Carbon Nanotubes in Tissue Engineering

For their peculiar features carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are emerging in many areas of nanotechnology applications. CNT-based technology has been increasingly proposed for biomedical applications, to develop biomolecule nanocarriers, bionanosensors and smart material for tissue engineering purposes. In the following chapter this latter application will be explored, describing why CNTs can be considered an ideal material able to support and boost the growth and the proliferation of many kind of tissues

Turbidity Maximum Entrapment of Phytoplankton in the Chesapeake Bay

Estuarine turbidity maxima (ETM) play an impor- tant role in zooplankton and larval fish productivity in many estuaries. Yet in many of these systems, little is known about the food web that supports this secondary production. To see if phytoplankton have the potential to be a component of the ETM food web in the Chesapeake Bay estuary a series of cruises were carried out to determine the biomass distribution and floral composition of phytoplankton in and around the ETM during the winter and spring using fluorometry, high- performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and microscopy. Two distinct phytoplankton communities were observed along the salinity gradient. In lower salinity waters, biomass was low and the community was composed mostly of diatoms, while in more saline waters biomass was high and the community was composed mostly of mixotrophic dinoflagellates, which were often concentrated in a thin layer below the pycnocline. Phytoplankton biomass was always low in the ETM, but high concentrations of phytoplankton pigment degradation products and cellular remains were often observed suggesting that this was an area of high phytoplankton mortality and/or an area where phytoplankton derived particulate organic matter was being trapped. These results, along with a box model analysis, suggest that under certain hydrodynamic conditions phyto- plankton derived organic matter can be trapped in ETM and potentially play a role in fueling secondary production

Laser Processing of Natural Biomaterials

Natural biomaterials have been extensively employed in biomedical applications because of their superior biocompatibility and biodegradability. Among the large family of techniques to process natural biomaterials, laser techniques have been rapidly developed to fabricate biomimetic artificial organs, tissue engineering scaffolds, and other biomedical constructs. Compared to other techniques, laser processing allows more precise control over the geometry and is able to fabricate smaller features with minimal debris generated. The laser processing techniques are generally grouped by three categories: polymerization, ablation, and activation. This chapter introduces several widely used natural biomaterials, including collagen, agarose, hyaluronic acid, and Matrigel TMTM as well as the recent development in laser processing techniques of those natural biomaterials.Department of Electrical Engineerin