 I'd like to invite to the stage Kiara Brookman, a new College of Engineering and Computer Science. And the title of Kiara's talk tonight is How to Build a Brain. Your cells are magnificent little things. Every single one is full of complex micro systems all working together to keep you going. They're more intricate in advance than any machines we can make. But sometimes they need a little help to get going. And that's where I come in. After a stroke, patients are left with chunks of damaged brain tissue. Now, instead of trying to rebuild the incredibly complex human brain from scratch, I'd much rather give cells the support and encouragement they need to rebuild it themselves. My research goal is to rebuild damaged brain tissue. But in truth, stem cells will be doing all the actual building. I'm just making biomaterials that tell them how to build a brain. First, they need some structural support or scaffolding. In healthy tissue, cells exist in a fluid environment called the extracellular matrix. This matrix is full of useful proteins and also offers structural support in the form of nanofibrous proteins. Different tissues have different needs, so every matrix is unique. And I've been making materials that mimic the nanofibers in matrix specific to healthy brain tissue. To do this, I take small pieces of proteins and attach them to stacking molecules so they form into nanofibers that not only offer structural support, but also trick the cells into thinking they're surrounded by brain proteins. That way, when stem cells are transplanted inside my materials, they look around and think they must be brain cells and act accordingly. Next, I need to direct the building activities. We have signaling molecules we can use to give cells instructions and tell them what to do, but they're unstable. They only last minutes to hours inside living tissue. Repeated injections into your brain would be very damaging, so I need a way to safely store these signals and release them gradually over time. My material actually sticks to the signals, holding them safely in place until they detach from the nanofibers over time. And I've shown that putting these signals into my material increases their lifespan from hours to weeks. Finally, I need to make sure that everything happens at the right time. Building a brain is even more complicated than putting together IKEA furniture. So it really is important to start at step one and do everything in the right order. For the cells, this means I need to control the timing of when different signals are delivered. To do this, I've attached long molecular chains to some of the signals to delay their release. Those chains stick to my material, holding those signals in place even longer. And then when they do detach, that extra bulkiness makes them slower to reach the cells. So far, I've achieved a nine-hour delay and I'm looking at longer chains for longer delays. When I'm finished, I'll have a single material to guide stem cells through the entire process of building new brain tissue. And we can get those damaged brains back up and running.