Assistant Professor Sameer Shah
About Dr. ShahPh.D., University of California, San Diego, 2002
Visit the Neuromuscular Bioengineering Laboratory site » Current ResearchDr. Shah's research broadly falls under the field of "neuroscience"—understanding how the nervous system functions normally, how it breaks down during the course of neurodegenerative diseases, and how we can diagnose and treat neurodegeneration. His research group studying how neurons interact with other cells in their environment, including targets such as muscle cells, and regulatory cells such as myelin. We generally think of the nervous system as an electrical network. However, nerves also face a tremendous trafficking challenge. Many of the nutritional, structural, and signaling proteins required for a neuron to function electrically are literally driven back and forth by molecular motors on tracks running inside long tubes called axons. The distances over which these cargoes are transported can be up to a meter in length (for example, from protein manufacturing sites located in the spinal cord to nerve terminals in a person's toes—where synaptic connections regulate muscular function). "It's our exploration of this complex, incredibly cool aspect of neuronal function that motivates us to come to work every morning!" Dr. Shah tells us. To study transport, Dr. Shah and his group make movies of endogenous and synthetic cargoes moving in cultured cells, or in some cases, in small animal models. They use several imaging techniques, including high resolution fluorescence microscopy. They study traffic patterns in these movies by looking at parameters of cargo motion such as velocities, cargo flux, and pause frequencies by using a custom particle-tracking software developed with collaborators at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA and the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Shah continues his collaborations with colleagues from his graduate and postdoctoral work at UCSD, and is developing new collaborations with members of the department.
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Q&A with Dr. ShahWhat impact could your work have on society or consumers? It turns out that many neurodegenerative diseases show symptoms of breakdowns in neuronal transport. These include Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's, and prion (mad-cow) diseases, as well as motor neuron diseases such as ALS. By understanding how transport is regulated, we hope to develop diagnostic tools to detect transport breakdowns at early stages, and further, to exploit components of the transport system to deliver therapeutics in a targeted fashion. What attracted you to the Clark School? The people, the people, and the people. This school has an incredibly energetic, curious, and driven faculty, staff, and student population, but they're also open and friendly. A great combination. And it doesn't hurt that they also have the resources to let us attack tough, relevant problems! Why should young engineers consider bioengineering for their field of study? Our bodies have mechanical, chemical, and electrical systems operating at scales ranging from single molecules to organs. To understand how these systems work together, how they fall apart, and how we can fix them requires us to study a question from as many angles as possible. Bioengineering gives us the technical and practical skills to do just that. How does the interdisciplinary nature of our program impact or improve our Apart from giving students a broader skill set, the interdisciplinary nature of our program also implies that students come from a broad background. Any time a group of people with different strengths tackle a problem, the success rate is bound to increase. What kinds of roles or careers are our students prepared for? Faculty positions, full time research, or R&D in industry. The Clark School has great programs for undergraduate and graduate student research, and also has strong ties with local industry, so if a student is motivated, they have the skills and opportunity to do whatever they choose. Your background is in mechanical engineering. How did you become a bioengineer? My undergraduate degree was in mechanical engineering and I even worked at the Michelin Tire Company for a while. Tires are neat in their own rubbery way, but the human body is so much more interesting! My dissertation involved imaging deformations of a muscle cell's cytoskeleton during mechanical loading. I realized that I wanted to learn more about this incredible world inside a cell, and took a postdoc position in a cell biology lab. Biologists ask some big questions that help us understand fundamental mechanisms of disease. Engineering provides a unique set of skills to answer these questions. So I decided to split the difference and become a Bioengineer.
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Dr. Shah leads the Neuromuscular Bioengineering Laboratory at the A. James Clark School of Engineering. His research interests include the study of neuronal transport, neuromuscular plasticity and disease, nerve biomechanics, and the development of intraneuronal diagnostic and therapeutic solutions.
