Abstract: Controlled
manufacturing of functional hydrogel microspheres with tunable mesh structures is
important for many applications including biosensing, medical diagnostics and high
throughput bioassays. I examined the effects of polymerizable monomer contents and inert
porogens for tunable mesh sizes and polymeric network structures of functional hydrogel
microspheres in this thesis. ... read moreSpecifically, simple micromolding fabrication scheme was
utilized to manufacture uniform microspheres containing a potent aminopolysaccharide
chitosan in poly(ethylene glycol) matrix. Simple fluorescent labeling and protein
conjugation reactions using a rapid and bioorthogonal Tetrazine-trans-cyclooctene
(Tz-TCO) cyclization reaction and a bright red fluorescent protein R-phycoerythrin
(R-PE) showed tunable mesh sizes and 3D structures. Further swelling ratio and scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) studies also supported the tunable fabrication of the hybrid
microspheres. I expect that the findings shown in this thesis could be useful in
programmable manufacturing of functional microparticles for a large range of
applications.
At the request of the author, this
graduate work is not available to view in the Tufts Digital Library until June 24,
2018.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University,
2016.
Submitted to the Dept. of Chemical and
Biological Engineering.
Advisor: Hyunmin
Yi.
Committee: Hyunmin Yi, Ayse Asatekin, and
Qiaobing Xu.
Keywords: Chemical engineering, and
Biomedical engineering.read less
