Biomaterials Commons^™

Pore-Confined Carriers And Biomolecules In Mesoporous Silica For Biomimetic Separation And Targeting, Shanshan Zhou

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Selectively permeable biological membranes composed of lipophilic barriers inspire the design of biomimetic carrier-mediated membranes for aqueous solute separation. This work imparts selective permeability to lipid-filled pores of silica thin film composite membranes using carrier molecules that reside in the lipophilic self-assemblies. The lipids confined inside the pores of silica are proven to be a more effective barrier than bilayers formed on the porous surface through vesicle fusion, which is critical for quantifying the function of an immobilized carrier. The ability of a lipophilic carrier embedded in the lipid bilayer to reversibly bind the target solute and transport it through …

An Enhanced Spring-Particle Model For Red Blood Cell Structural Mechanics: Application To The Stomatocyte–Discocyte– Echinocyte Transformation, Mingzhu Chen, Fergal Boyle

Articles

Red blood cells (RBCs) are the most abundant cellular element suspended in blood. Together with the usual biconcave-shaped RBCs, i.e., discocytes, unusual-shaped RBCs are also observed under physiological and experimental conditions, e.g., stomatocytes and echinocytes. Stomatocytes and echinocytes are formed from discocytes and in addition can revert back to being discocytes; this shape change is known as the stomatocyte–discocyte–echinocyte (SDE) transformation. To-date, limited research has been conducted on the numerical prediction of the full SDE transformation. Spring- particle RBC (SP-RBC) models are commonly used to numerically predict RBC mechanics and rheology. However, these models are incapable of predicting the full …

Development Of An Electrospun And 3d Printed Cellular Delivery Device For Dermal Wound Healing, Ryan M. Clohessy

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research was to develop a system of individualized medicine that could be applied to dermal wounds serving as a wound dressing and synthetic extracellular matrix while delivering stem cells to the wound bed. First, fabrication parameters for electrospinning polymer fibers were determined. This involved evaluating fiber morphology with respect to polymer selection and solution concentration. Next, construct fabrication was examined to produce an integrated void space, or cargo area, suitable to maintain stem cells. In vitro studies to ensure stem cell viability and phenotype were conducted, and results supported the notion that cells could be administered …

Electrospraying Extracellular Matrix To Form Nanoparticles, Patrick Link

Theses and Dissertations

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a leading cause of death worldwide. Alveolar wall destruction is a significant contributor to COPD. Inflammatory macrophages are a major source of the Extracellular Matrix (ECM) proteolysis. ECM breakdown causes air to get trapped in the alveoli, obstructing airflow. One step in curing COPD may be to convert inflammatory to pro-regenerative macrophages. Recently, decellularized ECM scaffolds have shown the ability to induce a pro-regenerative phenotype.

Yet these scaffolds are incapable for reaching the alveolar region of the lungs. To reach the alveolar region particles need a diameter of 1-5 μm or smaller than 300 …

Sugar Versus Lipid For Sustainable Biofuels, Yaşar Demirel

Yaşar Demirel Publications

Introduction

First‐generation biofuels, namely, ethanol and biodiesel, have led to far reaching impact on the peoples’ life world‐wide.[1] However, they inter-fere with the food supply chain and may not be sustainable although some of the biomass are converted to biofuels after those biomasses have met the human needs. Still, the first‐generation–based biofuels have proved that sugar and lipid platforms can be an answer to energy security and global warming concerns without the need for new infrastructure for feedstock delivery as well as for biomass‐to‐biofuel conversion tech-nologies. At the same time, we are discovering and assessing the long‐term environmental im-plications on …

A 3d Biomimetic Scaffold Using Electrospinning For Tissue Engineering Applications, Samerender Nagam Hanumantharao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Electrospinning holds great promise for designing functional 3D biomimetic scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. The technique allows for the reproducible fabrication of 3D scaffolds with control over the porosity and thickness. In this work, a novel method for the synthesis of a 3D electroactive scaffold using electrospinning from polycaprolactone (PCL), Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) and Polyaniline (PANI) is reported. Additional scaffolds involving different morphologies of PCL, PCL-PVDF and PCL-PANI-PVDF were also fabricated and evaluated. The scaffolds were characterized using electron microscopy to visualize the morphologies. Infrared spectroscopy was used to confirm the presence of polymers and their respective phases in the …