Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Low Intensity Vibrations Restore Nuclear Yap Levels And Acute Yap Nuclear Shuttling In Mesenchymal Stem Cells Subjected To Simulated Microgravity, Matt Thompson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The bone deterioration that astronauts experience in microgravity environments is known to occur in response to the lack of gravity-based tissue stress. Mechanical forces are crucial to maintain healthy bone mass by regulating the function of bone-making osteoblasts as well as the proliferation and differentiation of their progenitors, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) which replenish osteoblastic cells. Regulation of proliferative function of MSCs in response to mechanical force is in part controlled by the “mechanotransducer” protein YAP (Yes-associated protein) which is shuttled into the nucleus in response to mechanical challenge to induce gene expression necessary for cell proliferation. Our group had …

Micro-Biosensor Devices For Biochemical Analysis Applications, Han Zhang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A biosensor is an analytical device integrating a biological element and a physicochemical transducer that convert a biological response into a measurable signal. The advantages of biosensors include low cost, small size, quick, sensitivity and selectivity greater than the conventional instruments. Biosensors have a wide range of applications ranging from clinical diagnostics through to environmental monitoring, agriculture industry, et al.

The different types of biosensors are classified based on the sensor device as well as the biological material. Biosensors can be broadly classified into (piezoelectric, etc.), electrochemical biosensors (potentiometric, amperometric, etc.), and optical types of biosensors (fiber optics, etc.).

Here, …

Determination Of Gas Emission Characteristics From Animal Wastes Using A Multiplexed Portable Ftir-Surface Chamber System, Pakorn Sutitarnnontr

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Livestock production is a growing source of air pollution at regional, national, and global scales. Improved livestock manure management has the potential to reduce environmental impacts; however, there is an urgent need for cost-efficient, reliable, and easy to maintain measurement and monitoring capabilities to precisely quantify emissions from livestock manure. This research describes and evaluates a novel measurement method based on the multiplexed portable Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analyzer - surface chamber techniques for continuous measurements and monitoring gas emissions from manure sources. The multiplexing system was designed and developed to automate the chamber network, controlling the movement of …

Development And Validation Of A Synchronous Model To Simulate Skeletal Muscle Damage Due To Spaceflight Ionizing Radiation And Microgravity, Lori M. Caldwell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Astronauts traveling or researching in space are subject to a harsh environment that includes high levels of ionizing radiation and microgravity. Ionizing radiation is dangerous to overall health because it causes double-stranded DNA breaks, increases the production of free radicals or reactive oxygen species, and leads to an enhanced risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer over a person’s lifetime. Similarly, microgravity is hazardous to astronaut health because humans require gravity to maintain a healthy heart and muscular and vascular systems.

Both ionizing radiation and microgravity have been studied individually in previous research, but there is a lack of information on …

Observation Of Struvite In The Mixed Microalgae Biofilm Matrix Of A Rotating Algal Biofilm Reactor During Nutrient Removal From Municipal Anaerobic Digester Filtrate, Kyle M. Hillman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility (CVWRF) in Salt Lake City is the largest municipal wastewater treatment plant in Utah and must meet new and rigorous nutrient effluent standards–over 95% reduction in phosphorus output by 2025. Filtrate from CVWRF anaerobic digesters contains high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and magnesium. Supersaturation of these constituents leads to nuisance struvite precipitation that clogs belts, pumps, and pipes downstream of anaerobic digesters. Struvite is a mineral precipitate composed of equimolar magnesium, ammonium, and phosphate. Controlled precipitation of struvite helps prevent clogging and scaling, removes phosphate from wastewater, and generates a marketable fertilizer product.

Struvite was …

Mechanical Analysis Of In Vitro Tbi Models, Dana Hamed

Honors Scholar Theses

This work details the damage done to cells when mechanically hit. The goal was to mechanically analyze in vitro traumatic brain injury (TBI) models. Parts were designed in SolidWorks to create the machine that is used to induce this damage on the cells. A force applicator that uses a 3D-printed micro-hammer to apply force on the brain cells that are being tested was created. Mechanical trauma experimentation was performed with the force applicator, while a high-speed camera recorded the damage, in order to analyze TBI models. Displacement along the scaffold can be tracked from multiple video frames. With these results, …

Designing An Antibiotic Eluting Trauma Screw To Reduce Short Term Infection In Bone Fractures, Dominic Lincoln

Honors Theses

Orthopedic infection in the United States is one of the most common and severe health risks faced by trauma patients. The most prevalent infection is orthopedic and trauma device-related infection (ORDI) and often occurs in long bones at the fracture site. The purpose of this paper is to explore this infection, its causes, and solutions currently on the market while providing novel solutions to the problem. The designs proposed will be evaluated for their effectiveness and value, while attempting to keep costs low for all stakeholders. The feasibility of patenting these ideas will also be considered, as will the testing …

