Biomaterials Commons^™

A Novel Biomaterial Platform For Cardiac Tissue Engineering, Andrew House

Dissertations

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the world. With a growing demand for in vitro cardiac models that can recapitulate the complex physiology of the cardiac tissue, there is a desire to create novel therapies and treatments. However, due to a lack of fundamental understanding of the heart's inflammatory response to myocardial infarction, the development of new therapies is both time consuming and costly. In this work, a novel approach to fabricating a dynamic hydrogel cardiac platform is reported. This platform better mimics the dynamic changes occurring in the native cardiac tissue microenvironment during cardiac …

Development Of A Crosslinked Osteochondral Xenograft And A Collagen Stabilizing Intra-Articular Injection To Remediate Cartilage Focal Lesions To Prevent Osteoarthritis, Mark Lewis Mosher

Theses and Dissertations

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common causes of disability in adults in America. It is a progressive and degenerative disease where the articular cartilage is broken down and lost from the surfaces of bones causing chronic pain and swelling in the joints, and currently has no cure. The most commonly osteoarthritis starts from a focal lesion on the cartilage surface, which will expand on the surface and downwards through the thickness of the tissue. The current gold standard for correcting cartilage focal lesions is the osteochondral autograft/allograft transplantation (OAT), which replaces the defect with a fresh osteochondral graft. The …

An Integrated Electronic-Skin Patch For Real-Time And Continuous Monitoring Of A Panel Of Biomarkers Combined With Drug Delivery, Tanzila Noushin

Electrical Engineering Theses

Inflammatory biomarkers present in the human body play a vital role in medical field by guiding the clinician in decision-making for many diseases. The levels of these inflammatory biomarkers are associated with the severity and progress of several diseases. Researchers have found that increasing severity of many diseases such as cardiovascular disease, after surgery infection, and adverse clinical outcomes due to infectious diseases, results in the elevation of the level of inflammatory biomarkers in human sweat. Furthermore, the inflammatory cytokines indicate the pathophysiology and prognosis of critically ill SARS‑CoV‑2 patients. In this thesis work, different sensors have been developed for …

Highly Adherent Antimicrobial Coatings For Orthopedic Implants, Mikhail Bredikhin

All Dissertations

Fracture-related infections (FRIs) are the most devasting sort of complications associated with fracture fixation devices, as they lead to patients’ morbidity, prolonged hospitalization, amputations, and even death.External fixators additionally suffer from pin site infections (PSIs), which initiate at the skin entry points of the skin-metallic pin interface present in the external fixation of the damaged bones, often causing deep tissue infection and osteomyelitis. Small percutaneous pins, commonly known as Kirschner wires (K-wires), are used to treat complex fractures and deformities.They are drilled inside the diseased bone for the healing period and are left protruding outside the skin for fixation adjustments …

Development Of Enzyme-Responsive Polymersomes As A Drug Delivery System For Gm1 Gangliosidosis, Bipin Chakravarthy Paruchuri

All Dissertations

GM1 gangliosidosis is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by deficiency of β-galactosidase (βgal) and subsequent accumulation of GM1 ganglioside in lysosomes. The rare nature of this disorder presents challenges with prognosis and treatment. Enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) can effectively treat systemic deficiencies, but the intravenously administered enzyme cannot cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to treat the central nervous system. A delivery system to encapsulate and deliver the enzyme can facilitate enzyme transport across the BBB with suitable surface modifications. One of the pathological aspects of GM1-affected cells is the upregulation of the lysosomal enzyme hexosaminidase A (HexA). In this dissertation, …

Material Characterization And Comparison Of Sol-Gel Deposited And Rf Magnetron Deposited Lead Zirconate Titanate Thin Films, Katherine Lynne Miles

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) has been a material of interest for sensor, actuator, and transducer applications in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). This is due to their favorable piezoelectric, pyroelectric and ferroelectric properties. While various methods are available to deposit PZT thin films, radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering was selected to provide high quality PZT films with the added capability of batch processing. These sputter deposited PZT films were characterized to determine their internal film stress, Young’s modulus, composition, and structure. After characterization, the sputtered PZT samples were poled using corona poling and direct poling methods. As a means of comparison, commercially …

