Biomaterials Commons^™

Impact Of Angiogenic And Osteogenic Factors In The Presence Of Biodegradable Piezoelectric Films, Jayla Millender

University Scholar Projects

One of the most common causes of bone graft rejection is lack of a vascular network connecting the graft to the existing native tissue – allowing for nutrient flow. Under current grafting techniques, the existing blood vessel network in the patient slowly invades the implant in order to supply the injured site with its necessary nutrients. The purpose of this research is to determine if a synthetic bone graft with a stable microvascular network can be developed in vitro. I hypothesize that the use of indirect angiogenic factors such as sonic hedgehog homolog and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 in combination with the …

Impact Of Angiogenic And Osteogenic Factors In The Presence Of Biodegradable Piezoelectric Films, Jayla Millender

Honors Scholar Theses

One of the most common causes of bone graft rejection is lack of a vascular network connecting the graft to the existing native tissue – allowing for nutrient flow. Under current grafting techniques, the existing blood vessel network in the patient slowly invades the implant in order to supply the injured site with its necessary nutrients. The purpose of this research is to determine if a synthetic bone graft with a stable microvascular network can be developed in vitro. I hypothesize that the use of indirect angiogenic factors such as sonic hedgehog homolog and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 in combination with the …

Machine Learning Applied To Colloidal Properties Of Perfluorocarbon Nanoemulsions For Imaging In Ards/Ali, Marco Hosfeld

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Acute Respiratory distress Syndrome (ARDS) and Acute Lung Injury (ALI) are inflammatory lung pathologies consisting of non-hydrostatic pulmonary edema leading to hypoxia and impaired gas exchange in the lungs. ARDS/ALI is both difficult to study and treat as it is not in itself a specific pathology but rather a syndrome consisting of many pathologies that vary case by case. It is, however, consistently characterized by an explosive acute inflammatory response in the lung parenchyma leading to hypoxia. Although time has seen to an increase in the understanding of ARDS/ALI, the mortality rate remains in the range of 30-50%. For these …

Survival And Proliferation Under Severely Hypoxic Microenvironments Using Cell-Laden Oxygenating Hydrogels, Shabir Hassan, Berivan Cecen, Ramon Peña-Garcia, Fernanda R. Marciano, Amir K. Miri, Ali Fattahi, Christina Karavasili, Shikha Sebastian, Hamza Zaidi, Anderson O. Lobo

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Different strategies have been employed to provide adequate nutrients for engineered living tissues. These have mainly revolved around providing oxygen to alleviate the effects of chronic hypoxia or anoxia that result in necrosis or weak neovascularization, leading to failure of artificial tissue implants and hence poor clinical outcome. While different biomaterials have been used as oxygen generators for in vitro as well as in vivo applications, certain problems have hampered their wide application. Among these are the generation and the rate at which oxygen is produced together with the production of the reaction intermediates in the form of reactive oxygen …

Evaluating Cellular Response Of Different Valve Interstitial Cell (Vic) Phenotypes To Angiotensin I, Smit Patel

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Calcific Aortic Valve Disease (CAVD), one of the leading causes of death in the United States, is characterized by diminished functioning and limited movement of the aortic valve (AV) due to increased thickening, disorganized extracellular matrix elastin fibers, increased collagen content, and abnormal deposition and formation of calcium nodules on the AV [1, 2]. There are two types of CAVD: i) Aortic valve sclerosis (AVS), in which patients suffer from tissue hardening, fibrosis, and early calcification, and ii) calcific aortic stenosis (CAS), representative by excessive calcification on the AV and reduced AV opening, are the two main forms of CAVD …

Immunomodulatory Biomaterials For Cancer Immunotherapy, Larry Donnell Stokes Jr

Honors Theses

Cancer immunotherapy has become an effective treatment in the toolbox of oncologists. Immunotherapy offers a less toxic alternative to standard cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and can have prolonged curative effects to decrease cancer recurrence. Today, many drugs and biological agents have been developed that target the immune system and elicit an antitumor/cancer response. These agents are known collectively as cancer immunotherapies. While immunotherapies have radically improved treatment outcomes for many cancer patients, there are drawbacks to using these treatments. Immunotherapy treatments have poor clinical responses in patients with tumors that lack immunogenicity. Some of the treatments also pose a …

Developing Aligned Nerve Scaffolds In A 3d Type-I Collagen Gel, Gabriel David

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Despite significant progress in the field of peripheral nerve repair, clinical success is still limited, leaving millions to suffer from peripheral neuropathy with billions spent every year for treatment. Nerve repair methods that are capable of maximizing the regenerative properties of peripheral nerves are greatly desired in the field of medical science. This research aims to fill the gap between modern methods and the future of nerve repair by creating type-I collagen scaffolds with aligned degradation pores that will assist and nurture nerves growing through them. This is achieved by incorporating adipose stem cells into type-I collagen hydrogels and aligning …

