Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Development Of An Efficient Human Hepatocyte Culture Platform For Assessing Novel Therapeutic Efficacy Against Plasmodium Liver Parasites, Steven Patrick Maher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Malaria is a critical and global public health problem, affecting over 200 million people every year, resulting in over 500,000 deaths. A vaccine is not currently available and only one drug, primaquine, is effective against the dormant stages of Plasmodium vivax. Preclinical assessment of novel therapeutic drugs and vaccines is hampered by the lack of an in vitro liver model for P. falciparum and P. vivax. To provide a stable human hepatocyte-based culture platform for parasite development, we engineered a microfluidic bilayer device capable of both simple and complex culture methods, including perfusion and co-culture, to better understand the requirements …