Biological Engineering Commons^™

Preparing Homogenous Composites Of Collagen And Cellulose Nanocrystals For Tissue Engineering Research, Zachary Stanley

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Advancements in medicine and our understanding of stem cells have led to a greater emphasis on further developing research focused on tissue engineering. This research has led to the rise of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional scaffolds that can be utilized to repair bone, skin, vascular, and potentially even nervous tissue. One of the prominent compounds used in modern scaffolds is collagen-based hydrogels due to their low antigenicity and ability to provide structure to cells. There is potential to further improve upon this three-dimensional scaffold by incorporating cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) into a composite hydrogel with collagen. The addition would increase the …

Regenerative Medicine For Tendon/Ligament Injuries: De Novo Equine Tendon/Ligament Neotissue Generation And Application, Takashi Taguchi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tendon and ligament injuries are debilitating conditions across species. Poor regenerative capacities of these tissues limit restoration of original functions. The first study evaluated the effect of cellular administration on tendon/ligament injuries in horses using meta-analysis. The cellular administration was effective in restoring ultrasonographic echogenicity and increasing vascularity during early phase of healing. Additionally, it improved microstructural organization of healed tissue in terms of cellularity and fiber alignment. However, the study did not support its use for increasing rate of return to performance, expression/deposition of tendon-specific genes/proteins, or mechanical properties.

The findings led to the second study that engineered implantable …

Optimizing Treatment Of Cytomegalovirus, Alisa Dabb

Student Research Symposium

The current treatment to Cytomegalovirus, ganciclovir, kills neutrophils, a type of cell in the immune system. In an effort to reduce the concentration of ganciclovir, quercetin and poloxamer 188 have been added in treatment in a cellular and mouse model. This treatment has been successful, but can be further optimized by reworking the ratio of quercetin to poloxamer 188 and by adding vitamin c to prevent oxidation.

Engineered Production Of Bioactive Polyphenolic O-Glycosides, Jie Ren, Caleb Don Barton, Jixun Zhan

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Polyphenolic compounds (such as quercetin and resveratrol) possess potential medicinal values due to their various bioactivities, but poor water solubility hinders their health benefits to humankind. Glycosylation is a well-known post-modification method to biosynthesize natural product glycosides with improved hydrophilicity. Glycosylation has profound effects on decreasing toxicity, increasing bioavailability and stability, together with changing bioactivity of polyphenolic compounds. Therefore, polyphenolic glycosides can be used as food additives, therapeutics, and nutraceuticals. Engineered biosynthesis provides an environmentally friendly and cost-effective approach to generate polyphenolic glycosides through the use of various glycosyltransferases (GTs) and sugar biosynthetic enzymes. GTs transfer the sugar moieties from …

Raman Spectroscopy - An Analytical Tool For Biologics, Cindy Mayorga, Shreya Milind Athalye, Mohit Verma

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Raman Spectroscopy (RS) is a non-invasive technique that analyses biomolecules qualitatively and quantitatively. Raman spectroscopy measures the inelastic scattering of light due to molecular vibrations. It can be applied to liquid, solid, or semi-solid forms of the biological sample reducing the sample preparation measures. The minimal sample preparation and non-invasive nature of Raman Spectroscopy can be applied in developing a Process analytical technology (PAT) tool and as a diagnostic tool. We demonstrated qualitative and quantitative measurements of biologics with Raman spectroscopy through our previous studies. Our results indicate that RS distinguishes various Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, fungi, and a mixture …

Sea-Phages Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience For Creating A Biotechnology Workforce Development Pipeline, Daphne Fauber, Kari Clase, Carol Weaver

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Purdue University has been a member of the SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) program since 2011. This program, created in conjunction with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), facilitates undergraduate curriculum for the authentic discovery of novel bacteriophages within the classroom. Since joining the program, undergraduates at Purdue have harnessed wet lab and bioinformatics principles to contribute over 200 previously uncharacterized bacteriophages and 25 novel genomes to the wider scientific literature. The SEA-PHAGES classes at Purdue have resulted in tangible professional deliverables for students through conference presentations and publications. Student outcomes also include transferable skills …

The Next-Gen Crop Nutrient Stress Identification With High-Precision Sensing Technology In Digital Agriculture, Zhihang Song, Ziling Chen, Xing Wei, Jian Jin

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Crop yields are facing significant losses from nutrient deficiencies. Over-fertilizing also has negative economic and environmental impacts. It is challenging to optimize fertilizing without an accurate diagnosis. Recently, plant phenotyping has demonstrated outstanding capabilities in estimating crop traits. As one of the leading technologies, LeafSpec, provides high-quality crop image data for improving phenotyping quality. In this study, novel algorithms are developed for LeafSpec to identify crop nutrient deficiencies more accurately. Combined with UAV system, this technology will bring growers a robust solution for fertilizing diagnosis and scientific crop management.

