Engineering Commons^™

Cell Bioprinting: A Novel Approach For Alpha Cell To Beta Cell Transdifferentiation, Atzimba Casas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs in the body when the pancreas fails to either produce insulin (TID) or does not effectively use the insulin produced (TIID) and poses further health complications as well as an insurmountable economic impact.[1] Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease characterized by a deficient amount of insulin production on account of the body’s immune system destroying its own β-cells.[2] Current diabetes treatment methods include the administration of insulin via injections or islet transplantation therapy. However, although both are viable options, they come with limitations that make the managing of this disease difficult. It …

Engineering Cardiac Tissues With Three-Dimensional Bioprinting For Biomedical Applications, Matthew Alonzo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The role of a biomedical engineer is to solve unmet health-related needs that face society. For the past couple of decades, heart disease (HD) has remained the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The disease is characterized by various pathologies that affect the heart. Indeed, malfunction of one of the bodyâ??s most vital organs is bound to manifest poor health and even death in patients. Despite advances in medicine and technology, heart disease continues to be prevalent and diminishes the quality of life for many around the world. Certainly, there exists a need for developing new tools to better …

Design And Characterization Of Thermal Inkjet Bioprinted Constructs For The Treatment Of Diabetic Foot Ulcers And Other Wound Healing Impaired Conditions, Luis Horacio Solis

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tissue engineering (TE) is a multidisciplinary practice focused on developing patient-specific constructs to repair, regenerate, or replace injured tissues and organs. One biofabrication process that has gained tremendous momentum in this field is bioprinting. Most, if not all bioprinting modalities embody the same principles of heat and shear due to mechanical forces or friction as cells are forced through narrow orifices. While it is important to examine the interaction between host and implanted constructs, it is also crucial to understand the direct effects that these bioprinting technologies have on cells before embedding them into TE applications.

The purpose of this …

Stem Cell Induction Via Inkjet-Mediated Gene Transfection, Gilbert Paquian Jr.

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In 2009 and 2011, it was shown that micropores in the cell membrane that form during inkjet cell printing are a potential vector for gene transfection1,2. These papers showed that porcine aortic endothelial cells and Chinese hamster ovary cells were coprinted with green fluorescent protein-coding (GFP) plasmids onto collagen or gelatin "biopaper" substrates. Printed cells showed a viability of ~90% with transfection efficiencies ranging from 2-30%1,2. Using inkjet-mediated gene transfection (IMGT) to insert a plasmid coding for the Yamanaka stem cell induction factors, it may be possible to offset common drawbacks of the induction process, such as low efficiency, throughput, …

Inkjet Bioprinting Of Solid Peroxides For Constructing Oxygen Generating Scaffolds To Improve Cells Viability And Growth Under Hypoxic Environment, Daniel Reyna Soriano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tissue engineering has emerged as an interdisciplinary field to overcome current challenges for tissue repair or replacement in the human body. In essence, it proposes new medical therapies customized to match the biology of specific patients. The potential benefits offered by tissue engineering have driven scientific inquiry to make it a clinical reality.

One of the current challenges in tissue engineering is to provide oxygen supply to thick tissues as oxygen diffusion is limited to 100 - 200 µm layer of viable tissue. Engineered vascular conduits are applied in vitro, providing pre-vascularization to tissues; however, host anastomosis is still a …

Inkjet Based Personalized Screening Platform For Cancer Therapy, Jorge Ivan Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The new paradigm of personalized medicine is beginning to affect clinical practice. In particular, many of the advances in genomics and proteomics have made personalized screening and therapeutic inventions possible. On chip, cellomics approaches to screening and intervention are becoming more commonplace. Cancer therapies may benefit from the rise in `-omics' technologies. In addition, the availability of rapid screening data is crucial to mitigate cancer propagation and increase the possibility of patient recovery. This study is an endeavor to develop a cellomic anticancer drug screening process based on inkjet printing. Previous research has demonstrated that inkjet based screening can reliably …

Bioprinting Oxygen Releasing Microparticles For Improved Cell Tissue Viability, Daniel Reyna

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A major challenge in regenerative medicine/tissue engineering is the difficulty of providing adequate oxygen to all cells within implanted engineered tissues before full vascularization is achieved. To overcome this limitation, a variety of oxygen-releasing particles have been developed to improve cell and tissue survival. However, most of these particles are used in random mixtures within scaffolding materials, which usually leads to an uneven distribution of oxygen in bioengineered tissues. An ideal oxygen supply requires a precise depositing control of oxygen-releasing particles in scaffolds. Cell bioprinting is a novel tissue fabrication approach, in which the bio-printer can be programmed to deposit …