Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Imaging
- Creators: Stabenfeldt, Sarah
- Creators: Baerwaldt, Morgan Kathleen
- Status: Published
Description
Oxygen delivery is crucial for the development of healthy, functional tissue. Low tissue oxygenation, or hypoxia, is a characteristic that is common in many tumors. Hypoxia contributes to tumor malignancy and can reduce the success of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. There is a current need to noninvasively measure tumor oxygenation or pO2 in patients to determine a personalized treatment method. This project focuses on creating and characterizing nanoemulsions using a pO2 reporter molecule hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) and its longer chain variants as well as assessing their cytotoxicity. We also explored creating multi-modal (MRI/Fluorescence) nanoemulsions.
ContributorsGrucky, Marian Louise (Author) / Kodibagkar, Vikram (Thesis director) / Rege, Kaushal (Committee member) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major concern in public health due to its prevalence and effect. Every year, about 1.7 million TBIs are reported [7]. According to the According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 5.5% of all emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths from 2002 to 2006 are due to TBI [8]. The brain's natural defense, the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB), prevents the entry of most substances into the brain through the blood stream, including medicines administered to treat TBI [11]. TBI may cause the breakdown of the BBB, and may result in increased permeability, providing an opportunity for NPs to enter the brain [3,4]. Dr. Stabenfeldt's lab has previously established that intravenously injected nanoparticles (NP) will accumulate near the injury site after focal brain injury [4]. The current project focuses on confirmation of the accumulation or extravasation of NPs after brain injury using 2-photon microscopy. Specifically, the project used controlled cortical impact injury induced mice models that were intravenously injected with 40nm NPs post-injury. The MATLAB code seeks to analyze the brain images through registration, segmentation, and intensity measurement and evaluate if fluorescent NPs will accumulate in the extravascular tissue of injured mice models. The code was developed with 2D bicubic interpolation, subpixel image registration, drawn dimension segmentation and fixed dimension segmentation, and dynamic image analysis. A statistical difference was found between the extravascular tissue of injured and uninjured mouse models. This statistical difference proves that the NPs do extravasate through the permeable cranial blood vessels in injured cranial tissue.
ContributorsIrwin, Jacob Aleksandr (Author) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Thesis director) / Bharadwaj, Vimala (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Neurological disorders are difficult to treat with current drug delivery methods due to their inefficiency and the lack of knowledge of the mechanisms behind drug delivery across the blood brain barrier (BBB). Nanoparticles (NPs) are a promising drug delivery method due to their biocompatibility and ability to be modified by cell penetrating peptides, such as transactivating transciptor (TAT) peptide, which has been shown to increase efficiency of delivery. There are multiple proposed mechanisms of TAT-mediated delivery that also have size restrictions on the molecules that can undergo each BBB crossing mechanism. The effect of nanoparticle size on TAT-mediated delivery in vivo is an important aspect to research in order to better understand the delivery mechanisms and to create more efficient NPs. NPs called FluoSpheres are used because they come in defined diameters unlike polymeric NPs that have a broad distribution of diameters. Both modified and unmodified 100nm and 200nm NPs were able to bypass the BBB and were seen in the brain, spinal cord, liver, and spleen using confocal microscopy and a biodistribution study. Statistically significant differences in delivery rate of the different sized NPs or between TAT-modified and unmodified NPs were not found. Therefore in future work a larger range of diameter size will be evaluated. Also the unmodified NPs will be conjugated with scrambled peptide to ensure that both unmodified and TAT-modified NPs are prepared in identical fashion to better understand the role of size on TAT targeting. Although all the NPs were able to bypass the BBB, future work will hopefully provide a better representation of how NP size effects the rate of TAT-mediated delivery to the CNS.
ContributorsCeton, Ricki Ronea (Author) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Thesis director) / Sirianni, Rachael (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The NASA Psyche Iron Meteorite Imaging System (IMIS) is a standalone system created to image metal meteorites from ASU’s Center for Meteorite Studies’ collection that have an etched surface. Meteorite scientists have difficulty obtaining true-to-life images of meteorites through traditional photography methods due to the meteorites’ shiny, irregular surfaces, which interferes with their ability to identify meteorites’ component materials through image analysis. Using the IMIS, scientists can easily and consistently obtain glare-free photographs of meteorite surface that are suitable for future use in an artificial intelligence-based meteorite component analysis system. The IMIS integrates a lighting system, a mounted camera, a sample positioning area, a meteorite leveling/positioning system, and a touch screen control panel featuring an interface that allows the user to see a preview of the image to be taken as well as an edge detection view, a glare detection view, a button that allows the user to remotely take the picture, and feedback if very high levels of glare are detected that may indicate a camera or positioning error. Initial research and design work were completed by the end of Fall semester, and Spring semester consisted of building and testing the system. The current system is fully functional, and photos taken by the current system have been approved by a meteorite expert and an AI expert. The funding for this project was tentatively capped at $1000 for miscellaneous expenses, not including a camera to be supplied by the School of Earth and Space Exploration. When SESE was unable to provide a camera, an additional $4000 were allotted for camera expenses. So far, $1935 of the total $5000 budget has been spent on the project, putting the project $3065 under budget. While this system is a functional prototype, future capstone projects may involve the help of industrial designers to improve the technician’s experience through automating the sample positioning process.
ContributorsBaerwaldt, Morgan Kathleen (Author) / Bowman, Cassie (Thesis director) / Kozicki, Michael (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Time-Lapse Visualization of Microglia Cell Processes using Fluorescent Miniature (Miniscope) Imaging
Description
In the United States, an estimated 2 million cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting in more than 50,000 deaths occur every year. TBI induces an immediate primary injury resulting in local or diffuse cell death in the brain. Then a secondary injury occurs through neuroinflammation from immune cells in response to primary injury. Microglia, the resident immune cell of the central nervous system, play a critical role in neuroinflammation following TBI. Microglia make up 10% of all cells in the nervous system and are the fastest moving cells in the brain, scanning the entire parenchyma every several hours. Microglia have roles in both the healthy and injured brain. In the healthy brain, microglia can produce neuroprotective factors, clear cellular debris, and organize neurorestorative processes to recover from TBI. However, microglia mediated neuroinflammation during secondary injury produces pro-inflammatory and cytotoxic mediators contributing to neuronal dysfunction, inhibition of CNS repair, and cell death. Furthermore, neuroinflammation is a prominent feature in many neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease, of which include overactive microglia function. Microglia cell morphology, activation, and response to TBI is poorly understood. Currently, imaging microglia can only be performed while the animal is stationary and under anesthesia. The Miniscope technology allows for real-time visualization of microglia in awake behaving animals. The Miniscope is a miniature fluorescent microscope that can be implanted over a craniectomy to image microglia. Currently, the goals of Miniscope imaging are to improve image quality and develop time-lapse imaging capabilities. There were five main sub-projects that focused on these goals including surgical nose cone design, surgical holder design, improved GRIN lens setup, improved magnification through achromatic lenses, and time-lapse imaging hardware development. Completing these goals would allow for the visualization of microglia function in the healthy and injured brain, elucidating important immune functions that could provide new strategies for treating brain diseases.
ContributorsNelson, Andrew Frederick (Author) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Thesis director) / Lifshitz, Jonathan (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05