BME’s Julia Burke Obtains Prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to Study in Dublin
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Julia Burke, who graduated in May from the Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department, is one of 12 UMass Amherst students who have received high-status Fulbright grants for 2023-2024. Burke’s estimated $200,000 Fulbright award will support her as a Ph.D. candidate in Biomedical Engineering at the renowned Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), located in Dublin. The RCSI is also jointly funding Burke’s Fulbright grant. As Burke explains, “The research I propose will develop a ‘nerve guidance conduit’ to repair large nerve injuries.”
At UMass Amherst, Burke was also a Mathematics minor and a member of the Commonwealth Honors College.
As Burke says about the research she is proposing for her time at the RCSI, “Peripheral nerve injury affects millions of people worldwide. In America alone, an estimated 20 million individuals suffer from peripheral nerve damage.”
Burke also explains that the expected recovery time for nerve regrowth is slow, and patients with these injuries often lose motor and sensory function in their skin and muscles.
“As a result,” Burke says, “there is a decrease in quality of life for patients and an increased burden on the healthcare system.”
In that context, researchers at the RCSI have created a “nerve guidance conduit” capable of guiding nerve growth to improve repair after injury. “This conduit combines a porous inner luminal filler and a stiffer collagen outer layer,” explains Burke, “a structure that helps align and guide nerves during regrowth.”
Burke notes that this nerve guidance conduit is “the gold standard for repair of small peripheral nerve injuries.”
However, there is a significant unmet need for patients who suffer more severe nerve injuries, according to Burke. As she says, “To provide larger nerve defects with the tools to help proficiently, the current nerve guidance conduit must be enhanced. One way to boost nerve growth is to apply electrical stimulation, which accelerates motor-neuron and axon outgrowth.”
Another way, explains Burke, is to deliver neurotropic genes to the neurons. These neurotropic genes are genes that provide instructions for the nerve cells to induce growth.
As Burke says, “Neurotropic genes could be delivered to the damaged nerves by being incorporated in the luminal filler of the conduit. The growing nerves will then have contact with the neurotropic genes.”
Burke concludes that “My project will build upon the framework of the neurotropic genes developed at RCSI to include electroconductive characteristics gene therapy to elevate nerve growth after injury.”
According to the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, “The Fulbright Program, led by the United States government in partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide, offers international educational and cultural exchange programs for passionate and accomplished students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds to study, teach, or pursue important research and professional projects.” (June 2023)