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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
Ls301 Fluorescence-Guided Photodynamic Therapy Of Brain Cancer Using Ppix Photosensitizer, Haini Zhang
Ls301 Fluorescence-Guided Photodynamic Therapy Of Brain Cancer Using Ppix Photosensitizer, Haini Zhang
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Incomplete brain tumor removal always causes neurologic deficit, disease recurrence and high mortality. Protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) accumulated in glioma cells with exogenous 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) serves as contrast agent for fluorescence-guided surgery and as well as acts as a photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy (PDT). However, the accurate tumor delineation using PpIX is limited by autofluorescence and superficial penetration depth. LS301 is a tumor-targeted near-infrared (NIR) contrast agent developed in our lab which allows deeper tumor imaging and avoids autofluorescence. My project aims to investigate whether LS301 can improve PpIX mediated PDT and tumor removal surgery. We have demonstrated co-localization of …
Identification Of Prognostic Cancer Biomarkers Through The Application Of Rna-Seq Technologies And Bioinformatics, Nathan Wong
Identification Of Prognostic Cancer Biomarkers Through The Application Of Rna-Seq Technologies And Bioinformatics, Nathan Wong
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short single-stranded RNAs that function as the guide sequence of the post-transcriptional regulatory process known as the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), which targets mRNA sequences for degradation through complementary binding to the guide miRNA. Changes in miRNA expression have been reported as correlated with numerous biological processes, including embryonic development, cellular differentiation, and disease manifestation. In the latter case, dysregulation has been observed in response to infection by human papillomavirus (HPV), which has also been established as both oncogenic in cervical cancers and oropharyngeal cancers and favorable for overall patient survival after tumor formation. The identification of …
Two-Component Hydrogel As Biomimetic Vitreous Substitutes, Sruthi Santhanam
Two-Component Hydrogel As Biomimetic Vitreous Substitutes, Sruthi Santhanam
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
The vitreous humor of the eye is a biological hydrogel principally composed of fibrillary collagen interspersed with semi-flexible polyelectrolyte, hyaluronic acid (HA). Certain pathological conditions necessitate its removal and replacement. Current vitreous substitutes, such as silicone oils and perfluorocarbons, are hydrophobic, do not resemble the properties of the vitreous, and have known complications. An ideal vitreous substitute should have properties of the natural vitreous, perform its functions, and be biocompatible in the eye. Inspired by the structure and composition of the natural vitreous, we used bio-mimicry to develop an injectable two-component hydrogel. The hydrogel is composed of a fibrillary gellan, …
Development And Validation For A Mobile Speech-In-Noise Audiometric Task, Tommy Peng
Development And Validation For A Mobile Speech-In-Noise Audiometric Task, Tommy Peng
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
Traditional speech-in-noise hearing tests are performed by clinicians with specialized equipment. Furthermore, these tasks often present contextually weak sentences in background babble, which are poor representations of real-world situations. This study proposes a mobile audiometric task, Semantic Auditory Search, which uses the Android platform to bypass the need for specialized equipment and presents multiple tasks of two competing real-world conversations to estimate the user’s speech-in-noise hearing ability. Through linear regression models built from data of seventy-nine subjects, three Semantic Auditory Search metrics have been shown to have statistically significant (p < 0.05) with medium effects sizes for predicting QuickSIN SNR50. The internal consistency of the task was also high, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88 or more across multiple metrics. In conclusion, this preliminary study suggests that Semantic Auditory Search can accurately and reliably perform as an automated speech-in-noise hearing test. It also has tremendous potential for extension into automated tests of cognitive function, as well.