Title: Microencapsulation of Tissues and Cells Team Members: Joe Zechlinski – Team Leader Bryan Baxter – Communications Timothy Eng – BWIG Representative April Zehm – BSAC Representative Client: Craig Atwood, Ph.D. Research Director, UW Memory Research Program University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School Research Director, Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital (GRECC 11G) Phone: (608) 256-1901 ext. 11664 Fax: (608) 280-7291 E-mail: [email protected] Date: 11/04/05 – 11/10/05 Problem Statement: A method of treatment for various diseases incorporates the encapsulation of cells and tissues and the time-released delivery of chemical mediators. Presently, this method encounters a slew of problems, including a lack of biocompatibility, limited immunoprotective properties, and hypoxia. The client desires the development of microcapsules that would permit the successful release of hormones (namely, testosterone and inhibin) by encapsulated cells into animals, while avoiding the aforementioned problems. Website: http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~bme200/microencapsulation_fall05/ Last Week’s Goals: • Crosslink PEG microcapsules with and without cells. This Week's Goals: • Construct (2) new microfluidic devices. • Keep attempting UV crosslinking. Think of better ways to isolate capsules after crosslinking. Summary of Accomplishments: • Attempted crosslinking using stationary UV in Masters’ lab. Capsules exposed to approx. 15 sec UV light (4mW/cm2 intensity in vicinity of microfluidic device). Difficult to assess whether air bubbles or PEG spheres were being viewed under microscope. • Met with R. Haasl, M. Gallego, and S. Vadakkadath Meethal at VA (client meeting). Discussed working in two groups after successful UV crosslinking with microfluidicswas accomplished – one focusing on biology (cell/material) aspects of project and other focused on improving engineering (fluidics) aspects. Difficulties: • Difficult to isolate and ‘find’ microspheres after they come out of microfluidic device and deposit into beaker or Petri dish. Difficult to determine whether they are sufficiently crosslinked. Activities: Team: 5.25 hr – team/advisor meeting (15 min), client meeting (1 hr), UV testing with microfluidic device, making new devices (4 hr) Joe Zechlinski: 5.25 hr – progress report (15 min), cell culture (4 hr), design notebook (1 hr) Bryan Baxter: 1 hr – design notebook Tim Eng: 1 hr – design notebook April Zehm: 2 hr – design notebook (1 hr), cell culture (1 hr) Total time this week: 14.5 hours Cumulative Project time: 99.0
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