Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Modeling Synergistic Effects Of Integrin And Tgf-Beta Signaling In Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition, Prerak Thakkar

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

La1-Xsrxcoo3 Perovskite Nanomaterial: Synthesis, Characterization, And Its Biomedical Application, Adhira Tippur, Anyet Shohag, Luke Franco, Ahmed Touhami, Swati Mohan, Mohammed Uddin

Research Symposium

Early cancer detection is paramount for effective treatment and potential cures. This research explores the application of perovskite materials, specifically Sr2+-doped Lanthanum Cobaltite (La1-xSrxCoO3) nanomaterials, in cancer detection, with a focus on rats as an experimental model. The ferroelectric nature of these materials, synthesized through a combination of sol-gel and molten-salt processes, was examined at varying Sr2+ doping levels (1-20 wt%). Rigorous characterization, employing X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, confirmed the uniform morphology of nano cubes, laying the foundation for subsequent investigations. The magnetic properties of the perovskite nanoparticles were probed, suggesting their potential as a diagnostic tool for …

Controlled Radiation Capsule For Precision And Rapid Cancer Treatment, Hoseon Lee, Zsolt Kollar, Bailey R. White, Junia Nguyen, David Roque, Sowjanya Palagani

Symposium of Student Scholars

This research aims to transform cancer treatment through the optimization of brachytherapy, with a focus on reducing treatment duration, setup complexities, and financial burdens, all while emphasizing patient safety. Patients living at a distance from radiation clinics, particularly those undergoing extended Low Dose Radiation brachytherapy, often struggle with the formidable financial challenges associated with securing nearby accommodations. In response to these issues, the research introduces a radiation capsule designed to condense the conventional six-month treatment period to approximately just one week, thereby significantly reducing the duration of required accommodations. This capsule is especially relevant considering the construction cost of $40 …

Multicellular And Multiscale Models Of Microbes And Host Systems, Elebeoba May

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Engineered Exosomes For The Multimodal Imaging Directed Photo-Immunotherapy Of Colorectal Cancer, Deepak S. Chauhan, Meena Jaggi, Subhash C. Chauhan, Murali M. Yallapu

Research Symposium

Background: Rio Grande Valley experience severe cancer health disparity. A novel therapeutic modality may serve as better therapeutic option. Nanohybrids endowed with multifunctionality, longer circulation time, large surface area have emerged as an active preference for cancer research. However, rising concern of nanomaterials toxicity and scalability issues has slowed their translation to clinics. Exosomes (Exo) are endogenous endocytic origin 40-100 nm vesicles found in various body fluids, which in comparison to synthetic nanoparticles, are biodegradable, highly biocompatible as well as immunocompatible in nature. Although bulk isolation of exosomes from human body fluids is still a problem and engineering of exosomes …

Modeling Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition In A 3d Multicellular Model Of Tgf-Β1 Signaling, Kristin Kim, Chris Lemmon

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Histological Evidence For The Therapeutic Effect Of Chitosan Nanofibrous Dressing On Acute Skin Wounds In A Rat Model, Mahboubeh Ghanbari, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Sara Cartwright, Yury Salkovskiy, Jason Mactaggart, Mark A. Carlson

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Introduction: Large-area skin traumas, such as thermal burns, are among the most severe health issues that decrease patients’ quality of life and burden healthcare systems. The CDC estimates that there are 1.1 million burns requiring medical attention each year, with more than 20,000 cases involving at least 25% of the body surface, resulting in 4,500 deaths. In addition, about 10,000 people die from burn-related infections. A promising solution to alleviate this problem is using wound dressings based on biopolymers with inherent wound healing properties and biodegradability. One of these biopolymers is chitosan, which is derived from arthropod shells and exhibits …

The Effects Of Demographics And Risk Factors On The Morphological Characteristics Of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Background: Disease of the lower extremity arteries (Peripheral Arterial Disease, PAD) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. During disease development, the arteries adapt by changing their diameter, wall thickness, and residual deformations, but the effects of demographics and risk factors on this process are not clear.

