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Biomaterials

2021

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Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Piezoelectric Signals In Vascularized Bone Regeneration, Delfo D’Alessandro, Claudio Ricci, Mario Milazzo, Giovanna Strangis, Francesca Forli, Gabriele Buda, Mario Petrini, Stefano Berrettini, M. Jasim Uddin, Serena Danti, Paolo Parchi Nov 2021

Piezoelectric Signals In Vascularized Bone Regeneration, Delfo D’Alessandro, Claudio Ricci, Mario Milazzo, Giovanna Strangis, Francesca Forli, Gabriele Buda, Mario Petrini, Stefano Berrettini, M. Jasim Uddin, Serena Danti, Paolo Parchi

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

The demand for bone substitutes is increasing in Western countries. Bone graft substitutes aim to provide reconstructive surgeons with off-the-shelf alternatives to the natural bone taken from humans or animal species. Under the tissue engineering paradigm, biomaterial scaffolds can be designed by incorporating bone stem cells to decrease the disadvantages of traditional tissue grafts. However, the effective clinical application of tissue-engineered bone is limited by insufficient neovascularization. As bone is a highly vascularized tissue, new strategies to promote both osteogenesis and vasculogenesis within the scaffolds need to be considered for a successful regeneration. It has been demonstrated that bone and …


Development Of Multifunctional Drug Delivery Systems For Locoregional Therapy, Xinyi Li Jul 2021

Development Of Multifunctional Drug Delivery Systems For Locoregional Therapy, Xinyi Li

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Locoregional treatment is the specific delivery of therapeutics to their desired sites of action with minimized systemic adverse effects. In this approach, drug is administered through topical instillation, inhalation, intra-lesional or intra-arterial injection. Decades of experience in locoregional treatment have delivered meaningful benefits to patients with localized diseases (e.g., osteoarthritis, ocular disorders and liver cancers). However, improvements are required for this type of treatment to be more effective. For transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most current approaches do not allow repeat treatment as the drug delivery vehicle is not degradable. In addition, image contrast agents for …


Synthesis And Performance Testing Of Ecm Fiber Scaffolds, Cassandra Reed Jul 2021

Synthesis And Performance Testing Of Ecm Fiber Scaffolds, Cassandra Reed

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The progression of regenerative medicine has advanced the treatment of multiple illnesses and injuries throughout the years. A good example of the benefits of this research is the work that has gone into volumetric muscle loss (VML), where more than 20% of the muscle is loss. Skeletal muscle makes up 40% of the human body so a loss of that size greatly diminishes the strength, the flexibility, physiology, and quality of life of the injured individual. For that reason, various techniques are used to counteract the loss of structure and innate cellular signaling in order to circumvent that from happening. …


Engineering Nucleus Pulposus Cell-Matrix Interactions With Laminin Ligands For Tissue Regeneration, Julie Elizabeth Speer May 2021

Engineering Nucleus Pulposus Cell-Matrix Interactions With Laminin Ligands For Tissue Regeneration, Julie Elizabeth Speer

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Low back pain and degenerative conditions of the intervertebral disc (IVD) represent major global socioeconomic and medical burdens. The structures that comprise the IVD including the anulus fibrosis and the nucleus pulposus (NP) work together to stabilize the axial skeleton and distribute mechanical forces. However, the degenerative cascade, which is thought to begin with changes to the NP, results in alterations to the disc that can be seen across length scales including elongated cell shapes, tissue dehydration, and loss of disc height. Patients who present clinically with these changes may also experience altered biomechanics, pain upon motion, impairments to their …


Laminin-Mimetic Peptide-Functionalized Hydrogel Systems For The Phenotypic Modulation Of Cells Of The Nucleus Pulposus, Marcos Nicolas Barcellona May 2021

Laminin-Mimetic Peptide-Functionalized Hydrogel Systems For The Phenotypic Modulation Of Cells Of The Nucleus Pulposus, Marcos Nicolas Barcellona

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The intervertebral disc (IVD) has been widely observed to undergo significant structural and biochemical changes with age and maturation. As degeneration progresses, changes in extracellular matrix composition and deposition, tissue cellularity, and metabolic activity have been characterized. Although the epidemiology of disc degeneration remains unclear, it is believed that the nucleus pulposus (NP) region of the IVD may be implicated in early degeneration. Specifically, cells of the nucleus pulposus have been observed to undergo a shift from their notochordal-like juvenile phenotype to a more fibroblast-like state in a manner concomitant to degenerative events. Because the disc has inherently little capacity …


Effects Of Genipin Crosslinking On The Properties Of Tendon Derived Extracellular Matrix Hydrogels, Alicia Cheyenne Coombs May 2021

Effects Of Genipin Crosslinking On The Properties Of Tendon Derived Extracellular Matrix Hydrogels, Alicia Cheyenne Coombs

Theses and Dissertations

Extracellular matrix (ECM) hydrogels are a useful biomaterial in the tissue engineering field used for injectables in drug delivery systems, wound dressing, tissue regeneration and many other applications. ECM hydrogels are highly biocompatible, contain proper ratios of biomolecules required for complex bioactivity of tissues and they promote tissue repair. However, ECM hydrogels typically have poor mechanical strength, which leads to hydrogel instability, and a limitation in their ability to be modified for translational applications. In this research, genipin, a natural crosslinker derived from plants, was utilized in an attempt to improve upon the mechanical limitations of ECM hydrogels. Genipin has …


Bioink Optimization And Effects Of Microgravity On 3d Bioprinted Cell Laden Constructs, Likitha Somasekhar May 2021

