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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Three-Dimensional Microfluidic Tumor Vascular Model For Investigating Breast Cancer Metastasis, Anastasiia Vasiukhina, Brian H. Jun, Luis Solorio, Pavlos P. Vlachos Aug 2017

Three-Dimensional Microfluidic Tumor Vascular Model For Investigating Breast Cancer Metastasis, Anastasiia Vasiukhina, Brian H. Jun, Luis Solorio, Pavlos P. Vlachos

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Metastasis is one of the primary reasons for the high mortality rates in female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. It involves the migration of cancer cells into the circulatory system allowing for the dissemination of cancer cells in distal tissues. Understanding the major processes that occur in cells and tissues during metastasis can help improve currently existing therapeutic methods. In order to understand such mechanisms, developing physiologically relevant tissue models is crucial. Advancements in microfluidics have led to the fabrication of 3D culture models with shear stress gradients and flow control that can recapitulate aspects of the tumor microenvironment in …


Movement And Distribution Of Bacteria Near Surfaces, Daniel A. Quinkert, Adib Ahmadzadegan, Arezoo M. Ardekani Aug 2016

Movement And Distribution Of Bacteria Near Surfaces, Daniel A. Quinkert, Adib Ahmadzadegan, Arezoo M. Ardekani

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Bacteria are found everywhere in nature, including within human/animal bodies, biomedical devices, industrial equipment, oceans and lakes. They can be found in planktonic state within a bulk liquid phase or attached to surfaces with the potential to form biofilms. In this study we are interested in the movement and distribution of bacteria near surfaces. The concentrations and fluid interactions of bacteria were characterized at various distances from a surface. Psuedomonas putida F1 was observed in a suspension near a surface. Bacteria movements were visualized with an inverted microscope at 40x magnification. P. putida F1 exhibited greater density in close proximity …


Effect Of Particle Concentration And Ac Electric Field Strength On Particle Trapping In Rapid Electrokinetic Patterning (Rep), Sixuan Li, Avanish Mishra, Steve Wereley Aug 2016

Effect Of Particle Concentration And Ac Electric Field Strength On Particle Trapping In Rapid Electrokinetic Patterning (Rep), Sixuan Li, Avanish Mishra, Steve Wereley

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Rapid Electrokinetic Patterning (REP) is an optoelectric technique for trapping and translating micro- and nanoparticles non-invasively. It uses a combination of laser-induced AC electrothermal flow and particle-electrode interactions in the presence of a uniform AC electric field. The trapping is governed by laser power, electric field strength, AC frequency and dielectric properties of the particle and the medium. A REP trap has an AC frequency, termed critical frequency, above which particles cannot be trapped. It is expected to be dependent on dielectric properties of the particle and the medium. However, we propose that the particle concentration and AC field strength …


Pore Scale Transport Of Miscible And Immiscible Fluids In Porous Media, Tolulope O. Odimayomi, Arezoo M. Ardekani Aug 2016

Pore Scale Transport Of Miscible And Immiscible Fluids In Porous Media, Tolulope O. Odimayomi, Arezoo M. Ardekani

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The separation of harmful or valuable substances entrapped in porous media has applications in processes such as enhanced oil recovery, diffusion in tissue, and aquifer remediation. In this study the motion and removal rate of immiscible and miscible solutions have been analyzed to gain understanding of solvent effectiveness as it is diluted due to diffusion or mixing within porous materials. The extraction of oil using water, a surfactant solution of 4% CTAB in water, and a foam produced form the surfactant solution is observed using two dimensional flows between parallel slides containing cylindrical obstacles. The fluid motion is visualized. The …


Assembly Of Nucleic Acid-Based Nanoparticles By Gas-Liquid Segmented Flow Microfluidics, Matthew L. Capek, Ross Verheul, David H. Thompson Aug 2016

Assembly Of Nucleic Acid-Based Nanoparticles By Gas-Liquid Segmented Flow Microfluidics, Matthew L. Capek, Ross Verheul, David H. Thompson

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The development of novel and efficient mixing methods is important for optimizing the efficiency of many biological and chemical processes. Tuning the physical and performance properties of nucleic acid-based nanoparticles is one such example known to be strongly affected by mixing efficiency. The characteristics of DNA nanoparticles (such as size, polydispersity, ζ-potential, and gel shift) are important to ensure their therapeutic potency, and new methods to optimize these characteristics are of significant importance to achieve the highest efficacy. In the present study, a simple segmented flow microfluidics system has been developed to augment mixing of pDNA/bPEI nanoparticles. This DNA and …


Quantification Of Analyte Concentration From A Paper-Based Lateral Flow Assay Device Using Reflective Sensors, Megan Z. Chiu, Jacqueline Linnes Aug 2015

Quantification Of Analyte Concentration From A Paper-Based Lateral Flow Assay Device Using Reflective Sensors, Megan Z. Chiu, Jacqueline Linnes

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Paper-based point-of-care (POC) diagnostics is a growing field in global health due to the extreme portability, accuracy, affordability, and ease of use of these tests. Advancements in recent years have led to more accurate detection and improved functionality using multistep molecular diagnostics. Many such assays utilize lateral flow detection strips for visualization of diagnostic results by eye, which limits the results to qualitative Yes/No readouts. This project focused on combining recent developments in paper-based POC diagnostics to develop and optimize an in-house built quantitative paper-based diagnostic reader for lateral flow detection in low-resource settings. Initially different sensors, including photocell sensors, …


Tumor-Microenvironment-On-Chip To Mimic Tumor Heterogeneity, Victoria Noe-Kim, Altug Ozcelikkale, Bumsoo Han Aug 2014

Tumor-Microenvironment-On-Chip To Mimic Tumor Heterogeneity, Victoria Noe-Kim, Altug Ozcelikkale, Bumsoo Han

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) is a non-invasive cancer that forms around breast milk ducts that can potentially progress into invasive breast cancer if untreated. Lack of models to study its diverse pathophysiology and differential response to treatments poses a challenge to develop standard treatment modalities with improved therapeutic outcomes. The traditional in vitro models such as cell monolayer are convenient but insufficient to represent the physiological characteristics of DCIS tumor microenvironment and often fail to predict clinical outcomes. The animal models effectively simulate the in vivo environment but also lack the ability to control the environmental parameters to match …