Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Controlled Membrane Remodeling By Nanospheres And Nanorods: Experiments Targeting The Design Principles For Membrane-Based Materials, Sarah Zuraw-Weston

Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis we explore two experimental systems probing the interactions of nanoparticles with lipid bilayer membranes. Inspired by the ability of cell membranes to alter their shape in response to bound particles, we report two experimental studies: one of nanospheres the other of long, slender nano-rods binding to lipid bilayer vesicles and altering the membrane shape. Our work illuminates the role of particle geometry, particle concentration, adhesion strength and membrane tension in how membrane morphology is determined. We combine giant unilamellar vesicles with oppositely charged nanoparticles, carefully tuning adhesion strength, membrane tension and particle concentration. In the case of …

Lanthanide Nanoparticles As Contrast Agents For In Vivo Dual Energy Microcomputed Tomography Of The Mouse Vasculature, Charmainne Cruje

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dual energy (DE) computed tomography (CT) has the capability to influence medicine and pre-clinical research by providing quantitative information that can detect nascent lesions, identify perfusion restoration or inhomogeneities within tissues, and recognize the presence of calcium deposits. A wide variety of instrumentation techniques and scan protocols have been developed for DE CT, with a common goal of acquiring a pair of images that reports the attenuation of a given volume to two different x-ray distributions. While DE image acquisition has benefitted from technical advancements in CT, the contrast agents that are used are still predominantly composed of iodinated small …

Point-Of-Care Devices For Therapeutic, Medical And Environmental Applications, Alisha Prasad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Point-of-care testing (POCT) or Point-of-use (POU) devices or technologies are defined as testing aids that are capable for onsite use or testing. The key advantages of POCT are low sample volume, quick onsite diagnosis, high accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. POCT has the potential and the benefits to facilitate better health care management by rapid routine diagnosis and monitoring. To reach this goal, several researchers as well as the healthcare industry over a few years have conducted cutting edge research to bring science to technology by developing smart diagnostic devices capable of performing as per patient profiles and make personalized health care …

Cancer Biomarker Detection In Human Plasma By Integrating Surface Acoustic Wave And Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence, Yuqi Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis includes data and discussion about the technique of metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) to lower the detection limit of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). The detection limit goes down to 100pg/mL level when using MEF substrate made by rapid thermally annealed silver film covered by silica, which has great promise in diagnosing certain types of cancer that uses CEA as detection biomarker, such as pancreatic cancer and colon cancer. To further address the issue of background noises from non-specifically bound proteins (NSB) in complex media, such as plasma, serum, urine and blood, MEF is integrated with surface acoustic wave (SAW) streaming in …

Development Of Fluorescent Hyaluronic Acid Nanoparticles For Intraoperative Tumor Detection, Nicholas E. Wojtynek

Theses & Dissertations

Surgical resection remains to be the primary treatment for the majority of solid tumors, including breast cancer. The complete removal of the primary tumor, local metastases, and metastatic lymph nodes dramatically improve a patient’s treatment outcome and prognosis. Nevertheless, surgeons are limited to tactile and visual cues in distinguishing malignant and healthy tissue. This can result in a positive surgical margin (PSM), which occurs when tumor goes undetected and is left behind in the surgical cavity. PSMs decreases a patient’s prognosis and necessitate additional treatment in the form of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. An emerging imaging modality, known as fluorescence-guided …

Synthetic Lethality In Pediatric Brain Cancer Cells By Optimized Plga Nanoparticles And Drug Combinations, Megan Ruckman, Megan Otte, Forrest Kievit

UCARE Research Products

Here we test drugs effectiveness to inhibit various DNA repair pathways with the purpose of sensitizing cancer cells to radiotherapy. We work on optimizing delivery of DNA repair pathway inhibiting drugs by the use of PLGA nanoparticles.

Nanoparticle Treatment To Counter Reactive Oxygen Species After Traumatic Brain Injury, Brandon Mcdonald, Forrest Kievit

UCARE Research Products

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as damage to the brain, resulting from an external mechanical force, such as an impact to the head (Kievit et. al, 2016).There are several examples that could result in a potential TBI; such as falling with contact to the head, car accidents and even physical activities including football, wrestling, and boxing. Because of the several different scenarios that an individual could impact their head, TBI’s have become an all too common aspect of everyday life. TBI is currently the leading cause of death and disability in children and adults under the age of 45, …

Formulation And Validation Of Nanoparticle Controlled Delivery For Chemotherapeutic Drug Products, Shani L. Levit

Theses and Dissertations

Taxol, a formulation of paclitaxel (PTX), is one of the most widely used anticancer drugs, particularly for treating recurring ovarian carcinomas following surgery. Clinically, PTX is used in combination with other drugs such as lapatinib (LAP) to increase treatment efficacy. Delivering drug combinations with nanoparticles has the potential to improve chemotherapy outcomes. In this study, we use Flash NanoPrecipitation, a rapid, scalable process to encapsulate weakly hydrophobic drugs (logP in vitro. Encapsulating either PTX or LAP into nanoparticles increases drug potency. When PTX and LAP are co-loaded in the same nanoparticle, they have a synergistic effect that is greater than …

Investigation On Nanoparticle Based Combination Therapy For Targeted Cancer Treatment, Muhammad Raisul Abedin

Doctoral Dissertations

“The current treatment methods in cancer are associated with toxicity in healthy tissues, partial therapeutic response, drug resistance and finally recurrence of the disease. The cancer drugs are challenged by non-specific binding, undesired toxicity in healthy cells, low therapeutic index and finally poor therapeutic outcome. In this work, a targeted nanoscale therapeutic system Antibody Drug Nanoparticle (ADN) was engineered to selectively inhibit the breast cancer cell growth with reduced toxicity in healthy cells. The ADNs were designed by synthesizing rod shaped anoparticles using pure chemotherapeutic drug and covalently conjugating a therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) on the surface of the drug …

Extracellular Matrix Nanoparticles Effects On The Lung In Vivo, Brittaney E. Ritchie

Theses and Dissertations

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening condition that causes diffuse alveolar damage and a loss of the extracellular matrix (ECM). This leads to pulmonary edema and lung function deterioration. Our lab has created decellularized porcine lung, electrosprayed ECM nanoparticles that have been previously shown to have pro-regenerative capabilities in vitro.

In this study, the ECM nanoparticle effects on young murine lungs were tested in vivo. An ECM nanoparticle suspension, previously used for the in vitro studies, was aerosolized intratracheally into the lungs using a microsprayer. 24 hours later, the lung mechanics, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and histology …