Mechanical Engineering
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2263
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Item A Proposed Mechanical-Metabolic Model of the Human Red Blood Cell(2014) Oursler, Stephen Mark; Solares, Santiago D; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The theoretical modeling and computational simulation of human red blood cells is of interest to researchers for both academic and practical reasons. The red blood cell is one of the simplest in the body, yet its complex behaviors are not fully understood. The ability to perform accurate simulations of the cell will assist efforts to treat disorders of the cell. In this thesis, a computational model of a human red blood cell that combines preexisting mechanical and metabolic models is proposed. The mechanical model is a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model, while the metabolic model considers the set of chemical reactions as a system of first-order ordinary differential equations. The models are coupled via the connectivity of the cytoskeleton with a novel method. A simulation environment is developed in MATLAB® to evaluate the combined model. The combined model and the simulation environment are described in detail and illustrated in this thesis.Item Clinorotation time-lapse microscopy for live-cell assays in simulated microgravity(2013) Yew, Alvin G.; Hsieh, Adam; Atencia, Javier; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To address the health risks associated with long-term manned space exploration, we require an understanding of the cellular processes that drive physiological alterations. Since experiments in spaceflight are expensive, clinorotation is commonly used to simulate the effects of microgravity in ground experiments. However, conventional clinostats prohibit live-cell imaging needed to characterize the time-evolution of cell behavior and they also have limited control of chemical microenvironments in cell cultures. In this dissertation, I present my work in developing Clinorotation Time-lapse Microscopy (CTM), a microscope stage-amenable, lab-on-chip technique that can accommodate a wide range of simulated microgravity investigations. I demonstrate CTM with stem cells and show significant, time-dependent alterations to morphology. Additionally, I derive momentum and mass transport equations for microcavities that can be incorporated into various lab-on-chip designs. Altogether, this work represents a significant step forward in space biology research.