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D. Kacy Cullen, Ph.D.Research Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery
Department: Neurosurgery
Contact information
Department of Neurosurgery
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine 105 Hayden Hall / 3320 Smith Walk Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: 215-898-7945
Fax: 215-573-3808 Email: dkacy@mail.med.upenn.edu Links
Center for Brain Injury & Repair, University of Pennsylvania National Neurotrauma Society Society for Neuroscience American Society for Mechanical Engineers Traumatic Brain Injury Resource Guide Biomedical Engineering Society Brain Injury Association
Education:
B.S. (Mechanical Engineering) Georgia Institute of Technology, 2000. M.S. (Mechanical Engineering) Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002. Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering) Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005.
Post-Graduate Training
Permanent linkPost-Doctoral Researcher in Neural Engineering, Laboratory for Neuroengineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005-2006. Post-Doctoral Fellow (NRSA) in Neurotrauma and Neural Engineering, Center for Brain Injury and Repair, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania , 2007-2008. Description of Research ExpertiseDr. Cullen is a Research Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Cullen’s research program operates at the intersection of Neurotrauma and Neural Engineering. In the realm of Neurotrauma, the objective is to apply engineering principles to increase our understanding of the causative mechanisms and pathophysiological responses following traumatic injury to the nervous system. Specific attention is given to neural injury biomechanics and mechanisms of acute biophysical cellular/tissue damage. In the arena of Neural Engineering, the objective is to develop neurotechnology to mitigate trauma-induced deficits and/or augment the body’s capacity for regeneration. Here focus is given to neural tissue engineering strategies and the development of enabling technologies for long-term neurobiological-electrical interfaces. Dr. Cullen is currently an active member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the National Neurotrauma Society, and the Society for Neuroscience.Cullen Lab Research Thrusts: NEUROTRAUMA – conventional and blast-induced traumatic brain injury (TBI); neural cell/tissue biomechanics; injury tolerance criteria; mechanisms of acute neuronal failure and dysfunction; peripheral nerve injury; modeling traumatic neural injury in vitro and in vivo; NEURAL TISSUE ENGINEERING - biomimetic 3-D neural constructs; scaffold optimization; cell function in 3-D microenvironments; repair/regeneration following traumatic neural injury; targeted nerve regeneration; BIOHYBRID NEURAL INTERFACE MICROSYSTEMS – neural prosthetic interfaces; living tissue engineered neural-electrical relays; 3-D fluidically/electrically-active microbioreactors. Selected PublicationsHuang, J.H., Cullen, D.K. (co-first author), Browne, K.D., Groff, R., Zhang, J., Pfister, B.J., Zager, E.L., Smith, D.H. : Long-term survival and integration of transplanted engineered nervous tissue constructs promotes peripheral nerve regeneration. Tissue Engineering (Part A) 15(7): 1677-85, 2009.Cullen, D.K., Patel, A.R., Doorish, J.F., Smith, D.H., Pfister, B.J.: Developing a tissue engineered neural-electrical relay using encapsulated neuronal constructs on conducting polymer fibers. J Neural Eng 5(4): 374-84, 2008. Kameswaran, N., Cullen, D.K., Pfister, B.J., Ranalli, N.J., Huang, J.H., Zager, E.L., Smith, D.H.: A novel neuro-prosthetic interface with the peripheral nervous system using artificially engineered axonal tracts. Neurological Research 30(10): 1063-7, 2008. Irons, H.R., Cullen, D.K., Shapiro, N.P., Lambert, N.A., Lee, R.H., LaPlaca, M.C.: Three-dimensional neural constructs: a novel platform for neurophysiological investigation. J Neural Eng 5(3): 333-341, 2008. LaPlaca, M. C., Simon, C. M., Prado, G. R., Cullen, D. K.: CNS injury biomechanics and experimental models. Prog Brain Res 161: 13-26, 2007. Cullen, D. K., Lessing, M. C., LaPlaca, M. C.: Collagen-dependent neurite outgrowth and response to dynamic deformation in three-dimensional neuronal cultures. Ann Biomed Eng 35(5): 835-46, 2007. Cullen, D. K., Vukasinovic, J., Glezer, A., Laplaca, M. C.: Microfluidic engineered high cell density three-dimensional neural cultures. J Neural Eng 4(2): 159-72, 2007. Cullen, D. K., Simon, C. M., LaPlaca, M. C.: Strain rate-dependent induction of reactive astrogliosis and cell death in three-dimensional neuronal-astrocytic co-cultures. Brain Res 1158: 103-15, 2007. Cullen, D. K., Stabenfeldt, S. E., Simon, C. M., Tate, C. C., LaPlaca, M. C.: In vitro neural injury model for optimization of tissue-engineered constructs. J Neurosci Res 85(16): 3642-51, 2007. Cullen, D. K., LaPlaca, M. C.: Neuronal response to high rate shear deformation depends on heterogeneity of the local strain field. J Neurotrauma 23(9): 1304-19, 2006.
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