Biomedical Applications Of Protein Films And Polymeric Nanomaterials, Sanjana Gopalakrishnan

Doctoral Dissertations

Biomaterials are widely applied for the diagnosis and treatment of numerous diseases. In addition to fulfilling specific biological functions, biomaterials must also be non-toxic, biocompatible, and sterilizable to be regarded as safe-for-use. Polymers are excellent candidates for fabricating functional biomaterials due to their wide availability and varied properties and may be natural or synthetic. Polymer precursors are fabricated into coatings, foams, scaffolds, gels, composites, and nanomaterials for several biomedical applications. This dissertation focuses on two types of polymeric biomaterials – protein-based materials and synthetic polymeric nanoparticles. Proteins are biopolymers that naturally occur with a variety of structural and functional properties. However ...

Innovative Therapeutic Approach To Chemical Burns Produced By Vesicants; An Experimental Study, Cristina Anca Secara, Otilia Liudmila Cinteza, Diana Popescu, Claudia Valentina Popa, Camelia Andreea Hirjeu, Oana Cristina Voinea, Luiza Georgia Serbanescu, Andreea Marilena Pauna, Mihail Tudosie

Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences

Vesicants are compounds that cause severe toxic effects on various tissues. Such chemical action causes tissue necrosis, with clinical expression of skin lesions with a burning character and characteristic blisters. Clinical toxic effects of cutaneous vesicles are correlated with the absorbed dose and exposure time. The goals of the study are to evaluate in vitro the skin toxicity produced by the vesicant chemical compound 2-chloroethyl-ethyl sulfide (CEES), to develop a complex antidote formula, and to optimize the therapeutic efficacy by inclusion in controlled release systems. The experimental protocol aims at the in vitro evaluation of the cytotoxicity of the vesicant ...

Matrix Optimization Of Zno For Mass Spectrometry Imaging Of Small Neurochemicals In Rat And Mouse Brain Tissue, Natalie B. Merola, Juan Pablo Galindo Lazo

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Testing experimental parameters in order to optimize ZnO nanoparticles as a matrix for low molecular weight neurochemicals in rat and mouse brain tissue.

Psychedelics, Positive Psychology, And Positive Humanities, Hamide Eygoren

Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects

Public and scientific interest in the effect of psychedelic drugs on wellbeing has risen significantly. Preliminary data show that psychedelic drugs, specifically classic psychedelics (DMT, psilocybin, mescaline, and LSD), may have the potential to treat mood disorders and increase wellbeing through their acute subjective effects. The acute subjective effects and enduring effects of psychedelics on wellbeing seem to relate to positive psychological frameworks (e.g., resilience factors and PERMA) considerably. Moreover, optimizing acute subjective effects indicates the importance of set (individual’s internal (mental) factors) and setting (individual’s external factors) in psychedelics administration as moderating factors. A new subfield ...

Treatment Of Tardive Dyskinesia With High Dose Vitamin B6 Associated With Depression, Marjorie Mccoy, Adam Schindzielorz, Suzanne Holroyd

Marshall Journal of Medicine

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is a movement disorder associated with dopamine receptor blocking medications. Recommended treatments for TD include discontinuing the causative agent, adding vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) inhibitors, or adding vitamin B6. We present a 66-year-old Caucasian male with bipolar I disorder who developed TD while on lithium and quetiapine having been euthymic on this regimen for three years. He was initially treated with 1200 mg B6 daily. This failed to improve his TD and was associated with a depressive episode. He switched to valbenazine 40 mg daily which improved his TD and concurrently his mood, but months later ...

Synthesis Of Triaminopyrimidine Derivatives For Inhibition Of Inflammatory Caspases, Marianna C. Haddad, Caitlin Karver

DePaul Discoveries

Caspases are cysteine-dependent aspartic proteases whose functions are connected to different mechanisms of cell death and inflammation. As caspase-1 plays a significant role in the immune response, its activity has been of interest as a target for inhibitor development as its inhibition will reduce the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in inflammatory diseases, thus minimizing the symptoms that arise and serving as a possible therapeutic approach. Prior work discovered a family of potent inhibitors of caspase-1 with a common triaminopyrimidine scaffold. To further explore structure-activity relationship profiles of potential inhibitors of caspase-1, two different syntheses were attempted to create two new ...

Data-Driven Analysis Of Drug And Substance Abuse Rates Across The Varying Regions In The United States Of America, Reem Saleh

University Honors Theses

Drugs and substance abuse is one of the leading causes of death for adolescents in the United States. The consequences of using these drugs are profound and can cause both damage to one's physical and psychological health. The rates of drug abuse in the United States continue to increase over the years. This paper analyzes the trends in rates of drug abuse in the four regions in the United States. It looks at the rates in cocaine, cigarettes, marijuana, and tobacco. A preliminary analysis was done to look at the trend in rates followed by an ARIMA time series ...

