Cell Line to Search for Osteosarcoma Agents
Osteosarcoma, a bone tumor of childhood, is lethal when unresponsive to chemotherapy. ER stress response, a cell survival mechanism that is triggered upon exposure to stressors such as chemotherapy, is one of the ways a tumor becomes resistant to chemotherapy. This project explores novel methods of producing a noncytotoxic EGFP-ATF6 construct to signal Endoplasmic Reticulum stress response.
Quantification of Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular disease causes nearly one-third of all deaths in the world. Unfortunately, atherosclerosis commonly remains asymptomatic for decades, and is properly diagnosed only after a severe, life-threatening cardiac event. Thus, a portable, low‐cost tattoo‐based biosensor for the non‐invasive self‐diagnosis and quantification of atherosclerosis was developed.
Lab-On-A-Chip Device for Disease Diagnostics
RNA-based viruses and bacteria have been sources of large-scale epidemics and pandemics, most notably Ebola, SARS, influenza, hepatitis C, HIV, and the Zika Virus. Normal detection of these biological agents requires multiple lab processes. This project aims to develop a fully integrated lab-on-a-chip device to accomplish this.
Powering Wearable Microelectronics
Wearable low power biometric devices and body sensor network systems (BSNs) such as heart, respiration, and activity monitors are popular devices that are predicted to increase tenfold by 2018. This project focused on biomechanical energy harvesting from rib cage expansion using piezoelectric materials and frequency up conversion to power wearable microelectronics.
Multidrug Resistant Superbugs
Antibiotics have been extensively used to treat patients with infectious diseases for the last 70 years. As these drugs have been used widely for long time, the organisms the antibiotics are designed to kill have adapted to them, making the drugs less effective. This can be prevented through selective separation, identification and eradication using fluorescent, magnetic multifunctional carbon dots.