Biomedical Commons^™

Pneumatospinning Of Collagen Microfibers From Benign Solvents, Seth Polk, Nardos Sori, Nick Thayer, Yas Maghdouri-White, Anna A. Bulysheva, Michael P. Francis

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Introduction. Current collagen fiber manufacturing methods for biomedical applications, such as electrospinning and extrusion, have had limited success in clinical translation, partially due to scalability, cost, and complexity challenges. Here we explore an alternative, simplified and scalable collagen fiber formation method, termed 'pneumatospinning,' to generate submicron collagen fibers from benign solvents. Methods and results. Clinical grade type I atelocollagen from calf corium was electrospun or pneumatospun as sheets of aligned and isotropic fibrous scaffolds. Following crosslinking with genipin, the collagen scaffolds were stable in media for over a month. Pneumatospun collagen samples were characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, circular dichroism, …

No2- And No3- Enhance Cold Atmospheric Plasma Induced Cancer Cell Death By Generation Of Onoo-, Dehui Xu, Qingjie Cui, Yujing Xu, Zhijie Liu, Zeyu Chen, Wenjie Xia, Hao Zhang, Dingxin Liu, Hailan Chen, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a rapidly developed technology that has been widely applied in biomedicine especially in cancer treatment. Due to the generation of various active species in plasma, CAP could induce various tumor cells death and showed a promising potential in cancer therapy. To enhance the biological effects of gas plasma, changing the discharging parameters is the most commonly used method, yet increasing discharging power will lead to a higher possibility of simultaneously damage surrounding tissues. In this study, by adding nontoxic concentration of additional nitrite and nitrate in the medium, we found that anti-tumor effect of CAP …

Consistent And Reproducible Cultures Of Large-Scale 3d Mammary Epithelial Structures Using An Accessible Bioprinting Platform, John A. Reid, Peter M. Mollica, Robert D. Bruno, Patrick C. Sachs

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Background: Standard three-dimensional (3D) in vitro culture techniques, such as those used for mammary epithelial cells, rely on random distribution of cells within hydrogels. Although these systems offer advantages over traditional 2D models, limitations persist owing to the lack of control over cellular placement within the hydrogel. This results in experimental inconsistencies and random organoid morphology. Robust, high-throughput experimentation requires greater standardization of 3D epithelial culture techniques.

Methods: Here, we detail the use of a 3D bioprinting platform as an investigative tool to control the 3D formation of organoids through the "self-assembly" of human mammary epithelial cells. Experimental bioprinting procedures …

Individualized Clinical Practice Guidelines For Pressure Injury Management: Development Of An Integrated Multi-Modal Biomedical Information Resource, Kathie M. Bogie, Guo-Qiang Zhang, Steven K. Roggenkamp, Ningzhou Zeng, Jacinta Seton, Shiqiang Tao, Arielle L. Bloostein, Jiayang Sun

Institute for Biomedical Informatics Faculty Publications

Background: Pressure ulcers (PU) and deep tissue injuries (DTI), collectively known as pressure injuries are serious complications causing staggering costs and human suffering with over 200 reported risk factors from many domains. Primary pressure injury prevention seeks to prevent the first incidence, while secondary PU/DTI prevention aims to decrease chronic recurrence. Clinical practice guidelines (CPG) combine evidence-based practice and expert opinion to aid clinicians in the goal of achieving best practices for primary and secondary prevention. The correction of all risk factors can be both overwhelming and impractical to implement in clinical practice. There is a need to develop practical …

Voltage Effects On Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor-Mediated Contractions Of Airway Smooth Muscle, Iurii Semenov, Robert Brenner

Bioelectrics Publications

Studies have shown that the activity of muscarinic receptors and their affinity to agonists are sensitive to membrane potential. It was reported that in airway smooth muscle (ASM) depolarization evoked by high K⁺ solution increases contractility through direct effects on M3 muscarinic receptors. In this study, we assessed the physiological relevance of voltage sensitivity of muscarinic receptors on ASM contractility. Our findings reveal that depolarization by high K⁺ solution induces contraction in intact mouse trachea predominantly through activation of acetylcholine release from embedded nerves, and to a lesser extent by direct effects on M3 receptors. We therefore devised …

Moderate Heat Application Enhances The Efficacy Of Nanosecond Pulse Stimulation For The Treatment Of Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Chelsea M. Edelblute, Sigi Guo, Embo Yang, Chunqi Jiang, Karl Schoenbach, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

