Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment Commons^™

Positron Emission Tomography In Oncology And Environmental Science, Samantha Delaney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The last half century has played witness to the onset of molecular imaging for the clinical assessment of physiological targets. While several medical imaging modalities allow for the visualization of the functional and anatomical properties of humans and living systems, few offer accurate quantitation and the ability to detect biochemical processes with low-administered drug mass doses. This limits how physicians and scientists may diagnose and treat medical issues, such as cancer, disease, and foreign agents.

A promising alternative to extant invasive procedures and suboptimal imaging modalities to assess the nature of a biological environment is the use of positron emission …

Development Of Functional Plasmonic Nanoceria For The Ultrasensitive Detection Of Ebola Glycoprotein, Carissa A. Sutton

MSU Graduate Theses

Infectious diseases have been increasing in both severity and prevalence, leading to increasing economic burdens and health concerns. Ebola hemorrhagic fever is an infectious disease that is both highly communicable and highly fatal. Current detection methods for the virus have high specificity and sensitivity but have long and/or complicated procedures that do not allow for early virus detection in highly affected areas. Compared to the lengthy procedure of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), real-time RT-PCR is more time-efficient; however, specificity and sensitivity are reduced. Since early detection of the virus is the only way to increase survival rates, sensitive detection …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Multi-Target Ligand-Guided Selection (Ligs) Against B-Cell Specific Antigens Expressed In A Single Lymphoma Cell Population, Nicole B. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nucleic acid ligands called aptamers are single-stranded DNA or RNA molecules which fold into functional three-dimensional structures to facilitate their target binding with high affinity and specificity. The method used to generate aptamers is an in vitro process called Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential enrichment (SELEX). A variant of SELEX, cell-SELEX has been used to select aptamers against cell-surface proteins in their native state. We recently introduced a novel method called Ligand-Guided Selection (LIGS) to identify aptamers against cell-surface markers. Herein, we expanded LIGS method into a multiplexing platform to partition multiple aptamers against B-cell-specific antigens, CD19 and CD20, …

Leveraging Bio-Inspired Molecules For Cancer Theranostics, Douglas S. Macpherson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A variety of molecules can be radiolabeled and delivered to a cancer site for the purposes of diagnostics and therapy. Among the most promising of tumor targeting molecules are peptides and antibodies. These bio-inspired molecules can be designed and synthesized to target and respond to cancer cells based on the properties of those cells. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) enzymes are over-expressed by some metastatic cancers, in which they are responsible for the degradation and remodeling of the extracellular matrix. In recent years, MMPs have emerged as promising targets for enzyme-responsive diagnostic probes because oligopeptides can be designed to be selectively hydrolyzed …

Therapies For Mitochondrial Disorders, Kayli Sousa Smyth, Anne Mulvihill

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

Mitochondria are cytoplasmic, double-membrane organelles that synthesise adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondria contain their own genome, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is maternally inherited from the oocyte. Mitochondrial proteins are encoded by either nuclear DNA (nDNA) or mtDNA, and both code for proteins forming the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) complexes of the respiratory chain. These complexes form a chain that allows the passage of electrons down the electron transport chain (ETC) through a proton motive force, creating ATP from adenosine diphosphate (ADP). This study aims to explore current and prospective therapies for mitochondrial disorders (MTDS). MTDS are clinical syndromes coupled with abnormalities …

Designing And Synthesizing A Warhead-Fragment Inhibitory Ligand For Ivyp1 Through Fragment-Based Drug Discovery, Samuel Moore

Symposium of Student Scholars

Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) is a powerful tool for developing anticancer and antimicrobial agents. Within this, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) provides a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative approach to screening and validating weak and robust binders with targeted proteins, making NMR among the most attractive strategies in FBDD. Inhibitor of vertebrate lysozyme (Ivyp1) of P. aeruginosa serves as an excellent target because of its active cellular location and implications in clinical prognosis for cystic fibrosis and immunocompromised patients. This study uses current NMR and biophysical techniques to develop a covalent, fragment-linked warhead inhibitor for Ivyp1 through synthetic methods, warhead linking, and …

The Use Of Silica Nanoparticles For Controlled Drug Delivery Of Nicotine, Jennifer C. Iwenofu

Honors College Theses

Drug molecules can be administered in different ways to the human body. Nanotechnology stands out over other alternatives by delivering drugs to specific locations and reducing reactivity time. In this research, the hydrogen bond between silica nanoparticles and the drug molecule, nicotine, were studied to controllably deliver nicotine by varying pH values.

