-: If you're a Star Trek fan,
you know that space is the final frontier.
But if you're in the areas
of biological or medical research,
you might agree that the brain actually deserves that title.
While we've made significant strides
in the areas of neurological research
and development of neurological treatments of disease,
we are still severely limited
in our understanding of the brain.
But why is that?
To put it simply, the brain doesn't want us inside of it.
Even minute perturbations of the brain's
homeostatic balance can be debilitating.
This makes any form of invasive investigation or imaging
dangerous and potentially even deadly.
But what if there was a way
to safely view not only brain structure
but also brain function to find and treat blood clots,
or to treat behavioral disorders and neurodegenerative
disorders in real-time in living systems?
With nanotechnology that is swiftly becoming a possibility.
Quantum dots are small fluorescent nanoparticles
that are so bright that they can be seen
even deep within living tissue.
In my research, I'm using quantum dots
to view reproductive pathways within living amphibians.
Why amphibians, you might ask.
Over 1/3 of all amphibian species are considered
endangered or threatened.
This makes the implementation of captive breeding programs
and artificial reproductive techniques
increasingly valuable for stemming their decline.
The problem is that we don't fully understand
all the reproductive pathways within these animals.
So, as you can see imagine,
this can make implementing artificial reproductive
technologies very difficult.
That is where I come in.
In my research I'm attaching reproductive hormones
to quantum do not nanoparticles
and nasally administering them into living amphibians.
This allows me to view hormone binding
and pathway illumination in real time
within these animals.
Then the subsequent behavioral effects elicited
by these hormones downstream will show me
that these pathways being illuminated
and the behaviors are related.
If these are successful, these techniques
can be applied to a wide variety of other areas of research
such as tumor localization and treatment,
treatment of neurological disorders,
simple anatomy studies,
and a wide variety of others.
The key to success within the quantum dots
lies within their small size.
Not only are they small enough to permeate
the blood brain barrier which generally
restricts large molecules and substances from entry,
but they're so small they can fly
under the brain's defensive radar
without triggering an immune response
or subsequent inflammation causing damage.
Sometimes, when you want to boldly go
where no one else has in the brain,
it helps to think small.
Thank you.