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Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Understanding Control Of Metabolite Dynamics And Heterogeneity, Christopher John Hartline
Understanding Control Of Metabolite Dynamics And Heterogeneity, Christopher John Hartline
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Microbes live in complex and continually changing environments. Rapid shifts in nutrient availability are a common challenge for microbes, and cause changes in intracellular metabolite levels. Microbial response to dynamic environments requires coordination of multiple levels of cellular machinery including gene expression and metabolite concentrations. This coordination is achieved through metabolic control systems, which sense metabolite concentrations and direct cellular activity in response. Several reoccurring control architectures are found throughout diverse metabolic systems, which suggests underlying evolutionary advantages for using these control systems to coordinate metabolism. One common, yet understudied, control architecture is the positive feedback metabolite uptake loop, which …
Plasmonic Nanomaterials-Based Point-Of-Care Biosensors, Rohit Gupta
Plasmonic Nanomaterials-Based Point-Of-Care Biosensors, Rohit Gupta
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Point-of-care (POC) biosensors, although rapid and easy-to-use, are orders magnitude less sensitive than laboratory-based tests. Further they are plagued by poor stability of recognition element thus limiting its widespread applicability in resource-limited settings. Therefore, there is a critical need for realizing stable POC biosensors with sensitivity comparable to gold-standard laboratory-based tests. This challenge constitutes the fundamental basis of this dissertation work– to expand access to quality and accurate biodiagnostic tools. At the heart of these solutions lies plasmonic nanoparticles which exhibit unique optical properties which are attractive for label-free and labelled biosensors.Firstly, we improve the stability and applicability of label-free …
Ligand- And Strain-Specific Control Of Microbial Communities, Austin Grant Rottinghaus
Ligand- And Strain-Specific Control Of Microbial Communities, Austin Grant Rottinghaus
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Microbes naturally coexist in complex, multi-strain communities that are valuable assets for their host. Commensal and probiotic microbes prevent pathogen colonization, reduce the frequency and severity of various ailments, provide essential nutrients, and offer various additional benefits. Understanding the dynamics of and tailoring microbial communities to provide additional beneficial functions is a primary focus of researchers in medicine and agriculture. To date, consortia have primarily been manipulated by supplementing the communities with microbes that were engineered in vitro or by introducing stimuli that alter the metabolism or composition of the community. This method has proven successful, with numerous microbes engineered …