Promotion Of Human Schwann Cell Proliferation Using Heparin/Collagen Coated Nerve Conduits, John Magness

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Often in the aftermath of an injury or surgery, the sense of touch and muscle control is lost in the affected area as nerves are damaged or severed and fail to grow back completely. The regeneration of the nerve cells can be promoted by treating the nerves with nerve conduits. Nerve conduits are hollow cylinders of bio-compatible materials that can be surgically implanted to the disconnected nerve to promote and direct the growth of nerves. The objectives of this research are to investigate the ability of nerve conduits treated with layer-by-layer coatings to promote the growth of Schwann cells, to …

Peptoid-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles For Zika Virus Envelope Protein Detection, Meagan Olsen

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Detection and identification of viral pathogens is essential in providing effective and rapid medical treatment. Well-established detection methods can be expensive, slow, and sometimes unable to provide the needed sensitivity and specificity. The Zika virus is one clinically relevant pathogen that cannot be easily identified due to cross-reactivity with other viruses from the same family. Electrochemical sensors enhanced with peptoid-functionalized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are an alternative to traditional techniques that offers rapid, accurate, label-free pathogen detection for point-of-care diagnostics. To this end, a peptoid capable of binding to the Zika virus envelope protein was developed and its binding affinity for …

Evaluating The Effects Of Wood Source On The Physicochemical Properties Of Crosslinked Cellulose Nanocrystals, Helena Tchoungang Nkeumen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cellulose is an abundant and naturally occurring biopolymer that has been used by humans for food, shelter, and clothing for about two centuries now. Highly crystalline nanoparticles derived from cellulose, called cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), show great potential to meet the rising need for sustainable and nontoxic materials for biomedical applications. However, multiple biomedical applications of CNCs, such as those involving their use in tissue engineering scaffolds, require CNC-based structures to be stable in aqueous environments, a property that native CNCs do not possess due to their inherent hydrophilicity. Chemical crosslinking of CNCs addresses this issue by providing aqueous stability to …

Design And Control Of A Peristaltic Pump To Simulate Left Atrial Pressure In A Conductive Silicone Model, Jeremy Collins

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

According to the CDC, atrial fibrillation is responsible for more than 454,000 hospitalizations and approximately 158,000 deaths per year. A common treatment for atrial fibrillation is catheter ablation, a process in which a long flexible tube is guided through the femoral artery and to the source of arrhythmia in the heart, where it measures the electrical potential at various locations and converts problematic heart tissue to scar tissue via ablation. This paper details the design and control of a low-cost ($400) peristaltic pump system using repetitive control to replicate blood pressure in the left atrium in a conductive silicone model …

Peptoid-Based Microsphere Coatings For Biomaterial Applications, Jesse Leland Roberts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peptoids are peptidomimetic oligomers that predominantly harness similarities to peptides for biomimetic functionality. The incorporation of chiral, aromatic side chains in the peptoid sequence allows for the formation of distinct secondary structures and self-assembly into supramolecular assemblies, including microspheres. Peptoid microspheres can be coated onto substrates for potential use in biosensor technologies, tissue engineering platforms, and drug-delivery systems. They have the potential for use in biomedical applications due to their resistance to proteolytic degradation and low immunogenicity. This dissertation focuses on the physical characteristics and robustness of the peptoid microsphere coatings in various physiological conditions, along with their ability to …

Surface-Eroding Drug Delivery Films For Sequential And/Or Intermittent Release Of Psychoactive Drugs, Jason Price

Honors Theses

ABSTRACT JASON BLAKE PRICE: Surface-Eroding Drug Delivery Films for Sequential and/or

Intermittent Release of Psychoactive Drugs For patients with psychiatric diseases, adherence to medication schedules, medication

errors, and abuse are common issues. Promising new forms of therapy for these patients, such as micro-dosed lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), where patients receive 10-20% of a full dose every third day, present further drug delivery challenges. Sequential or intermittent release of drugs from an implanted device could ensure long-term drug compliance, automate drug dosing during the life of the implant, and eliminate potential for abuse and medication errors. To this end, we generated …

Computational Bone Mechanics Modeling With Frequency Dependent Rheological Properties And Crosslinking, Timothy G. Moreno

