Gemstone Team Research

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/9070

The Gemstone Program at the University of Maryland is a unique multidisciplinary four-year research program for selected undergraduate honors students of all majors. Under guidance of faculty mentors and Gemstone staff, teams of students design, direct and conduct significant research, often but not exclusively exploring the interdependence of science and technology with society. Gemstone students are members of a living-learning community comprised of fellow students, faculty and staff who work together to enrich the undergraduate experience. This community challenges and supports the students in the development of their research, teamwork, communication and leadership skills. In the fourth year, each team of students presents its research in the form of a thesis to experts, and the students complete the program with a citation and a tangible sense of accomplishment.

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Author: search.filters.author.Baumgarten, David

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    An investigation of the stability and diffusivity of flexible lipid vesicles for transdermal insulin delivery
    (2009-05) Baumgarten, David; Chait, Nicole; Chen, David; Do, Linh-Yen; Johnston, James; Lu, Keran; Quinn, Kevin; Tylka, Benjamin; Vichayakul, Vanessa; Zhou, Yishan; Wang, Nam Sun
    Flexible lipid vesicles have the potential of complementing or even replacing traditional needle injection methods for insulin delivery. Vesicles are made flexible by the incorporation of a chemical surfactant which may also hinder their stability. We studied the changes in the size and apparent flexibility of vesicles with varying surfactant concentrations over time and the effects these changes have on vesicle diffusion. We found that increased surfactant concentrations lead to greater size fluctuations. In addition, we witnessed a significant decrease in the flexibility of vesicles over six weeks, while the diffusivity of surfactant infused liposomes increased over a single week. Our data suggests that while surfactants are necessary in vesicles for transdermal drug delivery, their long-term stability is uncertain. Using our diffusion data, we developed a model to estimate the insulin delivering capacity of a hypothetical insulin patch which has the potential to stabilize vesicles for extended periods of time.