Samarasinghe, Punsiri (2014-12). Microstructure Bio-Material for Behavioral Analysis. Doctoral Dissertation. Thesis uri icon

abstract

  • Biological applications have a limitation of creating tissue like structures in order to mimic the advanced real like structures, such as human tissues in a small scale. Conventional methods of using lab mice for cancer behavior have limitations due to observation complications. Fabricating an artificial human tissue which can behave similar to a human body tissue consists of components, such as Laminin and Collagen. Collagen in human tissue has elements, such as integrin and serum. Creating serum based proteins are somewhat challenging due to the conditional requirements. This particular approach will address the primary state of the art technique of observing the interaction with cells by mimicking the organs on a chip with blood circulation using a micro-fluidic pump. Bio-material hydrogel structures implanted on a silicon polymer based chip described in this thesis will overcome the limitations of in-vitro analysis. Water purification has become a vital issue in developing countries of the world. Water pollution due to Ammonia has been one of the major concerns with industrial revolution. Purifications were mainly done by chemical methods that can cause human health concerns. The analytically demonstrated method in this thesis using bio-compatible hydrogel will address a new dimension to the water conservation method without causing health issues and eliminating the environmental pollution due to complicated degradable structures. Filtration and efficiency are among the main concerns of using bacteria types such as AOB/NOB directly without encapsulating. Application of using bio-compatible hydrogel based dual encapsulated single pallet structure described in this thesis will address the issue of filtering capability. Pallets can be removed once nitrified, without letting it grow inside the water contaminating aqua based living breads and plants. The process will improve the efficiency of Ammonia removal due to encapsulation. Drug delivery using micro locomotives in neuro-surgery has become one of the future concerns with the development of science. Conventional delivery systems such as vaccines and open surgeries take longer response time once surgeries become more complex. Moreover there is a risk factor of injuring healthy nerves in the organ. Drug delivery approaches of drug encapsulated microspheres and drug embedded nematodes described in this thesis become more applicable to complex scenarios. Nematodes become useful in the future of microsurgeries, as many biologists are focusing on using their healthy nerves to implant in humans. Therefore, such applications like magnetizing nematodes help move locomotives to targeted locations and capture scan images for future medical approaches.

publication date

  • December 2014