Synthesis, Structural Characterization, And In Vitro Biological Assessment Of Trans- Platinum (Ii) Thionate Complexes As Potent Anticancer Agents, Mia Alshami

Chemistry & Biochemistry Undergraduate Honors Theses

The content of this thesis has been originally reported in our published paper, “trans-Platinum (II) Thionate Complexes: Synthesis, Structural Characterization, and in vitro Biological Assessment as Potent Anticancer Agents” ChemPlusChem 2019 84, 1525-1535, DOI: 10.1002/cplu.201900394, in which I served as coauthor. Cancer caused 9.6 million deaths in 2018 worldwide, with 18.1 million new diagnoses during that same year.The most widely used metal in anticancer drugs is platinum (Pt), and these drugs are used to treat almost 50% of cancer patients. To optimize drug effectiveness, trans-configured Pt(II) complexes have been introduced as a strategy to potentially overcome the …

Aptamer-Based Voltammetric Biosensing For The Detection Of Codeine And Fentanyl In Sweat And Saliva, Rosa Lashantez Cromartie

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the many governmental and medicinal restrictions created to combat the opioid epidemic in the United States, opioid abuse and overdose rates continue to rise. The development of an aptamer-based voltammetric sensor and biosensor is described in this dissertation. The aim was to develop a low-cost, sensitive, and specific aptamer-based sensor for on-site, label-free determination of codeine and fentanyl in biological fluids. To do this, the surfaces of screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCE) were modified with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), followed by the addition of single-stranded DNA aptamers. These were covalently bound to the electrode surface. Operations of the sensors were collected …

Biocompatible And Multifunctional Trityl Spin Probes For Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Teresa D. Gluth

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The primary objective of my thesis was to develop and utilize a biocompatible multifunctional trityl spin probe for concurrent measurement of pO₂, pH_e, and [P_i] in vivo by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy (Chapter 2). My first goal was to synthesize the proposed probe we are terming HOPE71. Secondly, HOPE71 was characterized by X-band and L-band EPR spectroscopy. Next, the biocompatibility of HOPE71 was assessed through an albumin binding test, cytotoxicity assays, and in vivo intravenous tolerance. Then, the use of HOPE71 to measure the target parameters was demonstrated in a breast cancer …

Estimating Partial Body Ionizing Radiation Exposure By Automated Cytogenetic Biodosimetry, Ben Shirley, Peter Rogan

Biochemistry Publications

Purpose: Inhomogeneous exposures to ionizing radiation can be detected and quantified with the dicentric chromosome assay (DCA) of metaphase cells. Complete automation of interpretation of the DCA for whole-body irradiation has significantly improved throughput without compromising accuracy, however, low levels of residual false positive dicentric chromosomes (DCs) have confounded its application for partial-body exposure determination.

Materials and methods: We describe a method of estimating and correcting for false positive DCs in digitally processed images of metaphase cells. Nearly all DCs detected in unirradiated calibration samples are introduced by digital image processing. DC frequencies of irradiated calibration samples and those exposed …

Estimating Partial Body Ionizing Radiation Exposure By Automated Cytogenetic Biodosimetry, Peter Rogan

Biochemistry Publications

Purpose: Inhomogeneous exposures to ionizing radiation can be detected and quantified with the Dicentric Chromosome Assay (DCA) of metaphase cells. Complete automation of interpretation of the DCA for whole body irradiation has significantly improved throughput without compromising accuracy, however low levels of residual false positive dicentric chromosomes (DCs) have confounded its application for partial body exposure determination.