Percutaneous-Reinforced Osteoplasty: A Review Of Emerging Treatment Strategies For Bone Interventions, Nischal Koirala, Jyotsna Joshi, Stephen F. Duffy, Gordon Mclennan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Percutaneous-reinforced osteoplasty is currently being investigated as a possible therapeutic procedure for fracture stabilization in high-risk patients, primarily in patients with bone metastases or osteoporosis. For these patients, a percutaneous approach, if structurally sound, can provide a viable method for treating bone fractures without the physiologic stress of anesthesia and open surgery. However, the low strength of fixation is a common limitation that requires further refinement in scaffold design and selection of materials, and may potentially benefit from tissue-engineering-based regenerative approaches. Scaffolds that have tissue regenerative properties and low inflammatory response promote rapid healing at the fracture site and are …

Synthesis Of Alginate/Hydroxyapatite Beads For Acetaminophen Delivery, Anesylvia Angan, Nonni Soraya Sambudi

Makara Journal of Science

Conventional drug delivery systems usually involve the intake of multiple drugs, which could amplify the risk of overdosing. Acetaminophen is a widely used pain relief substance that is prone to accidental overdosing. Hence, a controlled drug delivery system is needed to ensure its efficacy. A nanocomposite hydroxyapatite/alginate system that was used as a drug carrier for acetaminophen was synthesized through the sol-gel method, and the mechanism underlying its controlled drug delivery was investigated. Spherical nanocomposite bead samples were synthesized by incorporating 5 wt%, 10 wt%, and 15 wt% hydroxyapatite into mixtures containing alginate. The mixtures were then dropped into calcium …

Fabrication And Non-Covalent Functionalization And Characterization Of Graphene-Based Devices On Novel Substrate Cadmium Trithiophosphate (Iv) — Cdps, Abayomi Omotola Omolewu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With graphene at the center of several application areas such as sensing, circuits, high-frequency devices for communication systems, etc., it is crucial to understand how the intrinsic properties of devices made from graphene and other materials like platinum and palladium nanoparticles affect the performance of such devices for the specific application area. Many graphene-based devices for different application areas have focused mainly on the material composition of the graphene-based devices and how it affects performance parameters for the specific application. However, it would be insightful to understand how the intrinsic electrical properties of the graphene devices for different applications affect …

Performance And Fouling During Bioreactor Harvesting, Da Zhang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tangential flow filtration has many advantages for bioreactor harvesting as the permeate could be introduced directly to the subsequent capture step, the process is easy to scale up, and fouling of the filter is limited by the cross flow. However, membrane fouling has limited its widespread use. This is particularly problematic given the high cell densities encountered today. Here a reverse asymmetric commercial membrane, BioOptimal™ MF-SL (Asahi Kasei), where the more open surface faces the feed stream, and the tighter barrier layer faces the permeate stream, has been investigated for bioreactor harvesting. The open surface contains pores up to 40 …

Tissue-Engineered Living Pulmonary Valve For Young Adult Patients, Erica Hoskins

All Theses

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a non-communicable disease responsible for 659,000 deaths annually in the United States. While CVD can affect all components of the cardiovascular system, heart valve disease is responsible for 25,000 deaths yearly. Of specific interest is the pulmonary valve since there is limited research on resolving pathologies that affect it. Like the aortic and mitral valves, common pathologies include stenosis, regurgitation, and atresia. Notably, the pulmonary valve requires repair and replacement in pediatric patients and young adults due to congenital disabilities. Even with technological advances in valve replacements, limitations still present themselves for use with younger patients …

Development Of A Decellularized Hydrogel Composite And Its Application In A Novel Model Of Disc-Associated Low Back Pain In Female Sprague Dawley Rats, David Lillyman

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Chronic low back pain is a global socioeconomic crisis compounded by an absence of reliable, curative treatments. The predominant pathology associated with chronic low back pain is degeneration of intervertebral discs in the lumbar spine. During degeneration, nerves can sprout into the intervertebral disc tissue and be chronically subjected to inflammatory and mechanical stimuli, resulting in pain. Pain arising from the intervertebral disc, or disc-associated pain, is a complex, multi-faceted disorder which necessitates valid animal models to screen therapeutics and study pathomechanisms of pain.

