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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Bioengineered Platforms To Study Carcinoma Cell Response To Drug Treatment, Thuy V. Nguyen Jul 2016

Bioengineered Platforms To Study Carcinoma Cell Response To Drug Treatment, Thuy V. Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

The tumor extracellular matrix (ECM) plays an important role in facilitating tumor growth and mediating tumor cells' resistance to drugs. However, during drug development, potential chemotherapeutics are screened in plastic plates, which lack relevant ECM physicochemical cues. In order to improve drug development process, this dissertation includes the development of relevant 2D and 3D biomaterial systems that can be used to study carcinoma cell response to drug treatment. A novel poly(ethylene glycol)-phosphorylcholine (PEG-PC) high-throughput biomaterial platform was developed to study how the ECM mechanochemical properties affect cancer cells' response to drug. The PEG-PC biomaterial is optically transparent, has a mechanical …


Functional Droplets That Recognize, Collect, And Transport Debris On Surfaces, Ying Bai, Chia-Chih Chang, Umesh Choudhary, Irem Bolukbasi, Alfred J. Crosby, Todd Emrick Jan 2016

Functional Droplets That Recognize, Collect, And Transport Debris On Surfaces, Ying Bai, Chia-Chih Chang, Umesh Choudhary, Irem Bolukbasi, Alfred J. Crosby, Todd Emrick

Polymer Science and Engineering Department Faculty Publication Series

We describe polymer-stabilized droplets capable of recognizing and picking up nanoparticles from substrates in experiments designed for transporting hydroxyapatite nanoparticles that represent the principal elemental composition of bone. Our experiments, which are inspired by cells that carry out materials transport in vivo, used oil-in-water droplets that traverse a nanoparticle-coated substrate driven by an imposed fluid flow. Nanoparticle capture is realized by interaction of the particles with chemical functionality embedded within the polymeric stabilizing layer on the droplets. Nanoparticle uptake efficiency is controlled by solution conditions and the extent of functionality available for contact with the nanoparticles. Moreover, in an elementary …