Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Cytomegalovirus Inhibition By Pluronic-Encapsulated Quercetin And Synergy With Ganciclovir, Ian Wadsworth

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the leading viral cause of birth defects worldwide and leads to a variety of complications. Ganciclovir is the most common anti-CMV drug used but often causes severe side effects. Quercetin, a plant pigment, shows anti-CMV activity that may provide a less toxic alternative to ganciclovir, or when co-administered, reduce ganciclovir treatments. However, a drug carrier is needed to deliver quercetin for CMV treatment. In this study, three Pluronic polymers (P123, F127, and F68) were investigated as a quercetin drug delivery system (DDS) for CMV treatment.

All selected Pluronics successfully encapsulated quercetin at varying degrees of efficacy ...

Simulation Of Cu Precipitation In Fe-Cu Dilute Alloys With Cluster Mobility, Senlin Cui, Mahmood Mamivand, Dane Morgan

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cu-rich precipitates formation is associated with the precipitation hardening of Fe-Cu based steels and the embrittlement of reactor pressure vessel steels under neutron irradiation. The accurate modeling of the time evolution of Cu-rich precipitates is therefore of fundamental importance for the design of Fe-Cu based steels and the prediction of the irradiation induced shift of the ductile to brittle transition temperature of reactor pressure vessels. This work applies cluster dynamics with mobile Cu monomers and clusters to model Cu precipitation in dilute Fe-Cu alloys at several temperatures. Optimized model parameters can be used to simulate the mean radius, number density ...

A Microfluidic Platform For High-Throughput Screening Of Aquaporin Performance, Adriana Del Pino Herrera, Jordan Hoydick, Rachel Rauh, Elyssa El-Hajj, Madison Burchfield

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

Aquaporins are a family of small integral membrane proteins that transport water across cell membranes in response to osmotic gradients. They facilitate fluid secretion and absorption across epithelial surfaces in kidney tubules, exocrine glands, and gastrointestinal tract. Here, we describe a novel microfluidic method to evaluate and screen for aquaporin-based transmembrane permeability in mammalian cells. A microfluidic device was designed and fabricated for the encapsulation of single mammalian and yeast cells in micron-sized droplets. For this purpose, Chinese Hamster Ovarian (CHO) cells were used. CHO cells express AQP1 (aquaporin-1) homologous to human kidney aquaporins. The cells were cultivated and exposed ...

Video Processing For The Evaluation Of Vascular Dynamics In Neurovascular Interventions, Reid Vassallo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is an abnormal collection of blood vessels which causes blood to travel from arteries to veins through an abnormal twisted network of vessels. This network has an elevated risk of rupture, which can lead to permanent disability and death if the rupture occurs in the brain. The gold standard treatment for AVM is surgical resection, and it is crucial to know which vessels are bringing blood towards and away from the AVM. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to know this by looking at the surgical scene. The primary limitations of current methods to address this are ...

Exploring Attacks And Defenses In Additive Manufacturing Processes: Implications In Cyber-Physical Security, Nicholas Deily

Engineering and Applied Science Theses & Dissertations

Many industries are rapidly adopting additive manufacturing (AM) because of the added versatility this technology offers over traditional manufacturing techniques. But with AM, there comes a unique set of security challenges that must be addressed. In particular, the issue of part verification is critically important given the growing reliance of safety-critical systems on 3D printed parts.

In this thesis, the current state of part verification technologies will be examined in the con- text of AM-specific geometric-modification attacks, and an automated tool for 3D printed part verification will be presented. This work will cover: 1) the impacts of malicious attacks on ...

Effects Of Hard-To-Soft Segment Ratios On The Synthesis And Physico-Mechanical Properties Of Polyurethane Films, Aaron C. Wilson

Mechanical Engineering Theses

Blood-contacting cardiovascular stents often induce a secondary clotting event due to unrestricted enzymatic activities. The use of hemocompatible polyurethane coatings on these implantable devices is one of the most promising methods to reduce device rejection. In this study, four commercial polyurethane films of various thicknesses and compositions were evaluated for their anticoagulation properties. Results suggested that these films exhibited excellent thermal and physico-mechanical properties while capable of increasing contact time with blood plasma by over a thousand-fold as compared to a control surface. Due to the unknown structure and composition of these commercial films, polyurethane samples were synthesized from toluene ...