While many research teams have created animal models of disc degeneration, the translation of these platforms …

Tensile Testing Of 3d Printed Tpu Samples For Pediatric Biomaterial Applications, Sheridan C. Perry, Rodriguez M. Rafael, Victor Huayamave, Bryan M. Gonzalez, Kim Dae-Won, Zachary R. Nadeau

PanaSoMM

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has, in recent years, become one of the most widespread and preferred prototyping methods. The most popular additive manufacturing method is Fused Deposition Modeling. FDM’s popularity is primarily attributed to its 3 major strengths of rapid prototyping, variability in material choice, and subject specific nature. The medical industry is one of the larger industries that has benefited from 3D printing especially in the terms of medical trainers. Unfortunately, most medical trainers that are developed (either being 3d printed or through traditional manufacturing processes) are poor substitutes for the human body. This can be attributed to either a …

Eagle Medical Tray Denesting & Debris Removal Process, Nicholas Allen Ungefug, Noah Chavez, Susana Shu-Lin Okhuysen, Michael Augustine Pennington

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Eagle Medical Incorporated is a contract medical device packaging and sterilization company. The company purchases thermoformed medical packaging trays, which maintain the sterility of medical devices, from various manufacturers. To ensure packaging quality and to prevent cleanroom contamination, Eagle Medical inspects and sterilizes each blister tray that they order. This process is an essential non-value-added activity that creates a bottleneck. Cleanroom employees must stop packaging medical devices and attend to the processing of blister trays and packaging solutions. The blister trays arrive at Eagle’s facility in nested stacks. Vibration and movement during shipping further compresses the stacks, which makes separation …

Recent Advances In Bone Research 2022 Edition, Jean-Philippe Berteau, Laurent Pujo-Menjouet

Publications and Research

More and more scientific and engineering applications in bone research make pivotal advances in treating patients with orthopedics issues. Hence, bone research in the 21st century combines, inter alia, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and mechanics with complementary characteristics that help a holistic approach to bone-related pathologies. Nowadays, it is hard to connect new evidence when jargoning and money remain two significant obstacles to sharing knowledge. “Recent Advances In Bone Research” is a free book – no money involved at any stage - that combines the most recent efforts in bone research from several experts with different backgrounds, every expert seeks to …

A Comparative Study On The Functionality Of Porcine Dura As A Tissue-Engineered Dura Mater Graft For Clinical Applications, Ashma Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

Damage to dura mater may occur during intracranial or spinal surgeries, which can result in cerebrospinal fluid leakage as well as other potentially fatal physiological changes. As a result, biological scaffolds derived from xenogeneic materials are typically used to repair and regenerate dura mater post intracranial or spinal surgeries. In this study we explore the mechanics, structure, and immunological capacity of xenogeneic dura mater to be considered as a replacement for human dura. A comparative analysis is done between native porcine dura and a commercially available bovine collagen-based dura graft. Native porcine dura mater was decellularized and subjected to mechanical …

Developing New Crutch Tip Design For Overall Increased Stability And Improved Movement On Different Terrains, Lauren Skinner

Honors Theses

Crutches are a mobility assistive device that are often used in various situations, such as post- surgical rehabilitation and recovery after injury. The current crutch tip design that is used on today’s crutches are often unstable and do not provide quality movement on different terrains, such as snow, ice, mud, and wet surfaces. These problems would be solved with a new tip design that could be attached to existing crutches or manufactured with the crutch itself. The team’s solution to this problem is a crutch tip with modular parts. The tip would attach to the shaft of the crutch like …

Surface Laser Texturing Of Cocrmo Alloys, Gabriel Dharwadker

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Artificial orthopedic implants such as hip joints suffer from excessive wear due to excess friction between the polyethylene and cobalt-chromium-molybdenum surfaces of the device. This increase in friction causes a fraction of them to give out within ten years. Therefore, to minimize the probability of this happening, recent research has been conducted regarding laser surface texturing of the cobalt-chromium-molybdenum alloy components of artificial joints. These surface textures serve to mimic the native lubrication mechanisms of cartilage in natural joints, which, in a natural joint, lowers the friction. However, the production of these laser surface textures is still a field of …

The Interaction Of Angiotensin I And Ii On Calcified Aortic Valve Cells, Fah Sysavanh

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cardiovascular diseases affect the older population with limited treatments available. Aortic valve stenosis is a cardiovascular disease in which the aortic valve narrows, causing blood flow constriction and calcification.¹ The only treatment is to replace the valve, which can be costly and lead to other health complications.