Bioink Optimization And Effects Of Microgravity On 3d Bioprinted Cell Laden Constructs, Likitha Somasekhar

Theses and Dissertations

Bioengineered 3D tissue constructs have gained attention as in vitro tools for the study of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions and are being explored for potential use as experimental models for mimicking human tissues. One of the main problems in tissue engineering is the necessity to vascularize complex engineered tissues and sacrificial printing has been recognized as a possible solution to vascularization of the bioprinted tissues. Research studies have demonstrated that exposure to microgravity in space induces adaptive alterations in vascular structure and function. Changes in the morphology and gene expression is observed when endothelial cells are exposed to microgravity and …


Immunomodulatory Biomaterials For Cancer Immunotherapy, Larry Donnell Stokes Jr May 2021

Immunomodulatory Biomaterials For Cancer Immunotherapy, Larry Donnell Stokes Jr

Honors Theses

Cancer immunotherapy has become an effective treatment in the toolbox of oncologists. Immunotherapy offers a less toxic alternative to standard cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and can have prolonged curative effects to decrease cancer recurrence. Today, many drugs and biological agents have been developed that target the immune system and elicit an antitumor/cancer response. These agents are known collectively as cancer immunotherapies. While immunotherapies have radically improved treatment outcomes for many cancer patients, there are drawbacks to using these treatments. Immunotherapy treatments have poor clinical responses in patients with tumors that lack immunogenicity. Some of the treatments also pose a …


Promotion Of Human Schwann Cell Proliferation Using Heparin/Collagen Coated Nerve Conduits, John Magness May 2021

Promotion Of Human Schwann Cell Proliferation Using Heparin/Collagen Coated Nerve Conduits, John Magness

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Often in the aftermath of an injury or surgery, the sense of touch and muscle control is lost in the affected area as nerves are damaged or severed and fail to grow back completely. The regeneration of the nerve cells can be promoted by treating the nerves with nerve conduits. Nerve conduits are hollow cylinders of bio-compatible materials that can be surgically implanted to the disconnected nerve to promote and direct the growth of nerves. The objectives of this research are to investigate the ability of nerve conduits treated with layer-by-layer coatings to promote the growth of Schwann cells, to …


Injectable Gelatin-Silk Fibroin Composite Hydrogels For In Situ Cell Encapsulation, Ryann D. Boudreau Jan 2021

Injectable Gelatin-Silk Fibroin Composite Hydrogels For In Situ Cell Encapsulation, Ryann D. Boudreau

Honors Theses and Capstones

Hydrogels are widely used tools for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Characterized as biofunctional, water-based polymer matrices with tunable mechanical properties, hydrogels have promising but limited applications in biomedical engineering, due to poor and static matrix strength. Here we plan to rectify this issue by introducing a new hydrogel made from a composite of gelatin and silk fibroin crosslinked by microbial transglutaminase (mTG) instantly and beta sheet formation gradually, respectively. This interpenetrating network (IPN) shows enhanced mechanical stiffness and strength compared to gelatin hydrogels, and is capable of encapsulating human cells with high viability demonstrated by the encapsulation of human …


Nature-Inspired Material Strategies Towards Functional Devices, Sayantan Pradhan Jan 2021

Nature-Inspired Material Strategies Towards Functional Devices, Sayantan Pradhan

Theses and Dissertations

Naturally sourced, renewable biomaterials possess outstanding advantages for a multitude of biomedical applications owing to their biodegradability, biocompatibility, and excellent mechanical properties. Of interest in this dissertation are silk (protein) and chitin (polysaccharide) biopolymers for the fabrication of functional biodevices. One of the major challenges restricting these materials beyond their traditional usage as passive substrate materials is the ability to combine them with high-resolution fabrication techniques. Initial research work is directed towards the fabrication of micropatterned, flexible 2D substrates of silk fibroin and chitin using bench-top photolithographic techniques. Research is focused on imparting electrochemical properties to silk proteins using conducting …


Development Of An Injectable Methylcellulose Hydrogel System For Nucleus Pulposus Repair And Regeneration, Nada A. Haq-Siddiqi Jan 2021

Development Of An Injectable Methylcellulose Hydrogel System For Nucleus Pulposus Repair And Regeneration, Nada A. Haq-Siddiqi

Dissertations and Theses

Low back pain is the most common cause of disability in the world and is often caused by degeneration or injury of the intervertebral disc (IVD). The IVD is a complex, fibrocartilaginous tissue that allows for the wide range of spinal mobility. Disc degeneration is a progressive condition believed to begin in the central, gelatinous nucleus pulposus (NP) region of the tissue, for which there are few preventative therapies. Current therapeutic strategies include pain management and exercise, or surgical intervention such as spinal fusion, none of which address the underlying cause of degeneration. With an increasingly aging population, the socioeconomic …


Carbon Nanotube-Coated Scaffolds For Tissue Engineering Applications, Soham Dipakbhai Parikh Jan 2021

Carbon Nanotube-Coated Scaffolds For Tissue Engineering Applications, Soham Dipakbhai Parikh

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have beneficial properties for cell scaffolding, which has translated into effective growth of bone, muscle, and cardiac cells. However, loose carbon nanotubes can cause in vivo toxicity. To reduce this risk, our team has developed biomimetic scaffolds with multiscale hierarchy where carpet-like CNT arrays are covalently bonded to larger biocompatible substrates. In this study, we have tested such scaffolds in two distinct types of biomedical applications involving glioblastoma and keratinocyte cells. The growth of glioblastoma (GBM) cells on our CNT-coated biomimetic scaffolds was evaluated to check their suitability as a potential chemotherapy-loaded implant for GBM patient treatment. …