2 research outputs found
Blocking Autophagic Flux Enhances Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Photothermal Therapeutic Efficiency in Cancer Treatment
Autophagy is a conservative
eukaryotic pathway which plays a crucial
role in maintaining cellular homeostasis, and dysfunction of autophagy
is usually associated with pathological conditions. Recently, emerging
reports have stressed that various types of nanomaterials and therapeutic
approaches interfere with cellular autophagy process, which has brought
up concerns to their future biomedical applications. Here, we present
a study elaborating the relationships between autophagy and iron oxide
nanoparticle (IONP)-mediated photothermal therapy in cancer treatment.
Our results reveal that IONP photothermal effect could lead to autophagy
induction in cancerous MCF-7 cells in a laser dose-dependent manner,
and the inhibition of autophagy would enhance the photothermal
cell killing by increasing cell apoptosis. In an MCF-7 xenograft model,
cotreatment of autophagy inhibitor and IONP under laser exposure could
promote the tumor inhibition rate from 43.26 to 68.56%, and the tumor
immunohistochemistry assay of microtubule-associated protein 1-light
chain 3 (LC3) and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP
nick-end labeling also demonstrate augmentation in both autophagosomes
accumulation and apoptosis in vivo. This work helps us to better understand
the regulation of autophagy during IONP-mediated photothermal therapy
and provides us with a potential combination therapeutic approach
of autophagy modulators and photothermal agents
Immersive Virtual Reality Training of Bioreactor Operations
This paper explores the application of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a training environment for biopharmaceutical engineering processes. An immersive simulation of a real-world industrial bioreactor setup was developed. This allows repeated practice in a safe and contextualized environment and mitigate limited access to equipment for hands-on training opportunities. It is hypothesized that using VR as an authentic context will assist in achieving the learning outcomes of performing operations in industry standard bioreactor setups, and understanding cellular processes. Two preliminary studies were conducted to evaluate the benefits of the VR application. Using pre- and post tests, there were comparable improvements using the VR application when compared to traditional lab lessons. Qualitatively, participants indicated benefits to learning through repeated practice and immersion in a realistic 3D lab environment. The introduction of gamification methods as motivators are areas to be further explored to better integrate students' theoretical and practical understanding compared to traditional approaches