Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4
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- All Subjects: Hydrogels
- Creators: Chemical Engineering Program
Description
In a dormant state, cancer cells survive chemotherapy leaving the opportunity for cancer cell relapse and metastasis ultimately leading to patient death. A novel aminoglycoside-based hydrogel ‘Amikagel’ developed in Dr. Rege’s lab serves as a platform for a 3D tumor microenvironment (3DTM) mimicking cancer cell dormancy and relapse. Six Amikagels of varying mechanical stiffness and adhesivities were synthesized and evaluated as platforms for 3DTM formation through cell viability and cell cycle arrest analyses. The impact of fetal bovine serum concentration and bovine serum albumin concentration in the media were studied for their impact on 3DTM formation. These experiments allow us to identify the best possible Amikagel formulation for 3DTM.
ContributorsGjertsen, Haley Nicole (Author) / Rege, Kaushal (Thesis director) / Grandhi, Taraka Sai Pavan (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The purpose of this project is to investigate the swelling ratio exhibited due to photothermal effects of double network polyacrylamide poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels synthesized with carbon black as a light-sensitive chromophore. Optimal carbon black dispersion was achieved in solutions through sonication, using V9A32 carbon black, where dynamic light scattering recorded particle diameters in the range of 195.0-375.8 nanometers for water/carbon black mixtures, 242.4-262.6 nanometers for monomer/carbon black mixtures without initiator, and 1109.3-1783.9 nanometers for monomer/carbon black mixtures including initiator. The double network polyacrylamide poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels with carbon black yielded weight increases of 0.126% and 6.043%, respectively, after 2 minutes and 10 minutes of being exposed to a light stimulus; compared to previous work which showed a double network polyacrylamide poly(acrylic acid) hydrogel with chlorophyllin yielded weight increases of 18.3% and 20.8%, respectively, after 2 minutes and 10 minutes of being exposed to a light stimulus, the carbon black resulted in a less robust response. Future work for application of the light-responsive hydrogels includes the development of a screen covering that will be made of the hydrogels. This covering is intended for use on LED screen displays, where a light change will result in a protrusion from the screen. The purpose behind this application is that technology users who are visually impaired can still determine what their LED device is trying to communicate with them.
ContributorsReimann, Morgan Elizabeth (Co-author) / Yifei, Xu (Co-author) / Dai, Lenore (Co-author, Thesis director) / Xu, Yifei (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Plasmid DNA (pDNA) purification has been extensively investigated for various biological and biochemical applications such as transfection, polymerase chain reaction and DNA therapeutics. In the previous paper, we have described the synthesis, characterization and evaluation of microbeads (“Amikabeads”) derived from aminoglycoside amikacin for pDNA binding via anion-exchange chromatography. Here, we investigated the pDNA binding performance of conjugating Amikabeads with two highly specific DNA binding ligands via minor groove hydrophobic interaction. The pDNA maximum binding capacity of doxorubicin drug-conjugated Amikabeads (“doxo-beads”) was found out to be 429 μg pDNA/ mg of doxo-beads with a Langmuir constant of 8.21*10-4 L/mg, whereas the binding performance of berenil drug-conjugated "mikabeads (“berenil-beads”) was 142 μg pDNA/mg of berenil-beads with a adsorption constant of 4.71*10-5 L/mg. In addition, the desorption percentage of doxo-beads and berenil-beads was obtained as 52% and 41%, respectively. Our results indicate that by conjugating with highly specific DNA binding ligands, Amikabeads-drug complex enhances the pDNA binding performance and contains a promising potential for future applications in biotechnology field.
ContributorsLin, Nan (Author) / Rege, Kaushal (Thesis director) / Grandhi, Taraka Sai Pavan (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The tendon-bone junction is essential for allowing humans to transfer mechanical loads during activities. When injury does occur to this important area, current surgical techniques improperly bypass important physical and chemical gradients and do not restore proper function. It is essential to create tissue engineered scaffolds that create proper models for the region and induce healing responses for repair. To advance research into these scaffolds, electrospinning fibers and hydrogels made of norbornene functionalized hyaluronic acid (NorHA) were used to promote bone growth by adhering calcium to the material. To further improve calcium adherence, which is indicative of bone regions, a mineralization peptide was allowed to soak through the fibers. NorHA proved to be a suitable material for biomineralization experiments, showing slow calcium adherence within the first hour before accelerating in adherence over 24 hours in both fibers and hydrogels. When the mineralization peptide was implemented calcium adherence on fibers increased nearly eight times within the first 15 minutes of experimentation.
ContributorsCasey, Nathan Robert (Author) / Holloway, Julianne (Thesis director) / Tindell, Raymond (Committee member) / Fumasi, Fallon (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05