The CoMMand Lab, along with collaborators Dr. Matt Ravosa at Notre Dame and Dr. Craig Goergen's Cardiovascular Imaging Research Laboratory at Purdue, was awarded pilot funding from the Indiana CTSI. This project, titled "Mechanobiology of dura mater growth: an in vivo and ex vivo longitudinal study", aims to understand the growth of the dura mater, a tough connective tissue that surrounds the brain. Through longitudinal MRI imaging, cell culture and stretching, and accompanying mechanical models, we aim to characterize the growth of the dura mater throughout time. This is particularly relevant because the dura mater plays an important role in signaling between the growth of the brain and skull, and thus a deeper understanding of the dura mater's properties is expected to contribute to advances in certain disorders that involve pathologies of brain and skull growth, such as Zika-associated microcephaly.