Implementation Of A Computer-Vision System As A Supportive Diagnostic Tool For Parkinson’S Disease, Diego Machado Reyes

Honors Theses

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting nearly 1 million people in the US and it is predicted that the number will keep increasing. Parkinson’s disease is difficult to diagnose due to its similarity with other diseases that share the parkinsonian symptoms and the subjectivity of its assessment, thus increasing the probabilities of misdiagnosis. Therefore, it is relevant to develop diagnostic tools that are quantitatively based and monitoring tools to improve the patient’s quality of life. Computer-based assessment systems have shown to be successful in this field through diverse approaches that can be classified ...

A Comparison Of Neural Activity For Peripersonal And Extrapersonal Viewing In Real And Virtual Environments, Olivia Eustice

Honors Theses

This study involved a series of tests comparing the similarities and differences in neural activity at a subject’s peripheral and extrapersonal space in the real environment and virtual reality. We hypothesized that there would be similar brain activity at each of these environments depending on the focal distance of an object from the participant. Peripheral space is the visual space that is a reachable distance from a person. It has an overall neural pattern in the dorsal stream of the brain. Extrapersonal space is the visual space that does not directly surround a person and cannot be directly acted ...

Heel Down And Toe-Off Time Measured With Ultrasonic Doppler System And Force Plate Sensor, Sabin Timsina

Honors Theses

Collie Box is a medical device that measures the gait parameters of the person walk- ing in front of it. This device uses the Ultrasonic Doppler system to extract the heel-contact and toe-off times of a person walking within the range of 2-10 meters. These times are used to determine the leg’s swing phase and double stance times. The ultrasonic transducer of 10mm diameter is driven at 40kHz. At the time of the heel-contact and toe-off, foot velocity is zero while the torso part of the human body is still in motion. The wide directivity of 10mm diameter ultrasonic ...

Investigatin Actin-Myosin Mechanics To Model Heart Disease Using Fluorescence Microscopy And Optical Trapping, Justin Edward Reynolds

Honors Theses

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a hereditary disease in which the myocardium becomes hypertrophied, making it more difficult for the heart to pump blood. HCM is commonly caused by a mutation in the β-cardiac myosin II heavy chain. Myosin is a motor protein that facilitates muscle contraction by converting chemical energy from ATP hydrolysis into mechanical work and concomitantly moving along actin filaments. Optical tweezers have been used previously to analyze single myosin biophysical properties; however, myosin does not work as a single unit within the heart. Multiple myosin interacts to displace actin filaments and do not have the same properties ...

Characterization Of Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry Signals, Craig Benzinger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Photoacoustic flow cytometry has been utilized to clinically determine the presence of melanoma circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Further investigation was conducted into the morphology of detection signals and how they could be manipulated to allow for further classification. Novel features were extracted from waveforms that appear to have strong classification ability. Neural networks were also used to determine classification potential and the creation of feature mapping for future unsupervised classification. Detections were expanded from single waves to a time dependent multiwave event. Waveforms were also determined to be of non-parametric distribution, allowing for classification by neural network but not allowing ...

Identification Of Human Adrenal Carcinoma Cells Using Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry, Alexis Stahl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With consistently high mortality rates in patients with adrenal cancer, lack of early detection and diagnosis are an ever increasing problem in fighting the deadly disease. Currently, very few patients are diagnosed with adrenal cancer within the early stages due to the absence of symptoms until large tumors are formed, which is in most cases is fatal. Because of this, early detection equipment is crucial to optimizing the survival rate in patients. We studied the absorbance wavelength of human adrenal carcinoma cells, as well as the minimum cell concentration needed in samples using photoacoustic flow cytometry (PAFC). PAFC generates ultrasonic ...

