Engineering Science and Materials Commons^™

Plasmonic Nanomaterials-Based Point-Of-Care Biosensors, Rohit Gupta

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Point-of-care (POC) biosensors, although rapid and easy-to-use, are orders magnitude less sensitive than laboratory-based tests. Further they are plagued by poor stability of recognition element thus limiting its widespread applicability in resource-limited settings. Therefore, there is a critical need for realizing stable POC biosensors with sensitivity comparable to gold-standard laboratory-based tests. This challenge constitutes the fundamental basis of this dissertation work– to expand access to quality and accurate biodiagnostic tools. At the heart of these solutions lies plasmonic nanoparticles which exhibit unique optical properties which are attractive for label-free and labelled biosensors.Firstly, we improve the stability and applicability of label-free …

Plasmonically-Enhanced Ultrasensitive Biodetection Technologies, Zheyu Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Detection and quantification of biomolecules within biological fluids and tissues is of fundamental importance to biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. It is impossible to fully characterize complex, non-linear, biochemical systems without being able to accurately and quantitatively determine the component molecules. This problem is ubiquitous across all domains of biomedical research, and it is a major barrier to fully understanding health, ageing, and disease. Such bottlenecks are extremely challenging to be solved, especially for proteins and peptides, which do not have amplification schemes such as polymerase chain reaction for nucleic acids, because relevant concentrations of molecules related to diseases such …

Nanoscale Enhancement Of Photosensitized Radionuclide Stimulated Therapy, Daniel Douglas Lane

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) provides efficient tumor killing through the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from the optical excitation of a photosensitizer (PS). Furthermore, this mechanism is highly immune stimulating, providing systemic tumor immunity with a reduction in metastasis. However, these materials had previously been limited by their dependence upon external light sources, allowing treatment of only laser-accessible malignancy. With the recent development of photosensitized radiation stimulated therapy (PRaST) this depth dependence is broken through co-localization of radionuclides and semiconducting photosensitizers. This dissertation focuses on the enhancement of titanium dioxide (TiO2) based PRaST agents through understanding of TiO2 material parameters …

Functional Bio-Nano Hybrids Through A Precise Control Of Interfacial Interactions At The Nanoscale, Sirimuvva Tadepalli

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

During the course of evolution, proteins have evolved to perform exquisite functions including structural support, signal transduction, actuation, sensing, catalysis, trafficking, gating, light-harvesting, charge transfer, molecular recognition, self-assembly, self-organization, or combinations of two or more of these functions. A precise control and manipulation of the structure and function of proteins is conceivable with the advent of nanotechnology, which has facilitated the integration of nanomaterials with functional biomolecules to realize bio-nano hybrids with synergistically enhanced functionalities.

At the genesis of bionanotechnology, a paucity in the fundamental understanding of the bio-nano interfaces is a grave impediment to the progress of the field. …

Characterization Of Structural Dynamics Of The Human Head Using Magnetic Resonance Elastography, Andrew Arun Badachhape

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In traumatic brain injury (TBI), the skull-brain interface, composed of three meningeal layers: the dura mater, arachnoid mater, and pia mater, along with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) between the layers, plays a vital role in transmitting motion from the skull to brain tissue. Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a noninvasive imaging modality capable of providing in vivo estimates of tissue motion and material properties. The objective of this work is to augment human and phantom MRE studies to better characterize the mechanical contributions of the skull-brain interface to improve the parameterization and validation of computational models of TBI. Three specific aims …

Photodynamic Therapy: Agents And Mechanisms, Rebecca Claire Gilson

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Despite enormous efforts, cancer remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality world-wide. The main challenges currently facing cancer therapy include lack of adequate tumor targeting, failure to treat hypoxic tumor cells, and induction therapy resistant tumors. A solution to these limitations can be found in photodynamic therapy (PDT) which combines light and light activatable compounds, photosensitizers (PSs), to produce cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) to damage tumor tissue. This creates a spatiotemporal therapeutic effect, where cell damage only occurs at the intersection of the PS and light. PDT can treat tumors through unique mechanisms which reduce induction of tumor …