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is a pathway that helps with maintaining cardiovascular homeostasis. Angiotensin I (ANGI) and II (ANGII) are hormones in the RAS that cause an increase in inflammation, stress, and blood pressure by binding to the Angiotensin Type 1 Receptor (AT1R).¹ Gelatin-based valve thin film (vTF) platforms were fabricated to investigate …

Alternative Fixation Of Venous Valves For Bioprosthetic Applications, Makenzie Kapales

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Venous valve failure allows for the retrograde, or backward, flow of blood into the lower extremities, which leads to Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI). CVI infringes upon quality of life through ulceration and can result in death due to Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), or blood clots, causing pulmonary embolism. A successful treatment of CVI restores valve function and prevents retrograde blood flow; however, current bioprosthetic venous valves exhibit low patency and high calcification. To improve upon bioprosthetic venous valves and CVI treatment, the University of Arkansas’s Cardiovascular Biomechanics Lab conducts studies with the purpose of comparing the properties and performance of …

Insect Antennae As Bioinspirational Superstrong Fiber-Based Microfluidics, Griffin J. Donley

All Theses

Nature is frequently turned to for inspiration for the creation of new materials. Insect antennae are hollow, blood-filled fibers with complex shape, and are cantilevered at the head. The antenna is muscle-free, but the insect can controllably flex, twist, and maneuver it laterally. To explain this behavior, a comparative study of structural and tensile properties of the antennae of Periplaneta americana (American cockroach), Manduca sexta (Carolina hawkmoth), and Vanessa cardui (painted lady butterfly) was performed. These antennae demonstrate a range of distinguishable tensile properties, responding either as brittle fibers (Manduca sexta) or strain-adaptive fibers that stiffen when stretched (Vanessa cardui …

Single Asperity Fretting Corrosion Of Traditional And Additively Manufactured Metallic Biomaterials: Quantitative Analysis From Acetabular Tapers To Micron And Nanometer Scale Tribocorrosion, Annsley Mace

All Dissertations

Mechanically assisted crevice corrosion (MACC) of metallic biomaterials continues to be a significant degradation mode. This is, in part, due to a lack of understanding of fundamental micron- and sub-micron scale mechanisms of metal degradation in biological environments. Metal-metal (or metal-hard) load bearing surfaces of hip arthroplasties are subjected to fretting crevice corrosion (FCC, one form of MACC). Current work in tribocorrosion involves large contact area tests with multiple asperities, with a distribution of load and wear that changes over time. A more systematic and controlled study of the FCC micro- and nanomechanics is needed.

Therefore, the goal of this …

Hydrogel Drug Delivery Platform Integrity And Utilization Analysis, Joshua Carson Adams

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) generally results in permanent sensorimotor dysfunction. This is due to failed axonal regeneration at the site of injury. Recent studies have highlighted the use of stem-cell based therapies embedded in hydrogel to treat SCI. Embedding cell therapies in hydrogel provides a platform that increases the survival of both integrated grafted cells and stem cells/stem cell progeny. There are a variety of drug delivery agents for treating SCI such as neuro-regenerative cells and Schwann cells, however, single agents are not promising for functional regeneration. We propose a combinatorial approach using sciatic nerve (SN) extracellular matrix (ECM), …

Rheological Behavior Of Dspc-, Dbpc-, And Dppc-Oxygen Microbubbles And Their Effectiveness In Improving Survival In A Rat Model Of Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, Riaz Ur Rehman Mohammed

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) causes 75,000 deaths in the U.S., annually. It is characterized by hypoxemia and damage to the lung alveoli. ARDS Management strategies involve extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and mechanical ventilation, but none of these methods improve the mortality rates. Oxygen microbubbles (OMBs) consist of a lipid shell with an oxygen core and have potential to augment oxygenation to manage ARDS. Previous studies demonstrated significant improvements in systemic oxygenation and mortality upon administering OMBs.