Methods: Superficial femoral arteries from 736 subjects (505 male, 231 female, 12 to 99 years old, average age 51±17.8 years) and the associated demographic and risk factor variables were used to construct machine learning (ML) regression models that predicted morphological characteristics (diameter, wall thickness, and longitudinal opening angle resulting from the …

The Next-Gen Crop Nutrient Stress Identification With High-Precision Sensing Technology In Digital Agriculture, Zhihang Song, Ziling Chen, Xing Wei, Jian Jin

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Crop yields are facing significant losses from nutrient deficiencies. Over-fertilizing also has negative economic and environmental impacts. It is challenging to optimize fertilizing without an accurate diagnosis. Recently, plant phenotyping has demonstrated outstanding capabilities in estimating crop traits. As one of the leading technologies, LeafSpec, provides high-quality crop image data for improving phenotyping quality. In this study, novel algorithms are developed for LeafSpec to identify crop nutrient deficiencies more accurately. Combined with UAV system, this technology will bring growers a robust solution for fertilizing diagnosis and scientific crop management.

Sea-Phages Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience For Creating A Biotechnology Workforce Development Pipeline, Daphne Fauber, Kari Clase, Carol Weaver

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Purdue University has been a member of the SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) program since 2011. This program, created in conjunction with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), facilitates undergraduate curriculum for the authentic discovery of novel bacteriophages within the classroom. Since joining the program, undergraduates at Purdue have harnessed wet lab and bioinformatics principles to contribute over 200 previously uncharacterized bacteriophages and 25 novel genomes to the wider scientific literature. The SEA-PHAGES classes at Purdue have resulted in tangible professional deliverables for students through conference presentations and publications. Student outcomes also include transferable skills …

Effects Of Post-Translational Histone Modifications On Transcription Rate, Aaron Bohn

Annual Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

2d Respiratory Sound Analysis To Detect Lung Abnormalities, Rafia Sharmin Alice, Kc Santosh

SDSU Data Science Symposium

Abstract. In this paper, we analyze deep visual features from 2D data representation(s) of the respiratory sound to detect evidence of lung abnormalities. The primary motivation behind this is that visual cues are more important in decision-making than raw data (lung sound). Early detection and prompt treatments are essential for any future possible respiratory disorders, and respiratory sound is proven to be one of the biomarkers. In contrast to state-of-the-art approaches, we aim at understanding/analyzing visual features using our Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) tailored Deep Learning Models, where we consider all possible 2D data such as Spectrogram, Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients …

Producing And Measuring Oscillatory Shear In A Novel Microfluidic Chip, Sanaz Lordfard, Daniel Lorusso, Tamie L. Poepping, Hristo N Nikolov, Kayla Soon, Stephen Sims, Jeffrey Dixon, David Holdsworth

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Purpose: To demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel microfluidic device mimicking oscillatory blood flow, allowing cell biologists to examine how endothelial cells respond to a range of oscillatory shear stress levels.

Methods: The microfluidic chip consists of a circular-shaped reservoir, leading to a rectangular channel that is examined under a microscope. The plunger is connected to a speaker system and oscilloscope, allowing the plunger to apply a range of frequencies (5-60Hz) and voltages (5-10 V, leading to a variety in oscillation amplitudes) to the reservoir region. 1.1 um fluorescent particles diluted in distilled water were used for tracking. Processing was …

Design And Development Of Software With A Graphical User Interface To Display And Convert Multiple Microscopic Histology Images, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Histological images are widely used to assess the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Recent advancements in image analysis allow the identification of structural features on histological sections that can help advance medical device development, brain and cancer research, drug discovery, vascular mechanobiology, and many other fields. Histological slide scanners create images in SVS and TIFF formats that were designed to archive image blocks and high-resolution textual information. Because these formats were primarily intended for storage, they are often not compatible with conventional image analysis software and require conversion before they can be used in research. We have developed a user-friendly …

Breaks In Longitudinal Elastic Fibers Of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries, Elham Zamani

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Breaks in Longitudinal Elastic Fibers of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries

