Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Lab on a Chip

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    An Optical Density Detection Platform with Integrated Microfluidics for In Situ Growth, Monitoring, and Treatment of Bacterial Biofilms
    (2012) Mosteller, Matthew Philip; Ghodssi, Reza; Systems Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Systems engineering strategies utilizing platform-based design methodologies are implemented to achieve the integration of biological and physical system components in a biomedical system. An application of this platform explored, in which an integrated microsystem is developed capable of the on-chip growth, monitoring, and treatment of bacterial biofilms for drug development and fundamental study applications. In this work, the developed systems engineering paradigm is utilized to develop a device system implementing linear array charge-coupled devices to enable real time, non-invasive, label-free monitoring of bacterial biofilms. A novel biofilm treatment method is demonstrated within the developed microsystem showing drastic increases in treatment efficacy by decreasing both bacterial biomass and cell viability within treated biofilms. Demonstration of this treatment at the microscale enables future applications of this method for the in vivo treatment of biofilm-associated infections.
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    On Chip Isolation and Enrichment of Tumor Initiating Cells
    (2012) Saadin, Katayoon; White, Ian M; Chemical Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    We report for the first time a microdevice that enables the selective enrichment and culture of breast cancer stem cells using the principles of mammosphere culture. For nearly a decade, researchers have identified breast cancer stem cells within heterogeneous populations of cells by utilizing low-attachment serum-free culture conditions, which lead to the formation of spheroidal colonies (mammospheres) that are enriched for cancer stem cells. While this assay has proven to be useful for identifying cancer stem cells from a bulk population, ultimately its utility is limited by difficulties in combining the mammosphere technique with other useful cellular and molecular analyses. However, integrating the mammosphere technique into a microsystem can enable it to be combined directly with a number of functions, including cell sorting and analysis, as well as popular molecular assays. In this work, we demonstrate mammosphere culture within a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microsystem. We first prove that hydrophobic PDMS surfaces are as effective as commercial low-attachment plates at selectively promoting the formation of mammospheres. We then demonstrate the culture of mammospheres as large as 0.25 mm within a PDMS microsystem. Finally, we verify that reagents can be delivered to the cell culture wells exclusively by diffusion-based transport, which is necessary because the cells are unattached. This microsystem component can be integrated with other microfluidic functions, such as cell separation, sorting, and recovery, as well as molecular assays, to enable new discoveries in the biology of cancer stem cells that are not possible today.