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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Improved Orthopaedic Repairs Through Mechanically Optimized, Adhesive Biomaterials, Stephen Wheeler Linderman May 2019

Improved Orthopaedic Repairs Through Mechanically Optimized, Adhesive Biomaterials, Stephen Wheeler Linderman

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Despite countless surgical advances over the last several decades refining surgical approaches, repair techniques, and tools to treat tendon and tendon-to-bone injuries, we are still left with repair solutions that rely on fairly crude underlying mechanical principles. Musculoskeletal soft tissues have evolved to transfer high loads by optimizing stress distribution profiles across the tissue at each length scale. However, instead of mimicking these natural load transfer mechanisms, conventional suture approaches are limited by high load transfer across only a small number of anchor points within tissue. This leads to stress concentrations at anchor points that often cause repair failure as …


Elucidating The Roles Of Astrocyte-Derived Factors In Recovery And Regeneration Following Spinal Cord Injury, Russell E. Thompson May 2019

Elucidating The Roles Of Astrocyte-Derived Factors In Recovery And Regeneration Following Spinal Cord Injury, Russell E. Thompson

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Central nervous system (CNS) injury often causes some level of long-term functional deficit, due to the limited regenerative potential of the CNS, that results in a decreased quality of life for patients. CNS regeneration is inhibited partly by the development of a glial scar following insult that is inhibitory to axonal growth. The major cell population responsible for the formation this glial scar are astrocytes, which has led to the belief that astrocytes are primarily inhibitory following injury. Recent work has challenged this conclusion, finding that astrocyte reactivity is heterogeneous and that some astrocytes are pro-regenerative following injury. Astrocyte transplantation …


Evaluation Of Novel Hemocompatible Surface Coatings For Extracorporeal Life Support: A Biocompatible Alternative To Systemic Anticoagulation, Teryn Rose Roberts Feb 2019

Evaluation Of Novel Hemocompatible Surface Coatings For Extracorporeal Life Support: A Biocompatible Alternative To Systemic Anticoagulation, Teryn Rose Roberts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extracorporeal life support (ECLS) is a class of technologies used to support or replace the function of failing organs. During ECLS, blood is withdrawn from systemic circulation and circulated through an artificial organ or “treatment membrane” that performs the function of the failing organ, prior to return to systemic circulation. While ECLS provides life-saving therapy to wide patient populations from pre-term infants to combat-wounded soldiers, this therapy is limited due to secondary thrombotic and bleeding complications that result from: 1) exposure of blood to the foreign surfaces in the device circuit and 2) administration of anticoagulant drugs to prevent clot …