Elham Zamani1, Majid Jadidi1

1 Department of Biomechanics, University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE

Introduction: Elastin is a major protein in the body with half-life >50 years. It is thought that elastic fibers are formed before the postnatal period. In the femoropopliteal artery (FPA), the main artery in the leg, longitudinal elastic fibers are present in External Elastic Lamina (EEL). Our team has studied more than 1000 cadaveric human FPA and has noticed that there are big breaks in their longitudinal elastic fibers in some subjects. Our goal in this work …

Predicting Propofol-Induced Burst Suppression Using An Individualized Model-Based Approach Over Repeated Treatments, Jason C. Huang

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Our group is investigating the antidepressant effects of high-dose propofol, but dosing propofol to induce standardized changes in EEG activity (“burst suppression”) is challenging due to limited knowledge of each subject’s pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD). In this paper, we approximated PK-PD models for propofol-induced burst suppression (PIBS), based on multiple subjects over repeated treatments. We then applied these models to predict BSR in each subject’s repeated treatment, then evaluate their predictive performances. We hypothesized that predicting BSR from a greater number of previous treatments would improve performance, but our current results are not conclusive enough to validate the hypothesis. …

Design, Simulation And Testing Of Biomimetic Directional Acoustic Sensors, Brendan Francis

Thinking Matters Symposium

The Ormia ochracea, a species of parasitic fly, has become the focal point in sound localization research because of its finely tuned hearing abilities. The female of this species uses its super highly directional hearing to pinpoint the call of a host cricket, with hypersensitivity of frequency and phase difference, to reach and dispose of its eggs on the host. The goal of this study was to further the research of a previous Project in Professor Guvench’s group which implemented MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical System) technology on a chip to replicate these abilities. In this iteration, however, some commercially available …

Mems Directional Acoustic Sensors, Colby Damren

Thinking Matters Symposium

The purpose of my project is to test and verify two Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) microphones. The two MEMS devices are biomimetic microphones that imitate the eardrums of the Ormia Ochracea, a parasitic fly that listens for host crickets to lay their eggs. The MEMS microphones mimic the eardrum spacing of the Ormia Ochracea with a spacing of 1000um. This is roughly twice the opening of the Ormia Ochracea. The microphones will be tested for directionality inside a wooden box. This box will be lined with beveled foam to prevent any echo or outside noise from interfering with the results. These results …

Understanding The Effect Of Adaptive Mutations On The Three-Dimensional Structure Of Rna, Justin Cook

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are variations in the genome where one base pair can differ between individuals.¹ SNPs occur throughout the genome and can correlate to a disease-state if they occur in a functional region of DNA.¹According to the central dogma of molecular biology, any variation in the DNA sequence will have a direct effect on the RNA sequence and will potentially alter the identity or conformation of a protein product. A single RNA molecule, due to intramolecular base pairing, can acquire a plethora of 3-D conformations that are described by its structural ensemble. One SNP, rs12477830, which …

Project Alien, Rebecca Mccallin, Madelyn Hoying, Alex Evans, Matthew Nestler, Karli Rae Sutton, Garett Craig, Lucia Secaia Del Cid, Alexander Guy, Rachel Fernandez, Amanda Trusiak, Paige Aley, Ingabire Gakwerere, Nina Dorfner, Maria Mosbacher, Mary Flavin, Selvin Hernandez, Audrey Steen, Benjamin Kazimer

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

Project ALIEN is a comprehensive plan to send humans to Mars to look for life on the Martian surface while exploring the viability and adaptability of terrestrial microbes in Martian atmospheric conditions. ALIEN will use a ballistic capture trajectory to get to Mars and stay in aerostationary orbit for a 30-day surface mission, during which two surface crewmembers will perform a variety of experiments to achieve the mission’s goals of Martian microbial discovery within brines of the Gale Crater and terrestrial microbe adaptability and viability to Martian conditions. Experimentation is based on the presumption that Martian microbes are metabolically similar …

A Note From The Editor, Daphne Fauber

Ideas: Exhibit Catalog for the Honors College Visiting Scholars Series

This piece is a letter from Daphne Fauber, the editor of this issue of Ideas. In the letter, the editor introduces the work of Dr. Paschalis Gkoupidenis as well as the moment in time in which his Visiting Scholars talk occurs.