Process Intensification Strategies For Green Solvent Mediated Biomass Pretreatment, Ahamed Ullah, Yuxuan Zhang, Can Liu, Qi Qiao, Qing Shao, Jian Shi

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Demonstrated to be highly effective for lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment, deep eutectic solvent (DES) has attracted increasing attention owing to its advantages of simple synthesis, relatively low chemical cost, and better biocompatibility as compared to certain ionic liquids. Here we provide a critical review of the status of the design/selection of DES for the pretreatment of biomass feedstocks with an emphasis on the process intensification strategies: 1) integration of microwave, ultrasound, and high solid extrusion for pretreating biomass, 2) one-pot DES pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation, 3) strategies for DES recycling and product recovery; and 4) recent progress on molecular simulations …

Comparison Of In-Vitro 3d Human Embryoids With Current Models For Gastrulation, Jin Park

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Gastrulation is an early morphogenetic process that is conserved across most metazoans and lays out the future body plan through the formation and shaping of the three germ layers: endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. Despite its importance, not much is known about the events surrounding human gastrulation that occurs in utero due to ethical and technical limitations on studying human embryos. Therefore, many researchers have devised protocols for creating in vitro models of gastrulation using embryonic stem cells. Initially starting with mouse embryonic stem cells, the field of in vitro embryo models has advanced rapidly, with protocols using human embryonic stem …

3-Dimensional Muscle Constructs: Using Hydrogels In Order To Model The Effects Of Exercise In Disease Conditions, Mark Mchargue

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Currently, there is no standard in vitro model for studying the effects of mechanical stimulation on muscle in type II diabetes. Existing models primarily utilize electrical stimulation, which does not fully recapitulate the effects of exercise. In this thesis, we create a standardized in vitro model of murine muscle that can recapitulate the benefits seen in exercise when mechanically stimulated. Moreover, we show that a type II diabetes environment has similar effects on the muscle in vitro as well as in vivo.

Microalgae Immobilization With Filamentous Fungi: Process Development For Sustainable Food Systems, Suvro Talukdar

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Demand for sustainable food sources has increased because of the rapid growth of the world's population.  In this study, microalgae cells of Haematococcus pluvialis were immobilized using the edible fungal strain Aspergillus awamori for potential food applications. The study investigated the impact of fungal loading, pellet geometry, and initial microalgae cell concentration on the immobilization performance and product characteristics. It was found that higher fungal loading and larger fungal pellets contributed to increased immobilization performance while increased initial microalgae concentration inhibited the process. Larger fungal pellets had decreased biomass density, which led to decreased surface concentration of immobilized microalgae but …

Using Paired-Agent Imaging To Track Changes In Head And Neck Cancers After Undergoing Photodynamic Therapy Treatment, Reeham M. Choudhury

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Head and neck cancers affect thousands of people across the world, and photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been shown to have great potential to treat said cancers in a noninvasive manner. However, imaging head and neck cancers has been difficult, and molecular changes caused by PDT are not well-understood. Therefore, we propose the use of paired-agent imaging (PAI) to track changes in these cancers after after PDT treatment. For these studies, we primarily used benzoporphyrin derivative monoacid (BPD) for our photosensitizer, which is activated by a 690 nm laser. We first looked at changes in EGFR expression in vitro, and …

High Throughput Cellular Screening Technologies For Engineering Enhanced-Solubility And Deimmunized Biologics, Andrew Y. Chang

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

High throughput cell-based screening methodologies have become core development tools for the generation and engineering of various biotherapeutics. For example, SpCas9 variants for use in CRISPR-Cas9 therapeutics have been engineered for enhanced specificity using a high throughput directed evolution approach in E. coli. Additionally, antibodies are routinely discovered and engineered for high affinity binding using yeast surface display. These high throughput techniques typically involve generation of large protein libraries which require innovative screening strategies depending on the target protein’s function. In this thesis work, we describe high throughput protein library screening approaches to address recombinant biologic aggregation and immunogenicity …

Life Cycle Assessment Of Air Classification As A Sulfur Mitigation Technology In Pine Residue Feedstocks, Ashlee Edmonson

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Sulfur accumulation during biofuel production is pollutive, toxic to conversion catalysts, and causes the premature breakdown of processing equipment. Air classification is an effective preprocessing technology for ash and sulfur removal from biomass feedstocks. A life cycle assessment (LCA) sought to understand the environmental impacts of implementing air classification as a sulfur-mitigation technique for pine residues. Energy demand and material balance for preprocessing were simulated using SimaPro and the Argonne National Laboratory’s GREET model, specifically focusing on comparing the global warming potential (GWP) of grid electricity versus bioelectricity scenarios. Overall, the grid electricity scenario had a GWP impact over 7 …

Modeling The Production Of Microalgal Biomass In Large Water Resource Recovery Facilities And Its Processing Into Various Commodity Bioproducts, James Pierson, Gopi Raju Makkena, Sandeep Kumar, Vinod Kumar, Vivekanand Vivekanand, Hasan Husain, Muhammad Ayser, Venkatesh Balan

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Algae are capable of sequestering nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates from wastewater in the presence of sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO₂) to build up their body mass and help combat climate change. In the current study, we carried out different case studies to estimate the volume of algal biomass that could be produced annually using the rotating algal biofilm (RAB) method in three large-scale water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) in Texas: Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston. We calculated the total amount of lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins that could be fractionated from the algal biomass while using the …

Mechanically Driven In Vivo Osteocyte Ca2+ Signaling: Aging And Pharmacologic Effects, James Padgett

Dissertations and Theses

Bone’s ability to respond and adapt to mechanical loading declines significantly with age which is a major contributor to bone fragility. It is widely accepted that osteocytes are the key cells responsible for orchestrating the development of the “ideal” skeleton. This ability is attributed to osteocyte’s role as the primary mechanosensing cell that is responsible for maintaining the skeleton’s integrity throughout life. Recent work from our laboratory has shed light into how osteocytes respond to mechanical loading in vivo. The breakthrough approaches that enabled these discoveries were development of: (1) the first ever reporter mouse model with a genetically encoded …