On Friday, July 24th @ 12:00PM EDT, we welcome Professor Rong Z. Gan from The University of Oklahoma as she presents, “Measurement and modeling of blast-induced auditory injury in animal model of chinchilla.”

ABOUT THE JULY 24 WEBINAR

Blast overpressure is a high intensity disturbance in the ambient air pressure. When exposed to blast, the human auditory system is vulnerable to both peripheral and central damage from the overpressure. To understand how blast waves are transmitted from the ear canal to the middle ear, and cochlea and result in hearing impairment, we have conducted a series of experiments in chinchillas, a commonly used animal model for hearing research. In addition to experimental measurements, the 3D finite element (FE) model of the chinchilla ear or bulla, consisting of the ear canal, eardrum, middle ear, and cochlea, has been developed to simulate the normal sound transmission as well as the blast pressure wave transduction through the ear. This talk will cover both experimental measurement and modeling studies on blast-induced auditory injury and hearing protection mechanism in animal model of chinchilla.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Rong Z. Gan, PhD
Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma

Dr. Gan’s experience in hearing research began in 1995 as the Director of Biomedical Engineering at Hough Ear Institute in Oklahoma City. She led the research team to complete the design and functional tests of a middle ear implantable hearing device (Soundtec®) for FDA approval. Since joining the University of Oklahoma (OU) in 1999, she has developed a truly transformational, well-funded research program in Biomechanics for Protection and Restoration of Hearing.

As PI for all the research projects funded by NIH, DOD, NSF, Whitaker Foundation, and State of Oklahoma ($9.1M), she has developed multiple research directions through the integration of experimental measurements of sound transmission in human and animals, biomechanical tests of ear tissues, 3D reconstruction and computational modeling of the ear or auditory system, measurement and modeling of blast-induced hearing damage, and the design and evaluation of implantable hearing devices. Two patents have been granted in totally implantable hearing devices and 3D computational modeling of the human ear.

Dr. Gan’s research supported by the Department of Defense (DOD) in recent years has extended into new areas of biomechanical modeling and experimental measurement of blast injury and hearing protection mechanisms for the US military priority research on hearing protection and restoration for Service members and Veterans.


BME BREAKS SCHEDULE

July 31 - Elham Azizi, PhD, Columbia University BME
“Machine learning for modeling the dynamics of the tumor microenvironment”

August 7 - James J. Collins, PhD, MIT
“Synthetic biology: life redesigned”

August 14 - José McFaline-Figueroa, PhD, University of Washington
“Defining drug-induced molecular landscapes with multiplex single-cell genomics”

August 21 - Christoph Juchem, PhD, Columbia University BME
“Magnetic resonance engineering - from bench to bedside”

RSVP at the link above!