Effects Of Novel Tool Use: Cortical And Functional Measures In Children Using A Prosthetic Simulator, Chris Copeland

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

As of 2005, there were a total of 1.6 million people living with the loss of a limb, with this population projected to double to 3.6 million by 2050 [1]. While prostheses aim to enhance the function of these individuals, it is estimated that 45% of pediatric prosthetic users reject their prosthesis [2]. The literature which describes the neurological control mechanisms of prosthetic use is sparse and often low-powered due to an inadequate number of participants. However, prosthetic simulators may be a solution to chronically low-powered prosthetic-centric studies by serving as functional homologues, though this has yet to be tested. …

Predicting Tgf-Β-Induced Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Using Data Assimilation, Mario J. Mendez, Matthew J. Hoffman, Elizabeth M. Cherry, Dr. Christopher Lemmon, Seth Weinberg

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Computations Of Top-Down Attention By Modulating V1 Dynamics, David Berga, Xavier Otazu

MODVIS Workshop

The human visual system processes information defining what is visually conspicuous (saliency) to our perception, guiding eye movements towards certain objects depending on scene context and its feature characteristics. However, attention has been known to be biased by top-down influences (relevance), which define voluntary eye movements driven by goal-directed behavior and memory. We propose a unified model of the visual cortex able to predict, among other effects, top-down visual attention and saccadic eye movements. First, we simulate activations of early mechanisms of the visual system (RGC/LGN), by processing distinct image chromatic opponencies with Gabor-like filters. Second, we use a cortical …

Age Dependent Regulation Of Cardiac Sodium Channel Gain Of Function, Madison Nowak, David Ryan King, Steven Poelzing, Seth Weinberg

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Coupled Influence Of Heart Rate Variability And Subcellular Calcium Heterogeneity On Cardiac Electromechanical Dynamics, Vrishti M. Phadumdeo, Seth H. Weinberg Ph.D

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Immunofluorescence Image Feature Analysis And Clustering Pipeline For Distinguishing Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition, Shreyas Hirway, Nadiah Hassan, Dr. Christopher Lemmon, Dr. Seth Weinberg

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Establishment Of 3-D Human Colorectal Cancer Spheroids, India Barnett

Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Three-Dimensional (3D) cell culture plays an important role in cancer biology by providing a life-like microenvironment as a model for drug discovery and treatment. Hydrogels, like many other 3D scaffolds, demonstrate a unique property as matrices for 3D cell culture. The goal of this project is to establish a 3D cell culture for colorectal cancer and apply this 3D model to drug testing. Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States with an early detection rate of 39%. Previously, 2D cell culture of human colorectal cancer cells, SW480, was used to determine the efficacy of …

Visual Contributions To Balance Control During Gait, Kyle Brozek

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

We propose to isolate the contributions of continuous OF to the orthogonal relationship between balance and gait control during treadmill walking using a series of conditions. Manipulating the direction of OF using a CAREN (Motek Medical, Amsterdam, Netherlands) virtual reality treadmill environment will isolate these visual contributions in human subjects as they walk. We plan to tease out the effect of OF direction on the relationship between gait and balance control by having healthy young adults perform a series of treadmill walking trials while immersed in a VR environment. This will be done by manipulating the direction of walking and …

The Time Of Slip Onset During Stance Influences The Characteristics Of The Unconstrained Perturbation, Corbin Rasmussen, Nathaniel Hunt

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Falls pose a significant health hazard, resulting in devastating injuries like broken wrists, fractured hips, and traumatic brain injuries that exceed $50 billion in U.S. medical costs. To address these risks, biomechanists have subjected individuals to simulated slips in order to study the factors that lead to falls. These studies have focused on slips that happen immediately after heel-strike and are unnaturally restricted by the methods used to cause the slip. Therefore, the effects of unconstrained slips that occur throughout stance phase are unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we examined the relationship between the timing of slip onset and …