Alejandro Martín, our Alumni of the Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and undergraduate research assistant at Universidad Europea de Madrid, is currently working on his project in the UK at Imperial College London within the Faculty of Medicine in the Department of Brain Sciences, as well as the UK Dementia Research Institute and the Faculty of Bioengineering at Imperial College London.
After conducting a literature review on the subject and attending seminars in Neuroscience, Alejandro was able to gain more knowledge on technical and theoretical aspects of neural bioenergetics and synaptic plasticity. Later, he underwent lab training in cell culture techniques and viral transduction.
Once the project was underway, Alejandro noticed that the low resolution of current methods for measuring oxygen at the cellular level severely limits cellular and subcellular bioenergetic analysis.
Therefore, Alejandro has come up with a technique for measuring the flow of oxygen within a single cell. This technique provides over 1000 times more spatial and temporal accuracy than alternative commercial methods. To overcome the limitation in characterising the heterogeneity of mitochondria at the cellular level, or in monitoring subcellular bioenergetic changes over time, Alejandro suggests using platinum-plated carbon nano-electrodes as one of the goals of his project.
Thus, by applying nano-electrodes to a brain tumour known as glioblastoma multiforme, the aim is to measure oxygen consumption and to use the results obtained for personalised therapy to prevent the tumour from progressing.