Engineering Commons^™

Controlled Delivery Of Serp-1 Protein From Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Hydrogel, Karen L. Kennedy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was selected and evaluated as a controlled drug delivery matrix for Serp-1, a potential new therapeutic with anti-inflammatory properties for control of restenosis. PVA hydrogels, containing a high water content, can be formed by physical crosslinking via a process involving freezing and thawing the material in multiple cycles. PVA, being a well known biomaterial, is suited for biomedical applications and the high water content and hydrophilicity provides a friendly environment for the delivery of large protein based drugs. Using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model protein, the controlled release properties of PVA were investigated. Release profiles …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Magnetic Hydrogel Nanocomposites For Cancer Therapy Applications, Samantha Ann Meenach

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Currently, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Conventional cancer treatment includes chemotherapy, radiation, and surgical resection, but unfortunately, all of these methods have significant drawbacks. Hyperthermia, the heating of cancerous tissues to between 41 and 45°C, has been shown to improve the efficacy of cancer therapy when used in conjunction with irradiation and/or chemotherapy. In this work, a novel method for remotely administering heat is presented. This method involves heating of tumor tissue using hydrogel nanocomposites containing magnetic nanoparticles which can be remotely heated upon exposure to an external alternating magnetic field (AMF). The …

Nanivid : A New Research Tool For Tissue Microenvironment Studies, Waseem Khan Raja

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Metastatic tumors are heterogeneous in nature and composed of subpopulations of cells having various metastatic potentials. The time progression of a tumor creates a unique microenvironment to improve the invasion capabilities and survivability of cancer cells in different microenvironments. In the early stages of intravasation, cancer cells establish communication with other cell types through a paracrine loop and covers long distances by sensing growth factor gradients through extracellular matrices. Cellular migration both in vitro and in vivo is a complex process and to understand their motility in depth, sophisticated techniques are required to document and record events in real time. …

Nanoscale Functionalization And Characterization Of Surfaces With Hydrogel Patterns And Biomolecules, Hariharasudhan Chirra Dinakar

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

The advent of numerous tools, ease of techniques, and concepts related to nanotechnology, in combination with functionalization via simple chemistry has made gold important for various biomedical applications. In this dissertation, the development and characterization of planar gold surfaces with responsive hydrogel patterns for rapid point of care sensing and the functionalization of gold nanoparticles for drug delivery are highlighted.

Biomedical micro- and nanoscale devices that are spatially functionalized with intelligent hydrogels are typically fabricated using conventional UV-lithography. Herein, precise 3-D hydrogel patterns made up of temperature responsive crosslinked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) over gold were synthesized. The XY control of the hydrogel …

Designing A Whey Protein Based Material As A Scaffold For Bone Regeneration, Mia Dvora

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A novel gel material was designed and optimized for use as a bone tissue regeneration scaffold. Whey protein isolate (WPI), the primary component of the material, underwent considerable testing for conformity to a set of known material characteristics required for application in bone regeneration. WPI gels of different compositions were fabricated by thermally inducing gelation of high-concentration protein suspensions, and characterized for compressive strength and modulus, hydration swelling and drying properties, mechanical behavior change due to polysaccharide additives, and intrinsic pore network structure. The gels were also tested for their compatibility with MC3T3-E1 cells, and interactions such as cell adhesion, …