Otx2 Represses Sister Cell Fate Choices In The Developing Retina To Promote Photoreceptor Specification, Miruna Georgiana Ghinia Tegla, Diego F. Buenaventura, Diana Y. Kim, Cassandra Thakurdin, Kevin C. Gonzalez, Mark M. Emerson

Publications and Research

During vertebrate retinal development, subsets of progenitor cells generate progeny in a non-stochastic manner, suggesting that these decisions are tightly regulated. However, the gene-regulatory network components that are functionally important in these progenitor cells are largely unknown. Here we identify a functional role for the OTX2 transcription factor in this process. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing was used to produce somatic mutations of OTX2 in the chick retina and identified similar phenotypes to those observed in human patients. Single cell RNA sequencing was used to determine the functional consequences OTX2 gene editing on the population of cells derived from OTX2-expressing retinal progenitor …

Optimizing Athletic Throwing Power For Increased Training Efficiency, Ian Ghanavati, Curtis Tomasevicz

UCARE: Research Products

A summary on the investigation of the mechanics of weighted baseball pitching.

• The demand for higher pitch velocity has increased at all levels of competitive play within baseball • Weighted baseball training programs are a common way to increase pitch velocity • The efficacy and safety of weighted ball throwing is not fully understood • The aim of this study is to further investigate the mechanics of pitching under and overweight balls in order to better understand their role in athletic training

Synthetic Lethality In Pediatric Brain Cancer Cells By Optimized Plga Nanoparticles And Drug Combinations, Megan Ruckman, Megan Otte, Forrest Kievit

UCARE: Research Products

Here we test drugs effectiveness to inhibit various DNA repair pathways with the purpose of sensitizing cancer cells to radiotherapy. We work on optimizing delivery of DNA repair pathway inhibiting drugs by the use of PLGA nanoparticles.

Combining Eye Tracking And Verbal Response To Understand The Impact Of A Global Filter, Franceli L. Cibrian, Jazette Johnson, Viseth Sean, Hollis Pass, Louanne Boyd

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Visual attention guides the integration of two streams: the global, that rapidly processes the scene; and the local, that processes details. For people with autism, the integration of these two streams can be disrupted by the tendency to privilege details (local processing) instead of seeing the big picture (global processing). Consequently, people with autism may struggle with typical visual attention, evidenced by their verbal description of local features when asked to describe overall scenes. This paper aims to explore how one adult with autism see and understand the global filter of natural scenes.

Acute Mechanical Stress In Primary Porcine Rpe Cells Induces Angiogenic Factor Expression And In Vitro Angiogenesis, Farhad Farjood, Amir Ahmadpour, Sassan Ostvar, Elizabeth Vargis

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Background

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is a major cause of blindness in patients with age-related macular degeneration. CNV is characterized by new blood vessel growth and subretinal fluid accumulation, which results in mechanical pressure on retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. The overexpression of RPE-derived angiogenic factors plays an important role in inducing CNV. In this work, we investigated the effect of mechanical stress on the expression of angiogenic factors in porcine RPE cells and determined the impact of conditioned medium on in-vitro angiogenesis.

Results

The goal of this study was to determine whether low levels of acute mechanical stress during early …

Transcranial Electrical Stimulation Motor Threshold Can Estimate Individualized Tdcs Dosage From Reverse-Calculation Electric-Field Modeling, Kevin A. Caulfield, Bashar W. Badran, William H. Devries, Philipp M. Summers, Emma Kofmehl, Xingbao Li, Jeffrey J. Borckardt, Marom Bikson, Mark S. George

Publications and Research

Background

Unique amongst brain stimulation tools, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) currently lacks an easy or widely implemented method for individualizing dosage.

Objective

We developed a method of reverse-calculating electric-field (E-field) models based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans that can estimate individualized tDCS dose. We also evaluated an MRI-free method of individualizing tDCS dose by measuring transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) motor threshold (MT) and single pulse, suprathreshold transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) MT and regressing it against E-field modeling. Key assumptions of reverse-calculation E-field modeling, including the size of region of interest (ROI) analysis and the linearity of multiple E-field …

Multiphysics Computational Model Of Fluid Flow And Mass Transfer In Aneurysm, Tanja Cupac

Graduate Student Research Symposium

The abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) mostly affects men between the ages 65-85 and is very common with more than 3 million cases in the United States per year. AAA is defined as the weakening of the arterial wall producing a blood-filled bulge in the body’s largest blood vessel. AAA is progressive, asymptomatic, and can eventually lead to rupture which is a catastrophic event leading to massive internal bleeding and possibly death. Of the males within this age range, 1-3% will die from this disease. About 75% of AAA cases will be characterized by the development of an intraluminal thrombus (ILT). …

