Engineering Commons^™

Machine Learning Offers Predictive Insight Into The Silver Nanomaterial Protein Corona, Matthew Findlay

Bioengineering Senior Theses

The use of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) in consumer and commercial products is increasing rapidly. The small size and high surface reactivity of ENMs gives them a range of attractive properties, and allows them to be incorporated into various materials. These properties make ENMs very appealing to modern industry, but also make ENMs toxic, causing serious health and environmental concerns. This toxicity is largely driven by the formation of a protein corona on the surface of ENMs. This protein corona is caused by proteins encountered in biological systems that bind to the surface of (ENMs). Despite the importance of the protein …

Exosome Membrane Bound Tnf-Receptor For The Treatment Of Rheumatoid Arthritis, Natalie Duong, Kevin Curley

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes painful inflammation of the synovium of the patient’s joints. However, current treatments for RA have a variety of drawbacks. They often are ineffective, expensive, invasive, risky, cause an immune response, and/ or only provide short term relief. Thus, we developed a new treatment for preventing inflammation: TNF-receptors anchored onto exosome surfaces. Exosomes are nanovesicles that are naturally secreted by most of the cells in our bodies. The many benefits of using exosomes include non-immunogenicity, natural stability in the body, and non-invasiveness. We have demonstrated that exosome membrane bound TNF-receptors have the …

Portable, Powerless Automation Of Valve Actuation For Microfluidic Large Scale Integration Technology, Andrew Schmidt, Matthew Fitzgerald

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Microfluidic large-scale integration (mLSI) is an emerging field that has the potential to fully automate the biological experimentation and technology development. mLSI offers high-throughput, while maintaining reduced costs and sample size in biochemical tests and experiments. The pneumatic control systems, and the use of solenoid valves that are needed for mLSI make this technology bulky and limits its use to specialized labs. Moreover, since the field is relatively new, few scientists are trained in microfluidic chip design and microfabrication. Eliminating the peripheral equipment from standard testing protocol will allow mLSI to be used in point-of-care settings and more widespread usage …

Phosphate Contaminant Detection In Water Through A Paper-Based Microfluidic Device, Brandon Miura, Alex Wagner, Philip Wu

Bioengineering Senior Theses

This report describes a project aimed at developing a low-cost, portable, on-site, user-friendly system for detecting different concentrations of phosphate in drinking water. Phosphate is a natural chemical, but toxic in large concentrations; detection is therefore important to avoid drinking contaminated water. Despite this fact, no cheap, and/or nontoxic system for phosphate detection is yet on the market.

The detection system utilizes a paper-based microfluidic device to automate the electrochemical detection process, which normally requires expert use of lab equipment. When combined with a portable potentiostat that works with a mobile app, the device will allow untrained users to determine …

Exploration Of Sortase A-Inhibitor Binding Mechanisms Through Isothermal Titration Calorimetry, Eddy Liu

Bioengineering Master's Theses

The enzyme Sortase A plays a critical role in the virulence of gram-positive bacteria, facilitating their ability to attach to and infect host tissues. Because of its accessible location on the surface of bacteria and in light of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains, Sortase A has become an important target for novel drugs and their associated research. Here we investigate the thermodynamic characteristics and binding mechanism of Sortase A and inhibitors using isothermal titration calorimetry. The results support a two-step, sequential binding mechanism involving induced fit and conformational change. We recommend that further studies involving other small molecule inhibitors …

Vital Sensory Kit For Use With Telemedicine In Developing Countries, Alejandra Pacheco, Jose Hernandez, Antonio Maldonado-Liu, Natalie Arrizon

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

In many developing countries, a large percentage of the population lacks access to adequate healthcare. This is especially true in India where close to 70% of the population lives in rural areas and has little to no access to hospitals or clinics. People living in rural India often times cannot afford to pay to see a doctor should they need to make the journey to a hospital. Telemedicine, a breakthrough in the past couple decades, has broken down the barrier between the patient and the physician. It has slowly been implemented in India to make doctors more available to patients …

Engineering Synthetic Antibody By Expanded Genetic Code, Elizabeth Batiuk, Tracy Nguyen, Casey Kiyohara

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Antibodies are extensively used in research for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes because of their unrivaled specificity and biomarker binding strengths.1 Currently, monoclonal antibodies are most commonly used because of their production consistency and purity.1 However, there are significant ethical and economic challenges associated with producing monoclonal antibodies.¹ Synthetic antibodies provide a promising alternative to monoclonal antibodies in both clinical and research applications.²

Our proposed synthetic antibody system incorporates 3,4-dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine (L-DOPA), an unnatural amino acid used to increase binding affinity, into a peptide sequence specific for the prostate specific antigen (PSA), a biomarker for prostate cancer. This addition is …

Droplet-Microfluidic Device For The Characterization Of Perfluorinated Emulsions, Daniel Horvath, Nam Ahn Tran

Bioengineering Senior Theses

Microfluidics is being used throughout academia and industry today to perform large numbers of experiments with extremely small volumes of fluids. By doing this, those that study microfluidics hope to raise through-put, lower cost and limit the environmental impact of scientific research.2 Complementing the increased use of microfluidics, the use of perfluorinated emulsions in the field of droplet-based microfluidics is also experiencing large growth.3 However, many of the products available today are either proprietary and/or poorly understood. While some chemical structures are known, some of the most scientifically intriguing perfluorinated oils and surfactants do not have their chemical structures or …

Effect Of Crosslinker Length On The Elastic And Compression Modulus Of Poly(Acrylamide) Nanocomposite Hydrogels, Josergio Zaragoza, A. Chang, Prashanth Asuri

Bioengineering

Polymer hydrogelshave shown to exhibit improved properties upon the addition of nanoparticles; however, the mechanical underpinnings behind these enhancements have not been fully elucidated. Moreover, fewer studies have focused on developing an understanding of how polymer parameters affect the nanoparticle-mediated enhancements. In this study, we investigated the elastic properties of silica nanoparticle-reinforced poly(acrylamide) hydrogels synthesized using crosslinkers of various lengths. Crosslinker length positively affected the mechanical properties of hydrogels that were synthesized with or without nanoparticles. However the degree of nanoparticle enhancement was negatively correlated to crosslinker length. Our findings enable the understanding of the respective roles of nanoparticle and …