ChemE assistant professor Surya Mallapragada is developing a method of stimulating nerve growth that borrows from technology used in computer chip fabrication.

“When the gap between a severed nerve is too large, it’s very difficult for the nerve to regenerate, or grow back together,” she said. “The current medical practice is to take a nerve section from another part of the body to fill in the gap. Our research will help to eliminate that step.”

Mallapragada and her colleagues are using tube-like polymer substrate structures, which act as a bridge to guide the nerves back together. These structures, which have micro- and nano-patterned grooves lining the polymer substrates, as well as the inclusion of other cells, will speed up directional nerve growth.

When one end of a tube is placed next to a group of nerve cells, the cells begin to grow along the grooves, and can thus be guided to another nerve. Eventually, a severed nerve is reconnected and the polymer tube dissolves.

Using nerve cells from rats, Mallapragada and her students have produced some promi-sing results.

“The whole project is very exciting to me,” she said, adding that a test of the process inside a rat may only be months away.