Laser Micropatterning Effects On Corrosion Resistance Of Pure Magnesium Surfaces, Yahya Efe Yayoglu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Magnesium and its alloys are good candidates to manufacture medical implants. They have excellent biocompatibility and because they biodegrade secondary surgical operation to remove the implant could be eliminated. However, in aqueous environments, magnesium alloys rapidly corrode, resulting in premature degradation of the implant along with biologically intolerable hydrogen gas generation. In literature, there are multiple studies focused on creating water repelling hydrophobic magnesium surfaces in order to decrease corrosion rates. Hydrophobic properties can be achieved by creation of a roughness profile on an initially smooth surface combined with a treatment that reduces the free surface energy. In theory, hydrophobic …

Inducing Increased Bioplastic Production In R. Palustris Cga009, Cameron Gilley, Dylan Hoppner, Brandi J. Brown

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

PHA’s (polyhydroxyalkanoates) are important bio polymers in different industries such as petroleum, medicine, and nano technology. In the microorganisms in which they are produced, they serve as an energy storage material by storing both carbon and usable electrons. This is useful in environments where the organisms are nutrient starved. PHA’s have a practical use especially in the medical field as bio-plastics because they are biodegradable and bio-compatible. Rhodopseudomonas. palustris, a common soil bacterium, is notable for its uncommon metabolic flexibility. Its diverse metabolism means that it can fix CO 2 and grow on many lignin based monomers in both aerobic …

Biomimetic Gold Nanoshell-Loaded Macrophage For Photothermal Biomedicine, Sung Hun Kang, Yong Kyu Lee, Il Seok Park, In-Kyu Park, Seok Min Hong, Soon Young Kwon, Young Hee Choi, Steen J. Madsen, Henry Hirschberg, Seok Jin Hong

Integrated Health Sciences Faculty Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of photothermal treatment (PTT) with gold nanoshell (ANS) using a macrophage-mediated delivery system in a head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cell line. To achieve this, ANS-loaded rat macrophages (ANS-MAs) were prepared via the coculture method with ANS. The human HNSCC (FaDu cell) and macrophage (rat macrophage; NR8383 cell) hybrid spheroid models were generated by the centrifugation method to determine the possibility of using ANS-MAs as a cancer therapy. These ANS-MAs were set into the tumor and macrophage hybrid spheroid model to measure PTT efficacy. Kinetic analysis of the …

Biomimetic Gold Nanoshell-Loaded Macrophage For Photothermal Biomedicine, Sung Hun Kang, Yong Kyu Lee, Il Seok Park, In-Kyu Park, Seok Min Hong, Soon Young Kwon, Young Hee Choi, Steen J. Madsen, Henry Hirschberg, Seok Jin Hong

Integrated Health Sciences Faculty Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of photothermal treatment (PTT) with gold nanoshell (ANS) using a macrophage-mediated delivery system in a head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cell line. To achieve this, ANS-loaded rat macrophages (ANS-MAs) were prepared via the coculture method with ANS. The human HNSCC (FaDu cell) and macrophage (rat macrophage; NR8383 cell) hybrid spheroid models were generated by the centrifugation method to determine the possibility of using ANS-MAs as a cancer therapy. These ANS-MAs were set into the tumor and macrophage hybrid spheroid model to measure PTT efficacy. Kinetic analysis of the …

Quantification Of Phenotypic Change Resulting In Sensitization Of Primary Sensory Neurons Due To Oxidative Stress, Adan Redwine, Sarah M. Romereim, Rebecca A. Wachs

UCARE: Research Products

84% of the population will suffer from low back pain at some point in their lives, and 39% of the cases may be related to pain originating from the intervertebral disc (IVD) also known as discogenic pain. Age or injury can cause progressive degeneration of the IVD, and this can allow innervation by nociceptive (pain-sensing) neurons from the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) into the inner IVD.⁶ Long-term exposure to pain-inducing stimuli can cause nociceptor sensitization, manifested as increased pain sensation in response to non-painful or painful stimuli.⁷ Sensitization results in the nociceptors responding more strongly to a stimulus, …

Manipulation And Patterning Of Mammalian Cells Using Vibrations And Acoustic Forces, Joel Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently, there has been a surge in researchers and scientists investigating different methods which move, manipulate, and pattern biological cells. Multiple different mechanisms can be used for cellular manipulation, microfluidics, biochemical queues, and even optics, just to name a few. However, all techniques have their downsides. A majority of these methods require expensive equipment or reagents and can only manipulate a small number of cells at a time.

Some of the most common cell manipulation devices utilize acoustic pressure waves to move the cells to desired locations. Currently, it is unknown what level of force from these types of devices …