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Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Optimizing Channel Formation In Peg Maleimide Hydrogels, Bakthavachalam Kannadasan Nov 2023

Optimizing Channel Formation In Peg Maleimide Hydrogels, Bakthavachalam Kannadasan

Masters Theses

Blood vessels including the arteries, veins, and capillaries are a critical and indispensable component of various organisms. Some studies estimate that if all the blood vessels present in our body are arranged in line, they would amount to a total length of approximately 60,000 miles. This distance is enough to circle the world two and a half times! In addition to being all pervasive, blood vessels perform certain key functions such as delivery of oxygen and nutrients to various tissues in the body. They also assist in the spread of diseases such as cancer. Therefore, it is important to study …


Frontiers In The Self-Assembly Of Charged Macromolecules, Khatcher O. Margossian Oct 2022

Frontiers In The Self-Assembly Of Charged Macromolecules, Khatcher O. Margossian

Doctoral Dissertations

The self-assembly of charged macromolecules forms the basis of all life on earth. From the synthesis and replication of nucleic acids, to the association of DNA to chromatin, to the targeting of RNA to various cellular compartments, to the astonishingly consistent folding of proteins, all life depends on the physics of the organization and dynamics of charged polymers. In this dissertation, I address several of the newest challenges in the assembly of these types of materials. First, I describe the exciting new physics of the complexation between polyzwitterions and polyelectrolytes. These materials open new questions and possibilities within the context …


Micro-Physiological Models To Mimic Mucosal Barrier Complexity Of The Human Intestine In Vitro, Abhinav Sharma Dec 2020

Micro-Physiological Models To Mimic Mucosal Barrier Complexity Of The Human Intestine In Vitro, Abhinav Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

The mucosal barrier in the intestine is vital to maintain selective absorption of nutrients while protecting internal tissues and maintaining symbiotic relationship with luminal microbiota. This bio-barrier consists of a cellular epithelial barrier and an acellular mucus barrier. Secreted mucus regulates barrier function via in situ biochemical and biophysical interaction with luminal content that continually evolves during digestion and absorption. Increasing evidence suggests that a mucus barrier is indispensable to maintain homeostasis in the gastrointestinal tract. However, the importance of mucus barrier is largely underrated for in vitro mucosal tissue modeling. The major gap is the lack of experimental material …


Biophysical Features Of The Extracellular Matrix Direct Breast Cancer Metastasis, Alyssa Schwartz Nov 2018

Biophysical Features Of The Extracellular Matrix Direct Breast Cancer Metastasis, Alyssa Schwartz

Doctoral Dissertations

Breast cancer is plagued by two key clinical challenges; drug resistance and metastasis. Most work to date probes these events on an extremely rigid plastic surface, which recapitulates few aspects of these processes in humans. A malignant cell first resides in breast tissue, then likely travels to the bone, brain, liver, or lung, each of which has a distinct mechanical and biochemical profile. Cells transmit mechanical forces into intracellular tension and biochemical signaling events, and here we hypothesize that this mechanotransduction influences drug response, growth, and migration. To probe the impact of extracellular matrix on drug resistance, we defined a …


Bioengineered Platforms To Study Carcinoma Cell Response To Drug Treatment, Thuy V. Nguyen Jul 2016

Bioengineered Platforms To Study Carcinoma Cell Response To Drug Treatment, Thuy V. Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

The tumor extracellular matrix (ECM) plays an important role in facilitating tumor growth and mediating tumor cells' resistance to drugs. However, during drug development, potential chemotherapeutics are screened in plastic plates, which lack relevant ECM physicochemical cues. In order to improve drug development process, this dissertation includes the development of relevant 2D and 3D biomaterial systems that can be used to study carcinoma cell response to drug treatment. A novel poly(ethylene glycol)-phosphorylcholine (PEG-PC) high-throughput biomaterial platform was developed to study how the ECM mechanochemical properties affect cancer cells' response to drug. The PEG-PC biomaterial is optically transparent, has a mechanical …


Mimicking The Arterial Microenvironment With Peg-Pc To Investigate The Roles Of Physicochemical Stimuli In Smc Phenotype And Behavior, William G. Herrick Aug 2015

Mimicking The Arterial Microenvironment With Peg-Pc To Investigate The Roles Of Physicochemical Stimuli In Smc Phenotype And Behavior, William G. Herrick

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation was to parse the roles of physical, mechanical and chemical cues in the phenotype plasticity of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in atherosclerosis. We first developed and characterized a novel synthetic hydrogel with desirable traits for studying mechanotransduction in vitro. This hydrogel, PEG-PC, is a co-polymer of poly(ethylene glycol) and phosphorylcholine with an incredible range of Young’s moduli (~1 kPa - 9 MPa) that enables reproduction of nearly any tissue stiffness, exceptional optical and anti-fouling properties, and support for covalent attachment of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. To our knowledge, this combination of mechanical range, low …


Metabolic Modeling Of Secondary Metabolism In Plant Systems, Lisa M. Leone Aug 2014

Metabolic Modeling Of Secondary Metabolism In Plant Systems, Lisa M. Leone

Masters Theses

In the first part of this research, we constructed a Genome scale Metabolic Model (GEM) of Taxus cuspidata, a medicinal plant used to produce paclitaxel (Taxol®). The construction of the T. cuspidata GEM was predicated on recent acquisition of a transcriptome of T. cuspidata metabolism under methyl jasmonate (MJ) elicited conditions (when paclitaxel is produced) and unelicited conditions (when paclitaxel is not produced). Construction of the draft model, in which transcriptomic data from elicited and unelicited conditions were included, utilized tools including the ModelSEED developed by Argonne National Laboratory. Although a model was successfully created and gapfilled by ModelSEED …