{"id":495792,"date":"2021-10-13T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=495792"},"modified":"2021-10-13T10:05:57","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T14:05:57","slug":"three-minutes-two-slides-one-prize-for-brain-cleansing-explained-clearly-495792","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/three-minutes-two-slides-one-prize-for-brain-cleansing-explained-clearly-495792\/","title":{"rendered":"Three minutes, two slides, one prize for brain cleansing explained clearly"},"content":{"rendered":"
What do car engines and human brains have in common?<\/p>\n
Using that intriguing question as a starting point\u2014and with a visual assist from Eddie Murphy stuffing bananas up a tailpipe\u2014Aditya Raghunandan won first place and $1,000 at this year\u2019s competition for the Steadman Family Postdoctoral Associate Prize in Interdisciplinary Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n The competition, typically held during Meliora Weekend, was part of the schedule of events for Meliora 2021<\/a>, a reimagined version of the 人妻少妇专区<\/a>\u2019s traditional fall event. Postdoctoral associates whose research takes a cross-disciplinary approach toward examining a high-impact question of science are invited to participate. They are given three minutes and two slides to explain their research in ways a general audience can understand.<\/p>\n Raghunandan, a postdoctoral research associate in the Mixing Lab<\/a> of Douglas Kelley, associate professor of mechanical engineering<\/a>, investigates how the brain cleanses itself of waste material by pumping it through a complex glymphatic network<\/a>\u2014much as a car engine removes spent fuel and fumes through an advanced exhaust system.<\/p>\n In the 1984 movie Beverly Hills Cop<\/em>, Eddie Murphy famously eludes a police stakeout by sticking bananas up the tailpipe of a patrol car, causing the engine to stall. In collaboration with Medical Center researchers in Maiken Nedergaard\u2019s lab, Raghunandan has used particle tracking velocimetry to demonstrate how the brain\u2019s \u201ctailpipe\u201d\u2014cervical lymph vessels in the neck\u2014become less elastic with age in mice, effectively creating a similar \u201cbanana up a tailpipe\u201d bottleneck for the brain\u2019s removal of waste.<\/p>\n Through their work, Raghunandan and his collaborators have identified a target for the development of drugs that might eventually restore elasticity in aging human cervical lymph nodes. Such treatments might keep the brain\u2019s entire glymphatic system free of accumulating wastes that may be associated with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are extremely fortunate to have the support from Dr. Stephen Steadman for our postdocs.\u00a0 This year\u2019s presenters were excellent and the breadth of research pursued was astounding,\u201d says Nick Vamivakas, dean of graduate education and postdoctoral affairs for Arts, Sciences & Engineering. \u201cDr. Raghunandan did a fantastic job of making his groundbreaking work accessible to the diverse audience in attendance for the event.\u201d<\/p>\n 2021 Steadman Prize runners-up included:<\/p>\n The award is made possible by an endowment from the Steadman family, whose strong academic ties to the 人妻少妇专区 span multiple generations and disciplines.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Postdoctoral research associate Aditya Raghunandan wins the University\u2019s 2021 Steadman Prize, which encourages young researchers to to explain their research in ways a general audience can understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":286,"featured_media":495802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-495792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-graduate-students","tag-graduate-students"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n