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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Controlled Migration Of Retinal Progenitor Cells Within Electro-Chemotactic Fields, Shawn Mishra Jan 2019

Controlled Migration Of Retinal Progenitor Cells Within Electro-Chemotactic Fields, Shawn Mishra

Dissertations and Theses

Vision loss in retinal degenerative diseases is overwhelmingly attributed to damage and death of retinal photoreceptor cells. Studies in mouse retina have suggested that transplantation of isolated post-natal or stem cell-derived retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) to replace apoptotic or damaged photoreceptors may be a novel approach to restore vision. Thus far, outcomes project that the amount of restored visual response depends upon the migration of transplanted cells from insertion in the sub-retinal space to the outer nuclear layer (ONL). However, transplantation efficiency is exceedingly low – ~5% cells transplanted enter the retina – directly limiting the efficacy of the treatments. …


Neuron-Glial (Ng) Interactions: A Microfluidic Examination Of Ng Emergent Responses For Repair, Tanya Singh Jan 2019

Neuron-Glial (Ng) Interactions: A Microfluidic Examination Of Ng Emergent Responses For Repair, Tanya Singh

Dissertations and Theses

Neuron-glia communication is crucial to the development, plasticity, and repair of the nervous system (NS). While neurons are well known to conduct electrical impulses that transfer biological information and stimuli throughout the NS, our understanding of the roles of glia continues to evolve from when the cells were largely believed to act solely for neuronal support. Recent decades of research has shown that glia can alter metabolism, conduct impulses and change phenotype for NS repair. NG interactions have, thereby, become heavily researched in varied areas of biomedical engineering, including embryogenesis, neural regeneration, growth, and intracellular synaptic activity. However, while NG …


Microfluidic Study Of Gravity-Driven Drainage And Coalescence Of Aqueous Two Dimensional Foams, Justin D. Heftel Jan 2019

Microfluidic Study Of Gravity-Driven Drainage And Coalescence Of Aqueous Two Dimensional Foams, Justin D. Heftel

Dissertations and Theses

Foams, a two-phase dispersion, are staples of the cosmetic, personal care, petroleum, pharmaceutical, and other industries. Central to these applications is the stability of the dispersion against separation. Foams break down by two mechanisms: the first is bubble coalescence, which is driven by the gravity drainage of the continuous phase. The drainage acts to push the bubbles against each other, and leads to the formation of thin lamellae, which break and cause the coalescence. The second is the mass transfer of the dispersed phase through the continuous phase, which is caused by the difference in pressures between the bubbles and …


Collective Behavior Of Drosophila Melanogaster Neural Progenitor And Imaginal Disc Cells Within Controlled Microenvironments, Caroline D. Pena Jan 2019

Collective Behavior Of Drosophila Melanogaster Neural Progenitor And Imaginal Disc Cells Within Controlled Microenvironments, Caroline D. Pena

Dissertations and Theses

Regenerative therapies for the damaged visual system have introduced stem-derived cells to recapitulate developmental processes and initiate functional regeneration in different components of the eye. The developing visual system in Drosophila Melanogaster offers a model in which to analyze the associated processes in retinogenesis. The optic nerve is critical to vision and is developmentally preceded in Drosophila by a structure called the Optic Stalk (OS). Collective migration of neural and retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) from the developing brain lobes (DBL) to the Imaginal Disc (ID), through the OS, is a fundamental part of regenerative strategies in retina. Developmental signals governing …