Materials and Methods: We describe a method of estimating and correcting for false positive DCs in digitally processed images of metaphase cells. Nearly all DCs detected in unirradiated calibration samples are introduced by digital image processing. DC frequencies of irradiated calibration …

Identifying Metabolites As Markers Of Fatigue In Athletes, Christopher D. George

Honors Theses

Fatigue in athletes caused by inadequate rest and other stressors can be severely detrimental to their health, and yet there is no reliable way to measure and track fatigue. Many classical measures of fatigue like body mass and resting heart rate are not reliable ways to track the physical fatigue of an athlete because they can change with many factors. In addition, it is not known how academic stress on top of physical stress affects fatigue. Metabolomics is a relatively new area of study and tracking metabolites offers the possibility to produce biomarkers to assess fatigue. This study collected saliva …

Validity Of Plasma Collection Cards For Ferritin Assessment—A Proof-Of-Concept Study, Karsten Koehler, Eileen Marks-Nelson, Camila Pereira Braga, Safiya E. Beckford, Jiri Adamec

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Iron depletion is common around the world and among certain risk groups in developed countries. The overall purpose was to test the suitability of a novel plasma collection card for minimally invasive iron status assessment.

Methods: Twenty participants (10 f/10 m) participated in this cross-sectional study. Ferritin and hemoglobin were measured from blood collected from a forearm vein, serving as reference method. Blood was also collected from the fingertip using the NoviplexTM Plasma Prep Card as well as capillary collection tubes.

Results: There was substantial concordance between ferritin measured from samples collected via NoviplexTM and venous ferritin (concordance correlation …

Chemical Epitope Targeting: Review Of A Novel Screening Technology, Qurrat Ul-Ain, Rene Kandler, Dylan Gillespie, Arundhati Nag

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Chemical Epitope Targeting is a novel technology developed for designing peptide ligands with high affinity and specificity against specific regions of a protein that may be inaccessible to small molecules or antibodies. In this review, we summarize the key steps and significant applications of this technology. Operating on the same principles as antibody-antigen interactions, this technique involves chemically synthesizing the region of interest on the protein, called the epitope, as a polypeptide with a biotin detection tag and a strategically placed alkyne or azide presenting amino acid. The constructed epitope is screened against a comprehensive linear or cyclic One Bead …

Developing A Dissociative Nanocontainer For Peptide Drug Delivery, Michael Patrick Kelly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The potency and specificity of bioactive peptides have propelled these agents to the forefront of pharmacological research. However, delivery of peptides to their molecular target in cells is a major obstacle to their widespread application. A Trojan Horse strategy of packaging a bioactive peptide within a modified protein cage to protect it during transport, and releasing it at the target site, is a promising delivery method. Recent work has demonstrated that the viral capsid of the P22 bacteriophage can be loaded with an arbitrary, genetically-encoded peptide, and externally decorated with a cell-penetrating peptide, such as HIV-Tat, to translocate across in …

The Wet Bridge Transfer System: An Novel In Vitro Tool For Assessing Exogenous Surfactant As A Pulmonary Drug Delivery Vehicle, Brandon J. Baer

Western Research Forum

Background:

Due to its complex branching structure, direct drug delivery to the remote areas of the lung is a major challenge. Consequently, most therapies, such as those treating pulmonary infection and inflammation, must utilize large systemic dosing, with the potential for adverse side effects. A novel alternative strategy is to use exogenous surfactant, a material capable of distributing throughout the lung, as a pulmonary drug delivery vehicle.

Objective:

Utilize an in vitro transferring system to assess exogenous surfactant (BLES) as a pulmonary delivery vehicle for different therapeutics.

