Engineering Commons^™

Targeted Drug Delivery System For Kidney And/Or Liver Failure Patients Using Human Serum Albumin, Sean Bedingfield

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Compromised liver and/or kidney function reduces the acceptable dosage of a variety of medications that can be administered to patients. These patients still have a need for drugs such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antivirals, and antibiotics. The project goal is to provide a drug delivery system to accommodate these reduced dosage limits with added therapeutic benefits to address symptoms of liver or kidney failure. Localized drug delivery allows for a smaller, concentrated dose rather than inundating the patient's system with the drug of interest. Human serum albumin (HSA) is a researched candidate for drug delivery with therapeutic properties. HSA …

Usu Concrete Canoe, Promontory, Nathaniel Laurence Decker

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In 1863, while the Civil War was dividing the East, a monumental project began in the West. Plans had been finalized for a railroad that would unify the country in commerce and migration. Two companies accepted the challenge of laying track across over 1700 miles of North American soil, from Sacramento, California to Omaha, Nebraska. The Union Pacific Railroad would come from the East and the Central Pacific Railroad from the West. Governor Leland Stanford of California broke ground for the project on January 8, 1863, and the line was finished at Promontory Summit, UT on May 10, 1869 (NPS, …

Designing An Artificial Tendon/Graft Derived From Silkworm Silk And Synthetic Spider Silk With Respect To Structure, Mechanical Properties, Biocompatibility, And Attachment, Neal Hengge

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Achilles tendon is one of the most commonly damaged tendons in the human body (Hansen et al., 2012). Current surgical and therapeutic techniques require extended recovery time and the tendon is rarely returned to its original healthy state. For athletes in particular, strenuous rehabilitation is required to return from a serious injury like a ruptured Achilles tendon (Rosso et al., 2013).

Despite the high amount of sources for grafts to aid in surgical repair, all of the options have drawbacks such as availability, immune response, or poor mechanical properties. Spider silk has the potential to enhance current Achilles tendon …

Personal Vacuum Assisted Climber, Jacob Monroe Whittle

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The Personal Vacuum Assisted Climber (PVAC) system built in 2012 by the Ascending Aggies at Utah State University which was designed using vacuum motors to provide suction to pads to allow the user to climb various surfaces, needs to be further developed before being fully marketable. The current system does not have a user-friendly interface and is very loud (approx. 90 dB). These issues were addressed to answer the following question: how can the current PV AC system be optimized to decrease noise and produce a user friendly interface while maintaining current run time? To obtain the sound reduction desired …