Nanosecond pulse stimulation as a tumor ablation therapy has been studied for the treatment of various carcinomas in animal models and has shown a significant survival benefit. In the current study, we found that moderate heating at 43°C for 2 minutes significantly enhanced in vitro nanosecond pulse stimulation-induced cell death of KLN205 murine squamous cell carcinoma cells by 2.43-fold at 600 V and by 2.32-fold at 900 V, as evidenced by propidium iodide uptake. Furthermore, the ablation zone in KLN205 cells placed in a 3-dimensional cell-culture model and pulsed at a voltage of 900 V at 43°C was 3 times …

Microfluidic Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy, John J. Foley

Master's Theses

The goal of this study is to design and manufacture a microfluidic device capable of measuring changes in impedance valuesof microfluidic cell cultures. Tocharacterize this, an interdigitated array of electrodes was patterned over glass, where it was then bonded to a series of fluidic networks created in PDMS via soft lithography. The device measured ethanol impedance initially to show that values remain consistent over time. Impedance values of water and 1% wt. saltwater were compared to show that the device is able to detect changes in impedance, with up to a 60% reduction in electrical impedance in saltwater. Cells were …

Accurate Flexible Refinement Of Atomic Models Against Medium-Resolution Cryo-Em Maps Using Damped Dynamics, Julio A. Kovacs, Vitold E. Galkin, Willy Wriggers

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Background: Dramatic progress has recently been made in cryo-electron microscopy technologies, which now make possible the reconstruction of a growing number of biomolecular structures to near-atomic resolution. However, the need persists for fitting and refinement approaches that address those cases that require modeling assistance.

Methods: In this paper, we describe algorithms to optimize the performance of such medium-resolution refinement methods. These algorithms aim to automatically optimize the parameters that define the density shape of the flexibly fitted model, as well as the time-dependent damper cutoff distance. Atomic distance constraints can be prescribed for cases where extra containment of parts of …

Query-Constraint-Based Mining Of Association Rules For Exploratory Analysis Of Clinical Datasets In The National Sleep Research Resource, Rashmie Abeysinghe, Licong Cui

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background: Association Rule Mining (ARM) has been widely used by biomedical researchers to perform exploratory data analysis and uncover potential relationships among variables in biomedical datasets. However, when biomedical datasets are high-dimensional, performing ARM on such datasets will yield a large number of rules, many of which may be uninteresting. Especially for imbalanced datasets, performing ARM directly would result in uninteresting rules that are dominated by certain variables that capture general characteristics.

Methods: We introduce a query-constraint-based ARM (QARM) approach for exploratory analysis of multiple, diverse clinical datasets in the National Sleep Research Resource (NSRR). QARM enables rule mining on …

Compact Hardware Implementation Of A Sha-3 Core For Wireless Body Sensor Networks, Yi Yang, Debiao He, Neeraj Kumar, Sherali Zeadally

Information Science Faculty Publications

One of the most important Internet of Things applications is the wireless body sensor network (WBSN), which can provide universal health care, disease prevention, and control. Due to large deployments of small scale smart sensors in WBSNs, security, and privacy guarantees (e.g., security and safety-critical data, sensitive private information) are becoming a challenging issue because these sensor nodes communicate using an open channel, i.e., Internet. We implement data integrity (to resist against malicious tampering) using the secure hash algorithm 3 (SHA-3) when smart sensors in WBSNs communicate with each other using the Internet. Due to the limited resources (i.e., storage, …

Short-Term Tracking Of Orientation With Inertial Sensors, Golriz Sedaghat

Dissertations and Theses

In the past several years, IMU's have been widely used to measure the orientation of a moving body over a continuous period of time. Although, inertial navigation is a common approach for estimating the orientation, it greatly suffers from the accumulation of error in the orientation estimation. Most of the current common practices apply zero velocity update as a calibration method to address this problem and improve the estimation accuracy. However, this approach requires the sensors to be stationary frequently.

This thesis introduces a novel method of calibration for estimating the elevation and bank angles of the orientation over a …

Developmental Steps For A Functional Three-Dimensional Cell Culture System For The Study Of Asymmetrical Division Of Neural Stem Cells, Martina Zamponi

Biomedical Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Stem cells are a cell type present during and following development, which possess self- renewal properties, as well as the ability to differentiate into specific cells. Asymmetrical division is the cellular process that allows stem cells to produce one differentiated and one un-differentiated daughter cell during the same mitotic event. Insights in the molecular mechanisms of such process are minimal, due to the absence of effective methods for its targeted study. Currently, traditional methods of investigation include monolayer cell culture and animal models. The first poses structural limitations to the accurate representation of human tissue and cell structures, while animal …

Wearable Assistive Technologies For Autism: Opportunities And Challenges, Emma Mansouri Benssassi, Juan-Carlos Gomez, Louanne E. Boyd, Gillian R. Hayes, Juan Ye

