Diseases of Ornamental Fishes and their Control

In the global scene, tropical aquarium fish keeping is considered as the second largest hobby next only to photography. The practice of maintaining fish for ornamental purpose is known from Tang dynasty (680 to 908, A.D). Ornamental fish keeping was initiated as a small time hobby using gold fish during the 18th century

Dissolving microneedles for cutaneous drug and vaccine delivery

Currently, biopharmaceuticals including vaccines, proteins, and DNA are delivered almost exclusively through the parenteral route using hypodermic needles. However, injection by hypodermic needles generates pain and causes bleeding. Disposal of these needles also produces biohazardous sharp waste. An alternative delivery tool called microneedles may solve these issues. Microneedles are micron-size needles that deliver drugs or biopharmaceuticals into skin by creating tiny channels in the skin. This thesis focuses on dissolving microneedles in which the needle tips dissolve and release the encapsulated drug or vaccine upon insertion. The project aimed to (i) design and optimize dissolving microneedles for efficient drug and vaccine delivery to the skin, (ii) maintain vaccine stability over long-term storage, and (iii) immunize animals using vaccine encapsulated microneedles. The results showed that influenza vaccine encapsulated in microneedles was more thermally stable than unprocessed vaccine solution over prolonged periods of storage time. In addition, mice immunized with microneedles containing influenza vaccine offered full protection against lethal influenza virus infection. As a result, we envision the newly developed dissolving microneedle system can be a safe, patient compliant, easy to-use and self-administered method for rapid drug and vaccine delivery to the skin.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Prausnitz, Mark; Committee Member: Compans, Richard; Committee Member: Milam, Valeria; Committee Member: Murthy, Niren; Committee Member: Weniger, Bruc

Photothermal affects our live

The photothermal effect of solid was first discovered by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880 while its application on determining the type of gaseous was recognized in 1903. However the application on solid only began in 1973 after Parker discovered it accidently during the characterizing of gas with photoacoustic cell. Following this, the research activities on solid have exploded by its flexibility in photothermal detections and can be applied in various applications. Here the review on photothermal research activities on sample characterizing in UPM and others are presented. Also included are the future direction and challenges in photothermal research