Sharif Digital Repository

Cell separation microfluidic devices have evolved into a multitude of biomedical and clinical research. Nonetheless, many critical issues remain in the way of achieving an excellent separation of target cells from a heterogeneous sample. Parallel to the abundant experimental studies related to the hybrid microfluidic methods, it is easy to perceive the lack of numerical investigations in order to optimize the separation process and its accuracy. In this study, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, a hybrid system by integrating acoustophoresis and pinched-flow fractionation (PFF) is proposed to achieve a viable system for a wide-range, precise separation. Employing the ultrasound... 

Molecular imaging (MI) can provide not only structural images utilizing temporal imaging techniques, but also functional and molecular data using a variety of newly developed imaging techniques. Nanotechnology’s application in MI has commanded a lot of attention in recent decades, and it has provided tremendous potential for imaging living subjects. In this study, D-glucosamine conjugated functionalized magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4-PEG-DG NPs) were prepared and studied as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents. To evaluate their distribution, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is performed. Fe3O4 NPs are made using a well-known co-precipitation process... 

Silk fibroin (SF) as a natural biopolymer holds great potential in biomedical research because of its biocompatibility, easy processability and high strength properties. However, slow gelation time has narrowed its applications, specifically in cell-laden microparticle production due to insufficient crosslinkable moieties. This study aimed to develop cell-laden silk fibroin-phenol (SF-Ph) microparticle through co-flow microfluidic system using SF conjugated Ph moieties whereas covalent crosslinking is mediated with horseradish peroxidase (HRP) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). For this, the SF-Ph was synthesized through carbodiimide condensation crosslinking reaction. Aqueous... 

As technology size scales down, magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) as a promising technology are becoming more and more sensitive to process variation, especially in oxide barrier thickness. Process variation particularly affects the cell resistance and the critical switching current for the smaller dimensions. This article proposes an MTJ cell with one free and two pinned layers, which highly improves the process variation robustness. By employing the spin transfer torque (STT)-spin-Hall effect (SHE) switching method, our proposed MTJ cell improves the switching speed and lowers the switching power consumption. Per simulations, an MRAM cell built with the proposed MTJ cell offers up to 36%... 

Conducting polymer-based devices and scaffolds has become remarkably popular due to their properties such as conductivity, tunable electrochemical properties, and straightforward fabrication procedures. Hence, they have versatile applications and can be used as implants, biosensors, cell capture/release devices, and regenerative medicine scaffolds. This review addresses the effect of conductive polymers on cell behavior since their conductive features can be applied to simulate a cellular response. Moreover, the impact of polymer chemical and physical properties on cellular response has been discussed. Recent biomedical engineering approaches used for cell capture and release were reviewed... 

Flow sensors play a critical role in monitoring flow parameters, including rate, velocity, direction, and rotation frequency. In this paper, inspired by biological hair cells in the human vestibular system, an innovative flow sensor is developed based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel nanocomposites with a maze-like network of vertically grown graphene nanosheets (VGNs). The VGNs/PVA hydrogel absorbs a copious amount of water when immersed in water, making the sensor highly sensitive to tiny stimuli underwater. The sensor demonstrates a high sensitivity (5.755 mV (mm s−1)−1) and extremely low velocity detection (0.022 mm s−1). It also reveals outstanding performance in detecting... 

Binding of the SARS-CoV-2 S-glycoprotein to cell receptors is vital for the entry of the virus into cells and subsequent infection. ACE2 is the main cell receptor for SARS-CoV-2, which can attach to the C-terminal receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 S-glycoprotein. The GRP78 receptor plays an anchoring role, which attaches to the RBD and increases the chance of other RBDs binding to ACE2. Although high levels of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) are produced during viral infections, it is not clear how they affect the RBD structure and its binding to ACE2 and GRP78. In this research, we apply molecular dynamics simulations to study the effect of oxidation of the highly... 

Caching at network edges has attracted more and more research interests recently for the purpose of alleviating the network traffic pressure especially in backhaul links and improving user experience. We study Heterogeneous Cellular Caching Networks (HCCNs) consisting of macro cells in which $N$ small cell base stations (SBSs) equipped with cache memory operate in conjunction with the macro cell base station (MBS). We provide closed-form expressions of the MBS and SBSs utilization factors and average user-experienced-delay in HCCNs with overlapping coverage regions, considering general traffic models for the request arrivals based on the Independent Reference Model (IRM) and renewal traffic... 

Although medical advancements have successfully helped a lot of couples with their infertility by assisted reproductive technologies (ART), sperm selection, a crucial stage in ART, has remained challenging. Therefore, we aimed to investigate novel sperm separation methods, specifically microfluidic systems, as they do sperm selection based on sperm and/or the female reproductive tract (FRT) features without inflicting any damage to the selected sperm during the process. In this review, after an exhaustive studying of FRT features, which can implement by microfluidics devices, the focus was centered on sperm selection and investigation devices. During this study, we tried not to only point to...