This year we were invited to submit a manuscript and presentation to the SPIE Photonics West BiOS Conference. We submitted both on the work we have done on the uSIM-DX virus sensor platform. Below I have attached the presentation which I presented. It summarizes the motivation behind our work, current testing capabilities, introduces our membranes…
The aim of this work was to electrospin aligned polymeric fibers on parylene stencils as means to characterize the critical necessary total area and necessary opening sizes to elicit endothelial cell response in the form of cell alignment among other characteristics typically found in human cells that are adjacent to highly aligned ECM. For this…
The motivation of this work by Daniela Lincoln (master’s student) was to investigate the feasibility of using different variants of parylene (C and N) for barrier studies and to look deeper into the implications of plasma surface modification for cell-substrate interactions. For this purpose, we used and tested a variety of device designs, which led…
PDF with all slides: R61 HL154249-01(6 Month Progress)
The idea of this project started when we were writing a mini-review about cell-substrate interaction. Although most of studies of cellular responses to porous membranes have pointed towards a multiphasic response with the same trend of changes with respect to the pore sizes, we also found some variation in the results. We suggested that some…
Note: A postscript regarding a gelatin assay to determine MMP-9 activity was added to this post on Feb 25, 2021. Introduction The blood-brain barrier (BBB) plays an important role in maintaining brain chemistry by restricting the permeability of undesirable small molecules and cells. Inflammatory diseases may disrupt the BBB and promote the development of neurological…
1. Introduction Fluid flow is one of the key elements of vascular models for delivering nutrients and growth factors to cells as well as introducing other components like neutrophils. In post 1, we described our modular design for incorporating a flow module into the uSiM device. Then, we presented fluid flow simulation and its experimental…
Introduction Previous experiments completed by Hayley Miller investigated the effect of small extracellular vesicles (EVs) collected from Adipose Derived Stem Cells (ADSCs) on wound closure velocity and cell speed. Her previous related post can be found here. It was initially hypothesized that EVs play an important role in wound healing and affect the wound closure…
Introduction In the Glading Lab we study a rare disease called Cerebral Cavernous Malformations (CCMs). In this disease, brain capillaries develop greatly enlarged lumens and a disrupted blood-brain barrier. A genetic cause of the disease is the presence of a mutation in KRIT1 that causes loss of KRIT1 protein function in the cells. KRIT1 binds…
This is the second installment in a series of posts focused on the development of a method for measuring barrier permeability in the µSiM. In Part 1 we discussed the goal of making these measurements in situ at a position beneath the membrane. Because our preference is to use the trench down configuration in the…