Full- Versus Sub-Regional Quantification Of Amyloid-Beta Load On Mouse Brain Sections, Yuu Ohno, Riley Murphy, Matthew Choi, Weijun Ou, Rachita K. Sumbria

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Extracellular accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques is one of the major pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and is the target of the only FDA-approved disease-modifying treatment for AD. Accordingly, the use of transgenic mouse models that overexpress the amyloid precursor protein and thereby accumulate cerebral Aβ plaques are widely used to model human AD in mice. Therefore, immunoassays, including enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunostaining, commonly measure the Aβ load in brain tissues derived from AD transgenic mice. Though the methods for Aβ detection and quantification have been well established and documented, the impact of the size of ...

Lectin-Glycan Complexes: A Comprehensive Analysis Of Docking Calculations, Ashton Custer

Honors Theses

Lectins are a type of glycan-binding protein that noncovalently bind glycans. Carbohydrates are molecules consisting of sugar units joined together. Glycans are carbohydrates. Hence, glycans are also sugars. Lectins and lectin-glycan complexes have a range of biological roles and can be found in animals (including humans), plants, bacteria, viruses, and yeasts and fungi.¹ Many scientists focus on the computational study of these complexes due to their intricate roles in many living organisms. Computational study is important in furthering our knowledge of lectin-glycan complexes and other such protein complexes. However, computational study is not perfect. There are many challenges in ...

Computational Design Of Β-Fluorinated Morphine Derivatives For Ph-Specific Binding, Nayiri Alexander, Makena Augenstein, Matthew Gartner

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The opioid epidemic impacted over 12 million Americans in 2019. Although they are effective pain-relieving medications, they carry addictive and dangerous side effects. Opioids, like morphine, bind non-selectively in both central and peripheral tissues; however, dangerous side effects result from central activation. Inflamed conditions of injured tissues have a lower pH (pH=6-6.5) environment than healthy central tissue (pH=7.4). We aim to design a morphine derivative that binds selectively within inflamed tissue using computationally-based molecular extension and dissection techniques. Binding to the mu-opioid receptor (MOR) is dependent on protonation of the biochemically active amine group of morphine ...

Synthesis, Structural Characterization, And In Vitro Biological Assessment Of Trans- Platinum (Ii) Thionate Complexes As Potent Anticancer Agents, Mia Alshami

Chemistry & Biochemistry Undergraduate Honors Theses

The content of this thesis has been originally reported in our published paper, “trans-Platinum (II) Thionate Complexes: Synthesis, Structural Characterization, and in vitro Biological Assessment as Potent Anticancer Agents” ChemPlusChem 2019 84, 1525-1535, DOI: 10.1002/cplu.201900394, in which I served as coauthor. Cancer caused 9.6 million deaths in 2018 worldwide, with 18.1 million new diagnoses during that same year.The most widely used metal in anticancer drugs is platinum (Pt), and these drugs are used to treat almost 50% of cancer patients. To optimize drug effectiveness, trans-configured Pt(II) complexes have been introduced as ...

“Translation Of Hdac6 Pet Imaging Using [18f]Ekz-001 – Cgmp Production And Measurement Of Hdac6 Target Occupancy In Nhps” – A Review, Dania Rahal

Chemistry & Biochemistry Undergraduate Honors Theses

The inhibition of histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) has been reported to alleviate the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. The brain-penetrant PET radioligand [¹⁸F]EKZ-001 has high affinity and selectivity towards HDAC6 and therefore suggests great promise in therapeutic treatment studies and development for neurodegenerative diseases. “Translation of HDAC6 PET imaging using [¹⁸F]EKZ-001 – cGMP production and measurement of HDAC6 target occupancy in NHPs” has achieved an effective, fully automated method of producing [¹⁸F]EKZ-001 in compliance with current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) to support the translation of [¹⁸F]EKZ-001 PET for first-in-human ...

Unveiling The Opioid Crisis: The Impact Of Opioids On Body Systems And Alternative Treatment Options To Reduce The Nationwide Opioid Epidemic, Krishna S. Patel, Elizabeth A. Manheim Ph.D.

Kean Quest

No abstract provided.

Hdac6 Inhibition Reverses Long-Term Doxorubicin-Induced Cognitive Dysfunction By Restoring Microglia Homeostasis, Blake Mcalpin

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

One in 8 women in the US will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Currently, doxorubicin is one of the most effective chemotherapies for breast cancer. Unfortunately, up to 60% of survivors report long-term chemotherapy-induced cognitive dysfunction (CICD) characterized by deficits in working memory, processing speed, and executive functioning. Currently, no interventions for CICD have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. I show here that a 14-day treatment with a blood-brain barrier permeable histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) inhibitor successfully reverses long-term CICD following a therapeutic doxorubicin dosing schedule in female mice, as assessed by the puzzle box test ...

