Pressure Acquisition System for In Vitro Mitral Valve Analysis

In vitro testing of the mitral valve chordae tendineae is utilized to aid in the understanding of the stresses that occur in vivo and improve upon surgical solutions that exist for mitral valve repair. This project aimed to design the water control system for a left heart simulation chamber, as well as the pressure acquisition inside the chamber. A solenoid valve was utilized to control the water supply to the tank and was powered utilizing National Instruments software. National Instruments hardware and software was also used with the pressure transducer in order to obtain pressure readings from the chamber. The system was able to be fully controlled using LabVIEW and a pressure trend line was acquired. Future work will focus on developing a way to obtain more precise pressure measurements and automating the solenoid valve to shut off the water supply once physiological pressure has been met inside the chamber

How to cleave wafers: LatticeGear protocol

We report on the process protocol to cleave wafers using LatticeGear cleaving and scribing tools sets

Using Peripheral Venous Pressure Waveforms to Predict Key Hemodynamic Parameters

Analysis of peripheral venous pressure (PVP) waveforms is a novel method of monitoring intravascular volume. Two cohorts were used to study the hemodynamics change of the body state and its influence on the PVP using (1) dehydration setting with infants suffering from pyloric stenosis and (2) hemorrhage setting during a craniosynostosis elective surgery. The goal of this research is to develop a minimally invasive method of analyzing the PVP waveforms and find correlations with volume loss. Twenty-three pyloric stenosis patients PVP were acquired at five stages and were divided into euvolemic, normal fluid volume, and hypovolemic, significant fluid loss. Seven craniosynostosis patients were enrolled and the PVP was acquired at the intervention to explore if the isoflurane dosage influences the PVP. A multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA) was used to test if the PVP was influenced by the volume change and the anesthetic drugs effect. Prediction algorithms based on Fast Fourier Transform were utilized at the two cohort patients analyses to classify an arbitrary PVP into its correct classification. Our research found that PVP signal is influenced by the different hemodynamics states of the body. Based on MANOVA outcomes, we built prediction systems and they were able to categorize an arbitrary PVP signal into its correct classification. The k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) model correctly predicted 77% of the data in the euvolemic and hypovolemic groups. The k-NN models of the anesthetic drugs were able to correctly predict correctly at least 85% of the preoperative and intraoperative signals of the pyloric stenosis patients and the different isoflurane dosages of the craniosynostosis patients. Analyzing the PVP signal is a promising tool for measuring the dehydration level in acute settings. Our results imply that the subsequent changes in vascular resistance due to inhaled and infused anesthetics are reflected in the peripheral veins. A technology that would accurately assess the volume status of a patient to guide triage and treatment would be a significant improvement in various care settings. This minimally invasive technology utilizes a standard peripheral intravenous line and a commercial pressure-monitoring transducer, which exist today and requires no new clinical skills

“GoBabyGo!” – Rehab Engineering to Make Children Mobile

GoBabyGo! is a project to give children with movement difficulties a chance to move on their own. GoBabyGo! conducts community builds of modified ride-on-cars for these children and grants them mobility. Once issue is that once children have cars, there is no feedback to improve future builds. This project “GoBabyGo!” – Rehab Engineering to Make Children Mobile, wishes to collect quantifiable data on how these cars are being used and how they can be improved. This project aims to do this by collecting surveys from caretakers and through a programmed module to be installed in cars. The installed car module collects specific data about distance and time the child controls the vehicle. Through these collection methods, data can be analyzed to make future suggestions and improvements to new cars

Back flushing on milking machine teat cups

THE possibility of replacing the dipping of teat cups between cows with a system of back flushing with water has been investigated for some time by different workers

3D Bioprinting and Implantation of Mouse Mammary Epithelial Structures Using a Custom Accessible 3D Bioprinting Platform

Prior work has shown that our bioprinting system can reliably produce human mammary organoids and tumoroids with high precision. However, this was not previously applied to mouse models, which are also important with respect to translational research in cancer drug development. To address this, we have produced protocols for the development of in vitro structures from murine mammary epithelial and tumor cells. Additionally, we assessed the translatability of both human and murine bioprinted organoids into mouse mammary fat pads over a period of 6 weeks. Our lab found that our produced organoids are reliable, they can survive in vivo, and meaningfully integrate within host systems. Therefore, we have demonstrated that our system is adaptable to both human and murine models, as it offers a unique methodology for in vivo transplantation of human or murine organoids into mice, which can boost research efforts in cancer therapy research.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/gradposters2022_engineering/1000/thumbnail.jp

Beyond Biobricks: Synthesizing Synergistic Biochemical Systems from the Bottom-up

Engineers who attempt to discover and optimize the behavior of complex biochemical systems face a dauntingly difficult task. This is especially true if the systems are governed by multiple qualitative and quantitative variables that have non-linear response functions and that interact synergistically. The synthetic biology community has responded to this difficulty by promoting the use of standard biological parts called BioBricks , which are supposed to make biology into traditional engineering and enable engineers to program living organisms in the same way a computer scientists can program a computer . But the BioBricks research program faces daunting hurdles, because the nonlinearity and synergy found throughout biochemical systems generates lots of unpredictable emergent properties. This talk describes an alternative vision of how to engineer complex biochemical systems, according to which we would refashion engineering to fit biology (rather than the other way around). The resulting method (termed Predictive Design Technology or PDT) is a robot- and computer-driven automatic and autonomous implementation of traditional Edisonian science. The PDT method is described and illustrated in application to a number of practical biochemical design tasks, including (2) optimizing combination drug therapies, (2) optimizing cargo capacity of liposomes that self-assemble from complex amphiphile mixtures, (3) optimizing the liposomal formulation of insoluble drugs, and (4) optimizing in vitro protein expression.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/systems_science_seminar_series/1040/thumbnail.jp