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Husband and wife duo, Caio and Bruna da Fonseca joined the Walton team 2 years ago. We asked them what it is like being part of the Walton Institute and to tell us more about their research.
Bruna: I’m an electrical engineer. I got my bachelor’s degree in 2019 from the Federal University of Campina Grande in Brazil, and in the same year I started my PhD at Walton Institute. As an undergraduate student, I had the opportunity to work in many different research areas. My research focus was Control and Automation. However, I’ve always wanted to link electrical engineering concepts with medical applications. Now as a PhD student I’m working with molecular communications applied to targeted drug delivery processes, to help with the treatment of different types of diseases.
Caio: I studied electrical engineering in my undergraduate studies in Brazil, and then for my PhD, my research focus changed a little to a more computational science perspective applied to the precision medicine field.
Bruna: With the pandemic, I’ve been working from home for more than a year now. So, I’ve tried to make a routine to separate my time to work on my PhD research project and the NGI project, time to eat, to take a break, and solve any work related issues. By the end of the day, I take some time to take care of myself and my health so I go to the gym, and then relax afterwards to be ready for the next day.
Caio: I start the day by taking one to two hours to watch some videos, catch up on some news, and read. Then I start my day of work. What I like to do first is read literature related to my research, but I also look at papers and videos that are not really related to my research. I have found that this habit often gives me insights and ideas to apply to my own research, or techniques, algorithms, etc. that can be used in my research.
Next, I focus on the current research paper I am working on. This could be doing some literature review on the topic, or mathematical and computational modelling, conducting simulations, or writing the paper manuscript. It will depend on the stage of the paper as well.
I think it is also important to balance your life with healthy habits, as this will consequently benefit work, especially research. So after work, I exercise almost every day, take time to read, and watch things unrelated to work. As I mentioned, I’ve found that insights and ideas come from looking outside the box and having a healthy mind and body can help achieve that.
Bruna: I was always interested in working with engineering applied to health and medical applications. In my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to do research in the International Institute of Neurosciences, where I was working with brain-machine interfaces and neuroengineering, another area that I am really interested in. For my senior project I also worked on another health application – the development of a wearable device, a bracelet, aiming to help patients suffering with Parkinson’s disease.
The goal of the bracelet was to inhibit or reduce tremors in the hands of the person suffering with Parkinson’s disease. After my undergraduate studies, my goal was to continue working in such areas of research, linking engineering and science to medical and health applications. Then, the opportunity of doing a PhD in Ireland at WIT came up. The Walton Institute is one of the main institutions pioneering the field of Molecular Communications, which is an essential area of research with many health applications such as precision and nanomedicine, and internet of bio-nanothings. This really aligned with my research interests and is a truly exciting field. This is how I got into the research field I’m currently pursuing in my PhD studies.
Caio: I started to get fascinated with the brain in the middle of my undergraduate studies, particularly because brain research overlaps a lot with computer science and electrical engineering in trying to understand brain circuits, networks, and the electrical nature of the brain. I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity at that time to work on a brain-machine interface and neuroengineering research project in neuroscience which consolidated my interest and fascination in the subject.
Close to finishing my studies, I saw the opportunity to pursue a PhD in the Walton Institute working in molecular communications in the brain. I took the opportunity, and fortunately I was accepted.
Bruna: I’m currently working on a research project where the main goal is to help with the treatment of lung damaged tissue caused by the SARS-CoV-2. We are using concepts of Molecular Communications, Nanobioscience, Bioengineering, Targeted Drug-Delivery and Ultrasound Technology to develop a micro-device that can be used to house and deliver Mesenchymal Stem Cells-Derived Exosomes (MSC-Exos) to the damaged tissue to treat the tissues and help patients to recover in a timely manner.
I’m also currently working on the NGI Explorers Project, in partnership with the Rochester Institute of Technology in the USA. This project is also aligned with my current PhD research with SARS-CoV-2, and with this great opportunity we will be able to produce the first micro-device prototype at the RIT facilities and bring this technology to Walton Institute.
Caio: I work as a PhD researcher for the EU-FET-H2020 Gladiator Project, which aims to autonomously diagnose and treat patients with glioblastoma multiform, an aggressive form of tumor in the brain. My research work is mainly on molecular communications and information theory applied to the mathematical and computational modelling of the end-to-end communication system established in the brain between organoids defined by induced neural stem cells and the glioblastoma tumor cells.
One of the important projects in my research is to study the structure of the brain extracellular space, where the molecular transport takes place. This way we can simulate and model the communication in the brain and, consequently, model targeted drug-delivery systems in a more efficient way.
I would say that briefly my research key areas are defined as: Molecular Communications & Information Theory, Nanobioscience (Molecular Biophysics), Bioengineering, Theranostics (Precision Medicine – Diagnostics and Therapeutics) and Cancer Targeted Drug-Delivery.
Bruna: I see myself working in the bioengineering area and/or working with Brain-Machine Interfaces. I always had this dream of opening my own company, to work in Electrical Engineering applied to medical treatments and prosthetics.
Caio: I see myself continuing to work in molecular communications and information theory applied to nanobioscience/neuroscience and precision medicine, as well as extending this research even further to work on topics that involve genetic engineering/circuits, gene networks and computational neuroscience/biology.
Bruna: For a PhD student, during your research, any goals that you achieve or activities you complete within that time frame with good and satisfactory results, you can consider a win. When you finish a paper and publish it, that is a big win. When you put all of it together, you are in a constant learning process, that takes you closer to becoming a formal scientist and acquire the much sought after PhD title.
Caio: I think the big win is when we publish a paper or present our research at a conference. In science that is how we validate the work we’ve been doing, so it is great when we are able to do it. Another big win is to learn and master the current knowledge of the research field that you are working in and to be able to contribute to the advancement of this knowledge through your work.
The little wins can be represented by each learning step we take through the PhD which will turn us into a complete and independent researcher by the time we are done. Moreover, the skills and abilities we acquire to be able to learn and conduct research in fields that are not really related to our own research is important to me.
Bruna: The main challenge is that you have this big responsibility to develop or discover something novel that somehow can be useful for society. Sometimes when we are studying, we face topics that are not very well explained due to the small amount of research in this area. So we must develop a new way to explain this topic, which can be quite a hard thing to do. It is great when we can explain this phenomenon through the models we develop and simulations that we perform. When you see that the work you are doing makes sense and presents consistent results, it is an enjoyable moment.
Caio: It is a challenging field, that requires interdisciplinary work to solve big problems, which can be computational or mathematical, and sometimes even experimental. However, because of its interdisciplinary nature, we can learn a lot from other areas. I end up learning new tools, software and acquiring new knowledge in different areas of research that I am really interested in.
Bruna: We are trying to develop a new treatment for patients suffering with respiratory problems caused by the SARS-CoV-2, to help them recover in a timely manner. If our research succeeds it can be useful for the development of a new protocol of treatment for different types of infections. So there are a wide range of opportunities that this project may open up for new research, new technologies and to help more people.
Caio: The benefits of my research are to have a better understanding of molecular transports in the brain, which leads to better modelling of targeted drug-delivery systems in the brain, as well as the advancement of the field of theranostics for glioblastoma treatment through molecular communications.
It is a novel area of research which still does not count, with vast literature on the subject. This research will help in the advancement of the current state of the field. Since it is a novel area proposing a new way to treat patients, it also needs validation from experiments and clinical tests.
The real-world implications are the implementation of novel methods of diagnosing and treating a patient with glioblastoma multiform, and hopefully completely eradicating the tumor as efficiently as possible. Other implications would be to extend and further develop these methods to apply to other neurological diseases and disabilities.