Seeing Thro The Musical Eye: Santo Daime, Fuke-Shū, 1960s Psychedelia, And The Antipodes Of Musical Experience, Forest Anthony-Muran

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis investigates the relationships between altered states of consciousness and the musical experience in religious tradition and practice. A common accompaniment to religious worship and ceremony, music is often used as a way of attempting to capture something of the ineffable and to help bring about a mystical experience. In this thesis, I make use of three contrasting case studies – the Brazilian syncretic religion Santo Daime, the historical branch of Zen Buddhism Fuke-shū, and the psychedelic rock of 1960s counterculture – to paint a portrait of the variety of ways that music has been used in different musical traditions to ...

Cannabis And Opioids In Chronic Pain Management, Estefan Tsegaye, Clara Kathryn Pollard, Emilie Tate, Justin White, Raphaela Woods

Symposium of Student Scholars

Background: Many adults suffer from chronic pain. Opioids are commonly prescribed to treat chronic pain, though they can produce adverse side effects and carry the potential for abuse and addiction. The introduction of cannabis in medicine has provided a possible alternative to opioids in chronic pain management. Objective: This systematic literature review aims to synthesize evidence from published studies to answer the following research question in the PICOT format: In adults over the age of 18 with chronic pain (P), how does prescribed cannabis therapy (I) compare with prescribed opioid therapy (C) in affecting perceived pain levels and quality of ...

Structural And Computational Studies Of The Sars-Cov-2 Spike Protein Binding Mechanisms With Nanobodies: From Structure And Dynamics To Avidity-Driven Nanobody Engineering, Gennady M. Verkhivker

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Nanobodies provide important advantages over traditional antibodies, including their smaller size and robust biochemical properties such as high thermal stability, high solubility, and the ability to be bioengineered into novel multivalent, multi-specific, and high-affinity molecules, making them a class of emerging powerful therapies against SARS-CoV-2. Recent research efforts on the design, protein engineering, and structure-functional characterization of nanobodies and their binding with SARS-CoV-2 S proteins reflected a growing realization that nanobody combinations can exploit distinct binding epitopes and leverage the intrinsic plasticity of the conformational landscape for the SARS-CoV-2 S protein to produce efficient neutralizing and mutation resistant characteristics. Structural ...

A Case Of Diphenhydramine With Alcohol Induced Rhabdomyolysis, Adham Abdulamir, Kayla Szolek, Wahab Gbadamosi, Muhammad Awais

Advances in Clinical Medical Research and Healthcare Delivery

ABSTRACT

Rhabdomyolysis is muscle necrosis and the release of intracellular muscle components into circulation. Approximately 26,000 cases of rhabdomyolysis are reported annually in the United States. The severity varies greatly from asymptomatic individuals to individuals with life-threatening muscle enzyme elevations along with severe electrolyte abnormalities, acute other organ damage, and compartment syndrome. The mortality rates are as high as 59% in critically ill patients. There are multiple causes of rhabdomyolysis that can be classified as traumatic or non-traumatic. The traumatic cases are usually evident at presentation however, in a non-traumatic setting, the presentation may be misleading. In this specific ...

Rural Pregnant Women’S Experiences With Substance Use Disorder: A Qualitative Study, Cami Weber

Dissertations

Rural pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) are an understudied vulnerable population that often experiences poor pregnancy outcomes (Higgins et al., 2019; Jumah, 2016; Kramlich et al., 2018; Shaw et al., 2015). Despite the high prevalence and high burden associated with SUD, rural women are less likely than non-pregnant women to seek addiction treatment and complete an outpatient treatment program during pregnancy (Shaw et al., 2015). This study aimed to give voice to rural Missouri women with SUD. The research questions explored the life experiences and motivations for seeking treatment using a qualitative, descriptive research design with grounded theory ...

Hydroxyapatite Toothpaste On Caries Prevention In Children, Samantha Richardson, Kelly Vaughan

Dental Hygiene Student Scholarship

Are Hydroxyapatite Toothpastes The Answer To Fluoride Free Patients?

Richardson, Samantha 1 and Vaughan, Kelly 2

Dental Hygiene Program, Virginia Commonwealth University

Abstract:

Objectives/Aims: With the rising trend to become more clean with our ingredient lists, we are facing more patients refusing fluoride treatments and fluoridated toothpastes. This trend has been prevalent in our younger generations due to parents only wanting the purest natural ingredients for their children and now declining fluoride application. The goal of this literature is to find a safe alternative toothpaste that will be just as effective as fluoride.

Methods: This review of literature has ...