neurochemical sampling of the affected tissue can be used to monitor pathological states, but existing tools are limited by tissue reactivity and suboptimal spatiotemporal resolution. Additionally, methods for treating neurological disorders predominantly rely on systemic drug administration which is hampered by inadequate targeting and off-target effects. This thesis introduces a minimally invasive neural implant platform capable of both localized drug infusion and micro-invasive fluid sampling with high spatial precision. These micron-scale devices minimize implantation-induced scarring and support chronic use. We investigated two key questions: (1) Can localized drug delivery to specific neural circuits effectively treat neurological disorders? (2) Can micro-invasive sampling of interstitial brain fluid enable accurate diagnosis and monitoring? We assessed our ability to treat focal epilepsy with this platform by delivering antiseizure medications directly to the seizure focus in a mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy. We found that localized drug delivery effectively suppressed seizure activity without adverse effects. We also explored micro-invasive, membrane-free sampling of interstitial fluid from different brain regions using our device. We detected hundreds of distinct proteins from minute sample volumes with high spatial resolution and minimal tissue damage. The results from both studies highlight the potential of this dual-function platform for targeted drug delivery and biomarker detection across a variety of disease states.

Thesis Supervisor:
Michael J. Cima, PhD
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT

Thesis Committee Chair:
Forest M. White, PhD
Professor of Biological Engineering, MIT

Thesis Readers:
Karen S. Wilcox, PhD
Professor and Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Utah

John D. Rolston, MD, PhD
Director of Epilepsy Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

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Hannah Jackson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting

Topic: Hannah Jackson MEMP PhD Thesis Defense
Time: Monday, April 28, 2025, 1:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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