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition that affects how people perceive the world and interact with others. Challenges with typical social engagement, common in the autism experience, can have a significant negative impact on the quality of life of individuals and families living with autism. Recent advances in sensing, intelligent, and interactive technologies can enable new forms of assistive and augmentative technologies to support social interactions. However, researchers have not yet demonstrated effectiveness of these technologies in long-term real-world use. This article presents an overview of the social and sensory challenges of autism, which offer great opportunities and challenges for …

New Algorithms For Compressed Sensing Of Mri: Wtwts, Dwts, Wdwts, Srivarna Settisara Janney

Master of Science in Computer Science Theses

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most accurate imaging techniques that can be used to detect several diseases, where other imaging methodologies fail. MRI data takes a longer time to capture. This is a pain taking process for the patients to remain still while the data is being captured. This is also hard for the doctor as well because if the images are not captured correctly then it will lead to wrong diagnoses of illness that might put the patients lives in danger. Since long scanning time is one of most serious drawback of the MRI modality, reducing …

Extended-Use Ecg Monitor, Daniel Aaron Soski

Master's Theses

In this thesis, a prototype ECG monitor was developed that is integrated into an elastic shirt and takes a 3-lead ECG for over 5 days. The high-quality measurements can be used to identify markers indicative of various detrimental heart conditions. Measurements recorded by the device are encrypted and stored onto a micro-SD card. Current Holter monitors are expensive and have functional lives less than 48 hours; however, extended duration monitoring has been proven more useful in diagnosis. The device designed demonstrates that ECG measurements can be taken over longer durations without sacrificing quality, comfort, or device cost.

Adaptation Of Vt-Dbr Lasers For Lidar, Luke Horowitz

Master's Theses

Vernier Tuned Distributed Bragg Reflector (VT-DBR) lasers have had great success in the field of Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT) due to their continuous and nearly 40 nm wavelength tuning range in a single longitudinal mode. Fast sweeps allow for real time imaging with micrometer resolution at a distance of a few centimeters. While this laser has proven quite useful as a medical imaging tool via OCT, it has yet to similarly prove itself for general light detection and ranging (LIDAR) applications due to range limitations that arise from a finite laser coherence length. The goal of this thesis is …

Mechanism Of Virus Inactivation By Cold Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma And Plasma-Activated Water, Li Guo, Ruobing Xu, Lu Gou, Zhichao Liu, Yiming Zhao, Dingxin Liu, Lei Zhang, Hailan Chen, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

ABSTRACT Viruses cause serious pathogenic contamination that severely affects the environment and human health. Cold atmospheric-pressure plasma efficiently inactivates pathogenic bacteria; however, the mechanism of virus inactivation by plasma is not fully understood. In this study, surface plasma in argon mixed with 1% air and plasma-activated water was used to treat water containing bacteriophages. Both agents efficiently inactivated bacteriophages T4, ϕ174, and MS2 in a time-dependent manner. Prolonged storage had marginal effects on the antiviral activity of plasma-activated water. DNA and protein analysis revealed that the reactive species generated by plasma damaged both nucleic acids and proteins, consistent with the …

Subspace Averaging Of Auditory Evoked Potentials, Xiaoliang Wang

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The auditory evoked potential (AEP) is an electric potential generated in the brain in response to auditory stimuli. It has clinical importance in the detection of newborn infant hearing loss. The signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the AEP is low, so signal averaging is typically employed to estimate it. Often, thousands of trials must be averaged before a sufficiently high SNR estimate is obtained.

In this research, we have developed a new AEP averaging method called subspace averaging. The subspace averaging method projects onto the signal subspace: the span of the principal eigenvectors of the signal correlation matrix. The …

Computational Theories For Human Stereo Vision, Han Gao

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Binocular stereopsis refers to the ability to perceive depth, which has always been a central problem in perception since the time of da Vinci. The foremost theoretical difficulty that arises when attempting to understand how the visual system computes disparity is known as the correspondence or matching problem. Decades of research upon macaque primary visual cortex has shown that in each layer of the primary visual cortex (V1) long-range horizontal connections among striate cortex cells exist which integrate information from different parts of the visual field. Inspired by long-range horizontal connections in V1 and the Jeffress model, a time-delay neural …

Optimization Of Gpu-Accelerated Iterative Ct Reconstruction Algorithm For Clinical Use, Tao Ge

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In order to transition the GPU-accelerated CT reconstruction algorithm to a more clinical environment, a graphical user interface is implemented. Some optimization methods on the implementation are presented. We describe the alternating minimization (AM) algorithm as the updating algorithm, and the branchless distance-driven method for the system forward operator. We introduce a version of the Feldkamp-Davis-Kress algorithm to generate the initial image for our alternating minimization algorithm and compare it to a choice of a constant initial image. For the sake of better rate of convergence, we introduce the ordered-subsets method, find the optimal number of ordered subsets, and discuss …