We replicated an ARDS rat model by intratracheal administration of lipopolysaccharide at a 24 mg/kg dose. After inducing the disease in rats, the …

Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault At The University Of Arkansas, Barrett Weidman

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This work was written to fulfill two main purposes. First, to help survivors of Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault (DFSA) process their experience by compiling the toxicological, pharmacological, and distribution of the three most used date-rape drugs. Second, to gauge the knowledge and interest of University of Arkansas students regarding drug impairments, sexual assault education, and bystander intervention training. A survey was conducted for the latter and revealed that 91.6% of students believe the University’s existing sexual assault prevention education and bystander intervention training have room for improvement. Also, 37.1% of students who have received this education report that the programming does …

Investigating The Effect Of Polymer Hydrogels On The Antimicrobial Properties Of Activated Carbon Through The Utilization Of Bacterial, Viral, And Parasitic Microorganisms, Zoe Gunter

Honors Theses

Activated carbon (AC) has long been utilized in biomedical applications due to its innate antimicrobial characteristics. However, little is understood about the mechanism of action that allows AC to prohibit the propagation of different pathogen species. To further ascertain these characteristics and how they affect the propagation of pathogens, procedures were designed with bacterial, viral, and parasitic agents which were utilized in conjunction with varying concentrations of polymer hydrogels to examine the antimicrobial efficacy of AC. The studies performed for this thesis were conducted employing coconut-based AC and Noveon^® AA-1 Polycarbophil USP or Carbopol^® 974P NF hydrogels which, …

Synthesis Of Monodisperse Nanoscintillators At High Temperatures For Biomedical Relevant Applications, Eric Zhang

All Dissertations

Luminescent sub-100 nm particulates continuously generate immense research interest in the biomedical field for imaging, theranostics, and optogenetics. Conventionally, upconversion nanoparticles or UV activated semiconductors are studied, however these materials are limited by biological barriers such as the skin which reduces the penetration depth of these excitation sources, tissue's auto- fluorescence, and toxicity. One approach to overcome these challenges is to use nanoscintillators (sub-100 nm materials that can generate visible light using high energy excitation sources such as x-rays) which can generate light locally to the human body. Numerous scintillators have been reported since the discovery of x-rays from the …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Lactobacillus Crispatus Containing Bioprints For Bacterial Vaginosis Application., Anthony J. Kyser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a condition in which healthy lactobacilli are replaced by an overabundance of pathogenic bacteria in the female reproductive tract. Current antibiotic treatments often fail to “cure” infection, resulting in recurrence in more than 50% of women, 6 months post-treatment. Recently, probiotics have demonstrated promise to restore vaginal health; however, as with other active agents, delivery requires once-to-twice daily administration. Recently, three-dimensional (3D)-bioprinting has enabled the fabrication of well-defined cell-laden architectures with tunable agent release, thereby presenting a novel approach with which to deliver probiotics. One promising bioink, gelatin alginate, was selected for study, due to its …

Release Kinetics Of Metronidazole From 3d Printed Silicone Scaffolds., Sydney E. Herold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sustained local administration of active agents has been proposed to cure bacterial vaginosis in the female reproductive tract and restore the resident bacterial fauna. Bioprinting has shown promise for the development of systems for local agent delivery. In contrast to oral ingestion, agent release kinetics can be fine-tuned by bioprinting specialized scaffold designs tailored for particular treatments while enhancing dosage effectiveness via localized sustained release. It has been challenging to establish scaffold properties for sustained release as a function of fabrication parameters. Towards this goal, we evaluate 3D printed scaffold formulation and feasibility to sustain release of metronidazole, a representative …

Study Of Porosity Of Gelatin-Alginate Hydrogels To Model Brain Matter For Studying Traumatic Brain Injuries, Apolline Vincent

Honors Scholar Theses

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) affect brain tissue and neuronal signaling, leading to many side effects including death. Research on TBIs is limited by the lack of accurate brain matter models to study the physiological and cellular reaction. Alginate-gelatin hydrogels have been designed and modified to mimic the mechanical properties of the brain to act as an accurate in vitro model. This Honors thesis aims to verify the porous microstructure of gelatin-alginate hydrogels through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to understand how gelatin and alginate affect the microstructure. I measured the pore sizes of each hydrogel using ImageJ, compared the average pore …