Pericytes Contribute Basement Membrane Proteins in a Human Stem Cell-Derived Blood-Brain Barrier Model (Louis Widom’s 2024 MPS World Summit Poster)

This is a side view schematic of the experiments I’m setting up in Mike and Derek’s stir cell. The membrane separates two wells. In the well where the membrane is flush with the wafer I add 300uL 5nm gold in H2O. On the other side I add my buffer and a stir bar. Adding a…

In support of the bone infection studies done in the Schwarz lab at URMC, I have recently been tasked with coordinating a new collaboration with Dr. Yates lab in the Chemical Engineering department. The goal of this collaboration is to establish a method to coat our membranes with hydroxyapatite crystals. Two different methods were attempted,…

Anant and I found a protocol in Biomaterials a few weeks ago that allows colorimetric determination of silicic acid.  It was used to track the degradation of PSi samples in Tris-HCl buffer. I optimized this protocol and got standard linear curves, as reported in the protocols section of the blog here.  Here, I report the…

This post is a recap on the nanosphere lithography based membrane patterning process. The results shown here are from a non-optimized run of the process. The image below shows an overview of the fabrication process used.   Below you can see optical micrographs of an etch test we performed on a TEOS sample with the…

After talking with Prahnesh, a graduate student in the Dumont Lab I obtained a protocol for a colorimetric assay used to detect the presence of detergents in solution. The assay uses phenol and concentrated sulfuric acid in the following manner: add 600uL Sulfuric Acid to 40uL of sample and vortex add 200uL 5% Phenol and…

Alright, so this is kind of a big update and I will probably split it into a couple of parts. Basically, in a search for a way of confirming that the particles we are seeing on the membranes, I have tried several techniques with varying degrees of success. The initial experiment involved me conjugating an…