Maneuvering your limbs requires both accurate commands for how to move, and accurate feedback of their true movements. Conventional prosthetic arms currently lack this sense of proprioceptive feedback, which can make daily tasks difficult without close visual monitoring. Although studies have successfully provided artificial proprioceptive feedback to improve control, this...
Neurons are sensitive to the mechanical properties of their environment and show better growth, survival and differentiation when they are cultured in soft environments with mechanical properties similar to those of the brain compared to other tissues. Within the central nervous system (CNS), there is also a range of mechanical...
A stroke occurs when blood flow in the brain is impaired and often causes damage to corticospinal tract projections that control the muscles of the upper-extremity. Due to this damage, 50-70% of stroke survivors experience long-term upper-extremity functional deficits(Faria-Fortini, Michaelsen, Cassiano, & Teixeira-Salmela, 2011). These deficits result from motor impairments...
Chromatin, a complex nuclear structure comprised of DNA, histones, RNA, and other nuclear proteins, is one of the most critical components within the cell because it houses the genetic information and its organization regulates important cellular functions, such as transcription, replication, and repair. Its structural organization is well understood at...
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used widely and frequently in the clinical setting to image and diagnose patients. In addition to the anatomical scans that can be acquired using MRI, different kinds of physiological parameters, such as blood flow, can be obtained by utilizing pulse sequence, scan protocol and post-processing....
Cancer progression is a complex process, leading to metastatic spread of primary tumor cells that colonize distant vital organs and mortality if not stopped. Since clinical strategies to stem this progression are still being developed, it is of great importance to detect this end stage metastatic spread as early as...
End-stage renal disease, or kidney failure, can result from acute kidney injury or sustained kidney damage in the form of chronic kidney disease. As the prevalence of end-stage renal disease continues to rise, the gold-standard treatment—kidney transplantation—is increasingly restricted by the shortage of transplantable donor kidneys. Bioengineered kidney tissues may...
Microfluidic technologies enable multi-tissue culture and precise control of media exchange and therefore have significant potential to create more complex in vitro models of reproductive systems, including endocrine cycles. However, microfluidic technologies have largely been applied to gamete-level culture in reproductive biology, with very little progress in organ-level culture. Herein...
Nanocarriers are nanometer-sized (1-1000 nm) structures capable of encapsulating cargo. This encapsulation can drastically alter the pharmacokinetic properties of the cargo, while also allowing for the rational design and engineering of the nanocarrier itself. Poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(propylene sulfide) is an amphiphilic diblock copolymer capable of self-assembling into diverse nanocarriers. The purpose...
Nanomaterials are broadly defined as materials that exhibit at least one dimension that is less than 1,000 nm. Encompassed within nanomaterials are a class of constructs known as nanocarriers, which are applied as delivery vehicles for both encapsulated and covalently bound payloads. Poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(propylene sulfide) (PEG-b-PPS) is an amphiphilic block...