Master's Theses

Bone is a largely bipartite viscoelastic composite. Its mechanical behavior is determined by strain rate and the relative proportions of its principal constituent elements, hydroxyapatite and collagen, but is also largely dictated by their geometry and topology. Collagen fibrils include many segments of tropocollagen in staggered, parallel sequences. The physical staggering of this tropocollagen allows for gaps known as hole-zones, which serve as nucleation points for apatite mineral. The distance between adjacent repeat units of tropocollagen is known as D-Spacing and can be measured by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). This D-Spacing can vary in length slightly within a bundle, but …

Development Of The Cell-Free Protein Biomanufacturing Platform For The Therapeutic Human Protein Production And The Topical Delivery Applications Using The Nanosized Hydrogel System, Jeehye Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Proteins are highly structural polymers, performing an enormous range of roles within organisms. Unlike synthetic polymers, proteins have a significant hierarchical ordering that can be disrupted by many environmental factors, which limits the scale-up manufacturing capability as well as the utilization of proteins as therapeutic agents. In this study, the Cell-Free Protein Synthesis (CFPS) system was developed to enhance the production capacity and applications of the therapeutic proteins. The CFPS is an advanced biosynthetic and genetic-engineered system. It enables the efficient production of proteins when the conventional cell-based protein synthesis systems cannot be applied, and when sophisticated control is required …

Liposomal Delivery Of Remdesivir For Localized And Targeted Treatment Of Covid-19, Anupama Melam

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Liposomal delivery of Remdesivir for localized and targeted treatment of COVID-19

COVID-19 is a serious, and in many cases lethal, disease that is caused by infection of the upper respiratory tract by the novel betacoronavirus, SARS-Cov-2 virus. This disease has a very high mortality rate and has affected the world in a global pandemic. SARS-Cov-2 binds to the ACE2 receptor via the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in the S protein. After this, the virus fuses with the cell membrane by the formation of a six-helix bundle. Thus, the S protein plays a major role in ensuring that the virus attaches to …

Development Of Light Actuated Chemical Delivery Platform On A 2-D Array Of Micropore Structure, Hojjat Rostami Azmand, Hojjat Rostami Azmand

Dissertations and Theses

Localized chemical delivery plays an essential role in the fundamental information transfers within biological systems. Thus, the ability to mimic the natural chemical signal modulation would provide significant contributions to understand the functional signaling pathway of biological cells and develop new prosthetic devices for neurological disorders. In this paper, we demonstrate a light-controlled hydrogel platform that can be used for localized chemical delivery in a high spatial resolution. By utilizing the photothermal behavior of graphene-hydrogel composites confined within micron-sized fluidic channels, patterned light illumination creates the parallel and independent actuation of chemical release in a group of fluidic ports. The …

A Mechanism Behind The Mechanotransduction Of Surface Characteristics In Osteoblasts, Otto J. Juhl Iv

Theses and Dissertations

Biomaterials for use in bone regeneration and healing range from metal and metal alloy implants to hydrogel-based solutions. These materials can be optimized to increase bone healing and integration by improving the mechanical and biological properties. Regardless of the material itself, the cell-substrate interaction is key to the success of the biomaterial once implanted. Substrate surface characteristics such as roughness, wettability, and particle density are well-known contributors to a substrate’s overall osteogenic potential, and therefore the substrate's overall success. Unfortunately, it is still unknown how these substrate surface characteristics are transduced into intracellular signals by cells, preventing specific tailoring of …

Nature-Inspired Material Strategies Towards Functional Devices, Sayantan Pradhan

Theses and Dissertations

Naturally sourced, renewable biomaterials possess outstanding advantages for a multitude of biomedical applications owing to their biodegradability, biocompatibility, and excellent mechanical properties. Of interest in this dissertation are silk (protein) and chitin (polysaccharide) biopolymers for the fabrication of functional biodevices. One of the major challenges restricting these materials beyond their traditional usage as passive substrate materials is the ability to combine them with high-resolution fabrication techniques. Initial research work is directed towards the fabrication of micropatterned, flexible 2D substrates of silk fibroin and chitin using bench-top photolithographic techniques. Research is focused on imparting electrochemical properties to silk proteins using conducting …

Complementary Techniques To Study The Behavior Of Water And The Effect On Diffusion And Degradation In Hydrogels, Paige Rockwell

Master’s Theses

Hydrogels exhibit biocompatibility in a range of biomedical applications, including drug delivery. This thesis aims to develop complementary techniques to measure the diffusion and degradation behaviors within an injectable, hydrolytically degradable hydrogel, formed via the covalent crosslinking of ethoxylated trimethylolpropane tri-3- mercaptopropionate (ETTMP) and poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA), to determine its suitability as a drug delivery matrix. The characterization of water as either free, within the network openings of the hydrogel, or bound, tightly associated with the polymer chains, was determined using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The mobility of each type of water within the hydrogels was determined via nuclear …