Engineering Commons^™

The Structure And Function Of Photosystem I And Photosystem I – Hydrogenase Protein Fusions: An Experimental And Computational Study, Bradley Jordan Harris

Doctoral Dissertations

Photosystem I (PSI) is a membrane protein involved in the photosynthetic cycle of plants, algae, and cyanobacteria that is of specific interest due to its ability to harness solar energy to generate reducing power. This work seeks to form an in vitro hybrid protein fusion between the membrane integral PSI protein and the membrane-bound hydrogenase (MBH) enzyme, in an effort to improve electron transport between these two proteins.

Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) was used to characterize the detergent-solubilized solution structure of trimeric PSI from the cyanobacterium Thermosynechococcus elongatus, which showed that the detergent interacts primarily with the hydrophobic periphery …

Structure Of Nearly Ideal And Multi-Component Polymeric Biomaterials, Erika Saffer

Doctoral Dissertations

Hydrogels have long been considered ideal candidates for biomaterial and tissue engineering applications due to their many desirable properties, such as high water content and tunable gelation conditions. Although these materials have undergone extensive research and development, some mechanical and physical properties are still difficult to achieve. The reason for this is often related to the structure of the hydrogel network. Understanding how network structures are influenced by changes in formulation parameters (i.e. polymer molecular weight, initial polymer concentration, ratio of hydrophilic to hydrophobic polymer), and correlating these results to known mechanical and physical properties would yield well characterized systems …