Dr. Abigail Koppes,
Principal Investigator

Brent Buchinger

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, characterized by progressive losses in motor control and cognitive functioning. While recent work has hinted at a gut origin, research elucidating the mechanisms for this pathological pathway is lacking. Brent’s work aims to develop a novel microphysiological system mimicking the gut-brain axis with the goal of improving platforms for studying and understanding Parkinson’s disease.

Brent joined ABNEL in the summer of 2022 as a Chemical Engineering PhD student. Prior to his graduate studies at Northeastern University, Brent worked as an analytical chemist at Eurofins Food Integrity & Innovation. He obtained his BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in December of 2019. At his undergraduate institution, Brent’s research focused on catalysis. However, his passions switched to biomedical engineering after researching chondrogenic differentiation at Case Western Reserve University in the summer of 2018.

B.S. Chemical Engineering
University of Wisconsin–Madison ’19
Madison, WI

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Jessica Snyder Defends her Thesis

Jessica Snyder Defends her Thesis

On July 31st, Jessica Snyder successfully defended her thesis "Bioengineering the intestinal niche on a chip: investigating signal transmission between the epithelium and enteric neurons". This success has officially earned her the title of doctor. Dr. Snyder has...

Bryan Schellberg Successfully Proposes

Bryan Schellberg Successfully Proposes

Bryan Schellberg, graduate student of both Drs. Abigail and Ryan Koppes, successfully defended his research proposal this past May. This defense earned him the title of "PhD Candidate"! We all look forward to watching Bryan's work unfold as he fulfills his proposed...