Biomaterials Commons^™

Novel Approaches For Enhancing Cell Survival And Function In Vivo, Ou Wang

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Theses and Student Research

FDA has approved several cell-based therapeutics and hundreds of cell therapy clinical trials are ongoing. Cells will be a significant type of medicine after small molecule and protein drugs. However, several obstacles need to be addressed to achieve the widespread use of cellular therapeutics. The first challenge is the low efficacy of cell transplantation due to low retention, survival, integration, and function of cells in vivo. The second challenge is producing a massive number of cells for clinical treatment with cost-effectively and reproducibly technologies.

In this thesis, we proposed and investigated two approaches to address these challenges. To begin …

Interaction Of Fibrinogen With Fibronectin: Purification And Characterization Of A Room Temperature-Stable Fibrinogen-Fibronectin Complex From Normal Human Plasma, Ayman E. Ismail

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Theses and Student Research

A fibrinogen-fibronectin complex (γγ’pdFI-pdFN) was purified from normal human plasma using a sequence of cryoprecipitation, ammonium sulfate fractionation, and DEAE Sepharose chromatography. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) under reducing condition showed both a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio of fibrinogen (FI) to fibronectin (FN) as well as a stoichiometric ratio of 1:1 of γg to gγ’. The γγ’pdFI-pdFN complex was non-covalent in nature as it was disrupted by affinity adsorption to Gelatin Sepharose where pdFN bound strongly and the disrupted γγ’pdFI fell through the chromatographic column. Surprisingly, the purified γγ’pdFI-pdFN complex was more broadly thermally stable than plasma FI (pdFI) …

Low Molecular Weight Glucosamine/L-Lactide Copolymers As Potential Carriers For The Development Of A Sustained Rifampicin Release System: Mycobacterium Smegmatis As A Tuberculosis Model, Jorge Ragusa

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Theses and Student Research

Tuberculosis, a highly contagious disease, ranks as the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease, and remains a major global health problem. In 2013, 9 million new cases were diagnosed and 1.5 million people died worldwide from tuberculosis. This dissertation aims at developing a new, ultrafine particle-based efficient antibiotic delivery system for the treatment of tuberculosis. The carrier material to make the rifampicin (RIF)-loaded particles is a low molecular weight star-shaped polymer produced from glucosamine (molecular core building unit) and L-lactide (GluN-LLA). Stable particles with a very high 50% drug loading capacity were made via electrohydrodynamic atomization. Prolonged …

Synthesis Of An Endothelial Cell Mimicking Surface Containing Thrombomodulin And Endothelial Protein C Receptor, Karl E. Kador

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Theses and Student Research

Synthetic materials for use in blood contacting applications have been studied for many years with limited success. One of the main areas of need for these materials is the design of synthetic vascular grafts for use in the hundreds of thousands of patients who have coronary artery bypass grafting, many without suitable veins for autologous grafts. The design of these grafts is constrained by two common modes of failure, the formation of intimal hyperplasia (IH) and thrombosis. IH formation has been previously linked to a mismatching of the mechanical properties of the graft and has been overcome by creating grafts …