Methods:

An in vitro technique was developed to simultaneously study surfactant delivery and …

In Vitro Evaluation Of Ovarian Cancer Tumorigenesis As A Function Of Quinone Oxidoreducatse-1 And Cell Phenotype, Milcah S. Jackson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In vitro multicellular spheroids are attractive model systems for assessing genetic and epigenetic changes that occur in diseased tissues. Understanding how such alterations in gene and subsequent protein expression affect disease progression and metastasis, drug resistance, and recurrence is of great interest in cancer research. In this regard, examining expression and activity of proteins, such as those with cytoprotective ability that are overexpressed in cancer cells, in addition to cell phenotype (i.e., stem-like, epithelial, mesenchymal, or mixed), are two ways to evaluate genetic and epigenetic changes. Moreover, determining the impact that cytoprotective proteins and cell phenotype have on tumor formation …

Direct Quantification Of Deubiquitinating Enzyme Activity In Single Intact Cells, Nora Safabakhsh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Challenges in drug efficacy occur during the treatment of most types of cancer due to the heterogeneity of the tumor microenvironment. This has led to the development of personalized medicine. Due to the clinical success of the proteasome inhibitors Bortezomib and Carfilzomib in treatment of multiple myeloma, interest has shifted towards molecularly-targeted chemotherapeutics for ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). Deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) are an essential part of this pathway which have been found to promote Bortezomib resistance in multiple myeloma patients. Unfortunately, there is a lack of specific, high throughput biochemical assays to characterize DUB activity in patient samples before and after …

Cost-Effective Paper-Based Diagnostic Using Split Proteins To Detect Yeast Infections, Zachary R. Berglund, Kevin V. Solomon, Mohit S. Verma, Moiz Rasheed, Zachary Hartley, Kevin Fitzgerald, Kok Zhi Lee, Janice Chan, Julianne Dejoie, Makayla Schacht, Alex Zavala

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The common yeast infection, vulvovaginal candidiasis, affects three out of four women throughout their lifetime and can be spread to their child in the form of oral candidiasis (thrush). This disease is caused by the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, which is also a major cause of systemic candidiasis, a rarer but deadly disease with up to a 49% lethality rate. Current widely-used diagnostic methods include cell cultures, pH tests, and antibody detection, to assist effective treatment. Despite availability of various diagnostic methods, there is no inexpensive, rapid, and accurate way to detect C. albicans infection. This project aims to …

Bayesian Analytical Approaches For Metabolomics : A Novel Method For Molecular Structure-Informed Metabolite Interaction Modeling, A Novel Diagnostic Model For Differentiating Myocardial Infarction Type, And Approaches For Compound Identification Given Mass Spectrometry Data., Patrick J. Trainor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metabolomics, the study of small molecules in biological systems, has enjoyed great success in enabling researchers to examine disease-associated metabolic dysregulation and has been utilized for the discovery biomarkers of disease and phenotypic states. In spite of recent technological advances in the analytical platforms utilized in metabolomics and the proliferation of tools for the analysis of metabolomics data, significant challenges in metabolomics data analyses remain. In this dissertation, we present three of these challenges and Bayesian methodological solutions for each. In the first part we develop a new methodology to serve a basis for making higher order inferences in metabolomics, …

Structure Determination Of A Bioengineered Human/Porcine Factor Viii For Hemophilia A Treatment, And Improvements To The Human Factor Viii Model, Ian Smith

Graduate Student Symposium

Blood coagulation factor VIII (FVIII), is a non-enzymatic cofactor which plays a crucial role in the formation of a stable blood clot. Absence or deficiency of FVIII results in the blood disorder hemophilia A; with symptoms including internal hemorrhaging and the inability to stop bleeding from open wounds. Treatment of hemophilia A relies on infusions of blood, plasma, or protein concentrates to replace FVIII. Unfortunately, approximately 30% of patients receiving replacement FVIII generate pathologic anti-FVIII inhibitory antibodies, which both reduce the effectiveness of the FVIII therapeutic and increase the severity of hemophilia A symptoms.