Design Of A 3d Printed Bioreactor For Bone Cancer Research, Brooklyn K. Vanderwolde, Katelyn Hillson

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

Bone cancer is an aggressive disease and has peak occurrence during physiological stimulation of growth and aging. Astronauts who undergo long-term space missions also acquire an increased risk of bone tissue degeneration and cancer. Few in-vitro models currently exist capable of reproducing the complex microenvironment of bone tissue to support multicellular activity in a three-dimensional structure. This limits the ability to understand disease progression and develop suitable treatment strategies. Therefore, developing a bone tissue model and an associated bioreactor is critical to understand the risks associated with cancer progression and improve treatment and preventions related to those risks. The goal ...

Toward Controlling Cardiac Tissue Pacing Using Modified Mrna, Yicheng Zhao

Engineering and Applied Science Theses & Dissertations

Arrhythmia is a common heart disease that happens when the heart is beating too fast, too slow, or irregularly. To study the mechanisms and treatments of this disease, it is important to acutely control the beating rate of the model as it will help distinguish the contribution of different potassium currents and drug-induced action potential in cardiomyocytes. The current method of tissue pacing, electrical pacing, causes contamination and corrosive damage to tissues, thus the tissues fail to be used repeatedly or in future studies. In this study, red-shifted channelrhodopsin (ReaChR) is applied as a non-chemical means to control the beating ...

Emergency Eye Simulation Model, Gavin L. Warrington, Christopher Forsyth, Lexus Morris, Natalie Ledezma

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Golf Swing Trainer Using Wii Balance Board, Brooks M. Leftwich, Nicholas Hassler, Clark A. Hall, Sam Gates, Thomas B. Vickery, Alec Rinehart, Zakkary B A Compton, Ryan A. Singley

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Oxone Mediated Tempo-Oxidized Nano Cellulose Mixed-Matrix Membranes During Ultrafiltration And Hemodialysis, Kristyn Robling

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The ninth leading cause of death in the United States is kidney disease, and hemodialysis is the process most commonly prescribed for treatment. It utilizes a selectively permeable membrane filter to remove toxins such as urea from the blood and retain necessary protein levels. However, traditional filters, such as cellulose triacetate, used during dialysis can be inefficient in terms of separation performance and reduction of fouling. Recent exploration of nanoparticles has resulted in the creation of Oxone Mediated TEMPO-Oxidized Nano Cellulose which has properties that are believed to increase hydrophilicity, increase tensile capacity, decrease membrane resistance and lower fouling, making ...

Design Of A Deep Flow Technique Hydroponic System And An Elementary Education Module For Tri Cycle Farms, Cady Rosenbaum

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hydroponics is an agricultural technique in which plants are grown without soil and are instead grown in water systems that include nutrients and other growth-supporting media. Hydroponic systems typically reside inside, so that the system can be fully controlled by the grower by manipulating the temperature and amount of light the plants receive. The benefits of growing plants using hydroponics include: the amount of water used is reduced, it is less labor to grow organic produce with an indoor system, less space used, and it allows for growing food anywhere. Tri Cycle Farms is planning for the construction of a ...

Analysis Of Blood Purification Studies On Oxone Mediated Tempo-Oxidized Nano Cellulose Mixed-Matrix Membranes, Tony Roller

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is currently the ninth leading cause of death in the United States, and of the 661,00 Americans diagnosed with ESRD, approximately 468,800 were on hemodialysis in 2016. Hemodialysis refers to a technique where a machine combined with a membrane, often referred to as an artificial kidney, is used to clean blood by removing any waste such as urea, potassium, and other smaller waste products while preserving the concentrations and integrity of cells and proteins in the blood. It has been shown in artificial blood studies that cellulose nanomaterials, like TEMPO/Oxidized cellulose nanoparticles (TOCNs ...

Development Of A Matlab Gui To Assist The Active Comprehension Of Biomedical Transport Phenomena Using A Visual Aid, Pranav Suri

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Studies show that inductive teaching methods for Biomedical Transport Phenomena greatly benefit from an accompanying visual aid. The following project aimed to develop a MATLAB GUI application that illustrates steady-state heat transfer with a graph and heat map using user-defined boundary conditions and numerical parameters. The application was evaluated using a survey that first familiarized the user with the GUI by running through heat transfer exercises, then allowed the user to experiment with the application, and finally asked users about their experiences using a questionnaire. The responses indicate that the GUI was received positively overall, and that a MATLAB component ...