MEMs and membranes: a Liver Assist Device

Intro For the past couple months, I have been working with Tejas to recreate his previous experiments using a more complex system. The goal of the research is to study the transmigration of neutrophils and represent how they behave during chronic inflammation in vitro. To do so, we planned to use a setup that included…

The goal of the experiment was to use a fluorescent dye to label live cells in order to measure proliferation over several days.  To avoid cell toxicity, the intensity of the fluorescence was reduced to ~1.5%.  Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were seeded in a a 96-well plate at a density of 5000 cells…

Chris gave me a few wafers to look at with AFM – an oxide sputtered in the recently cleaned chamber and VA Semiconductor wafers cleaned with “Normal Power” or “Full Power” Megasonics.  I employed a couple of new “tricks” to help with the imaging this time.  All of these scans were taken almost entirely in…

Introduction When concerning the issue of adherence on any substrate, the main two interactions that matter most are that of the cell interacting with the basement membrane (whether cell produced or artificially added) or the interaction between the protein based basement membrane and the substrate providing structure for cell culture; in our case SiO2 membranes….

Although the connection of those electrical circuits was always unstable, Greg and I did get some TEER measurement with this set up:   Device A Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 EVOM 1 -3450Ω* -1000Ω -1200 Ω -1000 Ω / EVOM2 100 Ω -9600 Ω 450 Ω -3 Ω 827Ω Device…

Theoretical molar flow is calculated for membranes with different porosities and is based on data extracted from TEM images using Mike’s program. Experimental data is calculated using air permeability test results. It is associated with porosity only through TEM data. Correlation between two is very good but some points do not agree. One of the…