We have determined the molecular structure …

Clinical Applications Of Infrared And Raman Spectroscopy: State Of Play And Future Challenges, Matthew Baker, Hugh Byrne, John Chalmers, Peter Gardner, Royston Goodacre, Alex Henderson, Sergei Kazarian, Francis Martin, Julian Moger, Nick Stone, Josep Sule-Suso

Articles

Vibrational spectroscopies, based on Infrared absorption and/or Raman scattering provide a detailed fingerprint of a material, based on the chemical content. Diagnostic and prognostic tools based on these technologies have the potential to revolutionise our clinical systems leading to improved patient outcome, more efficient public services and significant economic savings. However, despite these strong drivers, there are many fundamental scientific and technological challenges which have limited the implementation of this technology in the clinical arena, although recent years have seen significant progress in addressing these challenges. This review examines (i) the state of the art of clinical applications of infrared …

Raman Spectral Analysis For Rapid Screening Of Dengue Infection, Tahir Mahmood, Haq Nawaz, A. Ditta, M.I. Majeed, M.A. Hanif, N. Rashid, H.N. Bhatti, H.F. Nargis, M. Saleem, Franck Bonnier, Hugh Byrne

Articles

Infection with the dengue virus is currently clinically detected according to different biomarkers in human blood plasma, commonly measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assays, including non-structural proteins (Ns1), immunoglobulin M (IgM) and immunoglobulin G (IgG). However, there is little or no mutual correlation between the biomarkers, as demonstrated in this study by a comparison of their levels in samples from 17 patients. As an alternative, the label free, rapid screening technique, Raman spectroscopy has been used for the characterisation/diagnosis of healthy and dengue infected human blood plasma samples. In dengue positive samples, changes in specific Raman spectral bands associated with …

Design And Development Of A Quartz Crystal Microbalance Immunosensor For Exosomes, Wesley Cox

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Toxicological Assessment Of Nanomaterials: The Role Of In Vitro Raman Microspectroscopic Analysis, Esen Efeoglu, Marcus Maher, Alan Casey, Hugh Byrne

Articles

The acceleration of nanomaterials research has brought about increased demands for rapid analysis of their bioactivity, in a multi-parametric fashion, to minimise the gap between potential applications and knowledge of their toxicological properties. The potential of Raman microspectroscopy for the analysis of biological systems with the aid of multivariate analysis techniques has been demonstrated. In this study, an overview of recent efforts towards establishing a ‘label-free high content nanotoxicological assessment technique’ using Raman microspectroscopy is presented. The current state of the art for cellular toxicity assessment and the potential of Raman microspectroscopy are discussed, and the spectral markers of the …

Micro-Spectroscopy Of Bio-Assemblies At The Single Cell Level, Jeslin Kera

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In this thesis, we investigate biological molecules on a micron scale in the ultraviolet spectral region through the non-destructive confocal absorption microscopy. The setup involves a combination of confocal microscope with a UV light excitation beam to measure the optical absorption spectra with spatial resolution of 1.4 μm in the lateral and 3.6 μm in the axial direction. Confocal absorption microscopy has the benefits of requiring no labels and only low light intensity for excitation while providing a strong signal from the contrast generated by the attenuation of propagating light due to absorption. This enables spatially resolved measurements of single …

Extraction, Purification And Partial Characterization Of A Carotenoid Binding Protein (Cbp) From The Epidermis Of The Monarch Butterfly Larvae (Danaus Plexippus), Nan Fang

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes the purification and partial characterization of CBP from the epidermis of the monarch butterfly larvae (Danaus plexippus). A yellow protein-carotenoid complex was extracted from the yellow pigmented epidermal tissue from monarch butterfly larvae by homogenization. Additional steps in the purification process included differential precipitation with ammonium sulfate, cation and anion chromatography, and lastly size exclusion chromatography. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis demonstrates that a single protein was isolated (M-LBP) having a ~60 kDa molecular weight, the value has subsequently been confirmed by HR-tandem MS. Lutein is the sole carotenoid bound by M-LBP with a stoichiometry of the …

Aptameric Sensors: In Vitro Selection Of Dna That Binds Bromocresol Purple, Derek B. Miller

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Aptamers being used as sensors is an emerging field that has capabilities of being tomorrow’s diagnostic tools. As aptameric sensors have become more popular, their visualization systems have been limited. The majority of today’s aptameric sensors require expensive machinery such as a fluorometer in order to visualize results. We propose a system that will cut the need for instrumentation and be detected via the naked eye. With the selection of an aptamer to bind the pH indicating dye bromocresol purple (BCP) this may be achieved. When rendered active, the binding towards BCP will facilitate a color change from yellow to …