Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Monitoring Neuronal Activity In Vivo With A Novel Implantable Battery-Free Wireless System, Carolina Moncion

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intracranial neuronal recordings are essential for understanding neuronal function. They can be classified into levels like electrocorticography (ECoG)/local field potentials (LFP) and neuronal spiking activity. Typically, wired systems have been used to conduct these recordings; however, they have been linked to drawbacks, including infections, subdural hematomas, and are limited to a clinical setting, all of which can be detrimental to the patients’ quality of life. To address these issues, wireless biotelemetric devices have been increasingly adopted; nevertheless, they are coupled with their own drawbacks like bulky components and heat-generating batteries. Miniaturized battery-free systems have been developed for addressing these concerns, …

A Machine Learning Framework For Identifying Molecular Biomarkers From Transcriptomic Cancer Data, Md Abdullah Al Mamun

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cancer is a complex molecular process due to abnormal changes in the genome, such as mutation and copy number variation, and epigenetic aberrations such as dysregulations of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA). These abnormal changes are reflected in transcriptome by turning oncogenes on and tumor suppressor genes off, which are considered cancer biomarkers.

However, transcriptomic data is high dimensional, and finding the best subset of genes (features) related to causing cancer is computationally challenging and expensive. Thus, developing a feature selection framework to discover molecular biomarkers for cancer is critical.

Traditional approaches for biomarker discovery calculate the fold change for each …

Development Of A Plasmonic On-Chip System To Characterize Changes From External Perturbations In Cardiomyocytes, Maedeh Mozneb

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today’s heart-on-a-chip devices are hoped to be the state-of-the-art cell and tissue characterizing tool, in clinically applicable regenerative medicine and cardiac tissue engineering. Due to the coupled electromechanical activity of cardiomyocytes (CM), a comprehensive heart-on-a-chip device as a cell characterizing tool must encompass the capability to quantify cellular contractility, conductivity, excitability, and rhythmicity. This dissertation focuses on developing a successful and statistically relevant surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor for simultaneous recording of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes’ electrophysiological profile and mechanical motion under normal and perturbed conditions. The surface plasmon resonance technique can quantify (1) molecular binding onto a metal film, (2) …

Polarimetric Imaging Of The Uterine Cervix, Mariacarla Gonzalez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women, with more than half a million women diagnosed each year due to persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and a mortality of 311,000 women. According to the World Cancer Research Fund, developing countries have 84% of the global burden of the disease and 80% of the mortality due to a lack of effective screening programs. Several screening techniques have been developed and implemented to aid in low resource setting cervical screening, however, most require physician interpretation of color images. Other modalities utilize contrast agents to highlight pathological tissue but have small …

Volitional Control Of Lower-Limb Prosthesis With Vision-Assisted Environmental Awareness, S M Shafiul Hasan

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Early and reliable prediction of user’s intention to change locomotion mode or speed is critical for a smooth and natural lower limb prosthesis. Meanwhile, incorporation of explicit environmental feedback can facilitate context aware intelligent prosthesis which allows seamless operation in a variety of gait demands. This dissertation introduces environmental awareness through computer vision and enables early and accurate prediction of intention to start, stop or change speeds while walking. Electromyography (EMG), Electroencephalography (EEG), Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), and Ground Reaction Force (GRF) sensors were used to predict intention to start, stop or increase walking speed. Furthermore, it was investigated whether …

Therapeutic Approaches To Alter Mineral Formation And Growth In Vascular Calcification, Amirala Bakhshiannik

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cardiovascular diseases represent the global leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Cardiovascular calcification is the most significant predictor of cardiovascular events, but no therapeutic options exist to prevent or treat mineral formation in the vasculature. The presence of bone-like mineral increases cardiac work required to move blood through systemic circulation and can lead to mechanical stress in atherosclerotic plaques, promoting plaque rupture events that cause heart attacks. Clinical trials correlated bisphosphonates (BiPs), common anti-osteoporosis pharmaceuticals, with contradicting cardiovascular outcomes. Here, we demonstrated the importance of treatment timing in BiP-induced mineral disruption or promotion. We showed that BiPs can alter morphological …

Photonic Crystal Hydrogels: Simulation, Fabrication & Biomedical Application, Mehenur Sarwar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Photonic crystal (PhC) hydrogels are a unique class of material that has tremendous promise as biomedical sensors. The underlying crystal structure allows for simple analysis of microstructural properties by assessing the diffraction pattern generated following laser illumination. The hydrogel medium provides elasticity, regenerability, and potential functionalization. Combining these two properties, photonic crystal hydrogels have the potential for sensing physical forces and chemical reagents using a low-cost, reusable platform.

The development of biomedical sensors using this material is limited due to the lack of a method to accurately predict the diffraction pattern generated. To overcome this, a computational model was developed …