Research Experiences
Dr. Erin Lavik's Lab: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Spring 2019-Current
According to the Center of Disease Control, trauma is the leading cause of death in individuals between the ages of 1 to 44, with excessive blood loss being the predominant cause. This project aims to reduce the internal bleeding in trauma patients using hemostatic nanoparticles. Studies in large animal models with nanoparticles designed to bind activated platelets have shown increased bleeding and cardiopulmonary stress in response to the nanoparticles. This is due to the complement pathway, part of the innate immune system. In a naïve administration model, highly charged nanoparticles caused activation of the complement pathway. This study also linked zeta potential, a parameter related to surface charge, with the complement response. We are investigating the effect of surface charge and coatings of the nanoparticles on the complement response. We modified nanoparticles by changing the amount of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and adding amines to the surface. Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) were used to analyze the nanoparticles. Additionally, an ELISA assay was used to deduce if a complement response was triggered. The goal of this project is to design stealth nanoparticles that do not elicit hypersensitivity reactions.
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Dr. Steven Abramowitch's Lab: University of Pittsburgh
Summer 2020
Pelvic floor disorders such as pelvic organ prolapse affect many women each year. To study pelvic floor disorders, finite element simulations that include complex interaction between multiple highly deformable organs are needed to probe and understand the mechanisms of prolapse. While individual software suites exist that can develop these workflows, each have unique sets of features that, when combined could significantly improve the pace of development for these simulations. Currently, two of the programs to demonstrate potential useful feature sets are Houdini and FEBio. Houdini is a platform that, like many CAD packages, allows for procedural workflows giving users the ability to change major components of a simulation while still maintaining downstream events. It also allows for significant customization via easily implemented scripts in various programming languages. Finally, it has a finite element solver that is optimized for dynamic simulations involving highly deformable bodies undergoing significant contact. FEBio is an open-source finite element solver that is focused on biological applications. It has a rich community of users and offers excellent tools for post-analysis. This project focuses on creating a program that will allow for simulations developed in Houdini to undergo post-analysis in FEBio by creating a python script within Houdini that makes its data readable by FEBio.
Dr. Stephen Hoag's Lab: University of Maryland, Baltimore
Summer 2018
In the pharmaceutical industry, the yield point of each material must be known to efficiently make billions of tablets, which is typical of commercial production. The yield point refers to when they will start to break when creating them, making it easier for industry to predict the optimal conditions to produce tablets under. Energy density can be used to find the yield point. Energy density is the amount of energy put into a region of space per unit volume. In this study, two different excipients (fillers or binders in tablets), Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and Lactose, were compared since they are two of the commonly used excipients in industry and they show different degrees of plastic behavior. Four formulations were made for each excipient blended with varying amounts of a commonly used lubricant, (which allows powder to flow more easily) Magnesium stearate (0.5%, 1%, 2%, and 4%). It was predicted that with an increasing amount of lubricant, the tablets would break much easier and as a result, the yield point will decrease. This study was comparing two things: the effect of lubricant in these materials and the yield points of different types of materials. Tablets were made using the Styl One compaction simulator. To find the yield point, 20 tablets were made at varying forces (starting at 50 kN) and speeds (100 tablets per minute (tpm), 75 tpm, 50 tpm, 25 tpm, and 2 tpm) until the tablets stopped capping (breaking) (Concave B tooling (7.94 mm) was used to do calculations). Tablets were made for each formulation, starting at 50kN and 100 tpm and were made every 5kN until 10kN and 20kN for MCC and Lactose respectively, when they were made every 1kN until the yield point was found. Afterwards, five more tablets were made at each condition where more than 50% of the tablets did not break and the weight, thickness, diameter, and hardness (the force needed to break the tablet) were all measured. Then, ten tablets from the original twenty were used for the friability test. To pass the friability test, not more then 1% of the tablet’s weight can be lost. After measurements, the materials were characterized by finding tabletability, compressibility, and compactability, which describe how well the material can become a tablet under varying conditions. In conclusion, the percentage of lubricant heavily impacts the yield point of a material. For both MCC and Lactose, as the percentage of lubricant increased, the yield point would decrease. The percentage of Magnesium stearate most greatly affected tabletability. The yield point of MCC was found to be lower than Lactose most likely because MCC is a more plastic material, meaning it takes more force for it to break. Lastly, the speed at which the tablets were made affected MCC much more then Lactose because it caused a trend to form for MCC. However, with the Lactose, the speed did not show this trend, making the yield point much easier to predict in MCC compared to Lactose.
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