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Category: bioengineering – Page 85

Now, a developed by Brown University bioengineers could be an important step toward such adaptive DBS. The algorithm removes a key hurdle that makes it difficult for DBS systems to sense while simultaneously delivering .

“We know that there are in the associated with disease states, and we’d like to be able to record those signals and use them to adjust neuromodulation therapy automatically,” said David Borton, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Brown and corresponding author of a study describing the algorithm. “The problem is that stimulation creates electrical artifacts that corrupt the signals we’re trying to record. So we’ve developed a means of identifying and removing those artifacts, so all that’s left is the signal of interest from the brain.”

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Close interactions with infectious disease set both University of California, Santa Cruz graduate student Ana Nuñez Castrejon and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Rebecca DuBois on the path of studying respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common and sometimes dangerous respiratory disease for which there is not currently a vaccine. The two researchers recently marked a major milestone in their effort to create an effective vaccine for the virus with the publishing of their paper “Structure-based design and antigenic validation of respiratory syncytial virus G immunogens” in the Journal of Virology.

For fifth-year Baskin Engineering student and the paper’s lead author Nuñez Castrejon, a bout of pneumonia that lingered for months when she was an sparked her interest in studying respiratory illnesses. For DuBois, watching her child go through a serious infection of RSV, which can cause severe respiratory infections in infants/children and the elderly, led her to study the disease.

“We have all of these wonderful childhood vaccines that have eliminated so much childhood disease, but there are still a lot of infectious diseases that are really tough on children, and RSV is one of those that causes hospitalizations in children,” DuBois said.

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Immunomodulatory Biomaterials In Regenerative Medicine — Dr. Kara Spiller-Geisler, Ph.D., Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems.

Dr. Kara Spiller, PhD (https://drexel.edu/biomed/faculty/core/SpillerKara/) is Associate Professor in the Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at Drexel University, in Philadelphia.

Dr. Spiller received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering from Drexel University where she conducted her doctoral research in the design of semi-degradable hydrogels for the repair of articular cartilage in the Biomaterials and Drug Delivery Laboratory at Drexel, and in the Shanghai Key Tissue Engineering Laboratory of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

After completing her PhD, when she received the award for Most Outstanding Doctoral Graduate: Most Promise to Enhance Drexel’s Reputation, she conducted research in the design of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering as a Fulbright Fellow, in the Biomaterials, Biodegradables, and Biomimetics (the 3Bs) Research Group at the University of Minho in Guimaraes, Portugal. She also worked as a Postdoctoral Scientist at Columbia University.

Dr. Spiller is currently conducting research in the design of immuno-modulatory biomaterials, particularly for bone tissue engineering. Her research interests include cell-biomaterial interactions, biomaterial design, and international engineering education.

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Circa 2015

Stanford bioengineer Manu Prakash and his students have developed a synchronous computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets.

Computers and water typically don’t mix, but in Manu Prakash’s lab, the two are one and the same. Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and his students have built a synchronous computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets.

The computer is nearly a decade in the making, incubated from an idea that struck Prakash when he was a graduate student. The work combines his expertise in manipulating droplet fluid dynamics with a fundamental element of computer science – an operating clock.

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The CRISPR gene-editing system is a powerful tool that could revolutionize medicine and other sciences, but unfortunately it has a tendency to make edits to the wrong sections of DNA. Now, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have identified a previously unknown structure of the protein that drives these mistakes, and tweaked it to reduce the likelihood of off-target mutations by 4,000 times.

CRISPR tools use certain proteins, most often Cas9, to make precise edits to specific DNA sequences in living cells. This can involve cutting out problematic genes, such as those that cause disease, and/or slotting in beneficial ones. The problem is that sometimes the tool can make changes to the wrong parts, potentially triggering a range of other health issues.

And in the new study, the UT researchers discovered how some of these errors can happen. Usually, the Cas9 protein is hunting for a specific sequence of 20 letters in the DNA code, but if it finds one where 18 out of 20 match its target, it might make its edit anyway. To find out why this occurs, the team used cryo-electron microscopy to observe what Cas9 is doing when it interacts with a mismatched sequence.

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When knowledge has advanced to a state that includes a predictive understanding of the relationship between genome sequence and organism phenotype it will be possible for future engineers to design and produce synthetic organisms. However, the possibility of synthetic biology does not necessarily guarantee its feasibility, in much the same way that the possibility of a brute force attack fails to ensure the timely breaking of robust encryption. The size and range of natural genomes, from a few million base pairs for bacteria to over 100 billion base pairs for some plants, suggests it is necessary to evaluate the practical limits of designing genomes of similar complexity.

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The amniotic membrane (Amnio-M) has various applications in regenerative medicine. It acts as a highly biocompatible natural scaffold and as a source of several types of stem cells and potent growth factors. It also serves as an effective nano-reservoir for drug delivery, thanks to its high entrapment properties. Over the past century, the use of the Amnio-M in the clinic has evolved from a simple sheet for topical applications for skin and corneal repair into more advanced forms, such as micronized dehydrated membrane, amniotic cytokine extract, and solubilized powder injections to regenerate muscles, cartilage, and tendons. This review highlights the development of the Amnio-M over the years and the implication of new and emerging nanotechnology to support expanding its use for tissue engineering and clinical applications. Graphical Abstract.

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Bioprinting is widely applicable to develop tissue engineering scaffolds and form tissue models in the lab. Materials scientists use this method to construct complex 3D structures based on different polymers and hydrogels; however, relatively low resolution and long fabrication times can result in limited procedures for cell-based applications.

In a new report now available in Nature Asia Materials, Byungjun Lee and a team of scientists in mechanical engineering at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, presented a 3D hybrid-micromesh assisted bioprinting method (Hy-MAP) to combine digital light projection, 3D printed micromesh scaffold sutures, together with sequential hydrogel patterning. The new method of bioprinting offered rapid cell co-culture via several methods including injection, dipping and draining. The work can promote the construction of mesoscale complex 3D hydrogel structures across 2D microfluidic channels to 3D channel networks.

Lee et al. established the design rules for Hy-MAP printing via analytical and experimental investigations. The new method can provide an alternative technique to develop mesoscale implantable tissue engineering constructs for organ-on-a-chip applications.

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Northwestern University synthetic biologists have developed a low-cost, easy-to-use, hand-held device that can let users know—within mere minutes—if their water is safe to drink.

The new device works by using powerful and programmable genetic networks, which mimic , to perform a range of logic functions.

Among the DNA-based circuits, for example, the researchers engineered cell-free molecules into an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a ubiquitous circuit type found in nearly all electronic devices. In the -quality device, the ADC circuit processes an analog input (contaminants) and generates a digital output (a visual signal to inform the user).

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