Sharif Digital Repository

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Despite significant advances in therapeutic interventions for these diseases, the pathophysiology remains incompletely understood. Challenges in drug evaluation include the lack of appropriate clinical trials, such as conventional 2D cell cultures and animal studies, as well as the absence of model systems that can provide complex and patient-specific cardiac functions for diagnosis. Organ-on-a-chip devices have the potential to mimic the body's response to treatments by utilizing microscale cell culture fluid connections and creating realistic models of human organs of interest. Our objective is to develop a... 

The retina, a photosensitive area in the central nervous system, is delicate and intricate. It is susceptible to degenerative disorders such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), retinitis pigmentosa (RP), Stargardt disease (SD), and glaucoma. These diseases can lead to severe vision loss and ultimately irreversible blindness by causing destruction or dysfunction of different types of retinal cells. Unfortunately, there are no proven treatment strategies to cure or reverse these degenerative disorders. However, cell transplantation therapies may be an alternative to replace distorted cells and improve an individual's vision. Recent clinical outcomes show that transplanted cells in the... 

Cranioplasty is a surgical procedure for repairing skull defects. This surgery will protect the brain tissue, reduce pain in the lesion site and reduce the psychological burden on the patient. Cranioplasty implants should have distinct characteristics, i.e., high strength for protecting the brain, full coverage of skull defects, resistance to infection, non-expansion with heat, and reasonable price. Titanium implants, bone allografts, hydroxyapatite, and methyl methacrylate are commonly used in this surgery. However, these materials have many disadvantages that limit their use. As a result, biodegradable material and 3D printing technology are the next steps for designing scaffolds according... 

Craniofacial bone defects without scarring are a major clinical issue. These critical defects, which can be caused by infection or fracture, cannot be repaired without surgery. The main goal of skull repair is to protect vulnerable structures such as the brain, or it can be due to the improvement of jaw function and beauty. Tissue engineering can offer a new generation solution. The purpose of this study was to construct and characterise a degradable polymer/ bioceramic composite scaffold with allograft powder used in the craniofacial bone. The complexities of the extracellular matrix of humans can be simulated using 3D bioprinting.In this study, tricalcium silicate (TCS) was first... 

The heart stoke which happens due to an obstruction in the coronary artery can result in the presence of a dead part on the heart muscle called Myocardial Infarction (MI). MI can lead to next heart strokes and even the death of the patient. So far, a great number of biomaterials consisting of natural and synthetic polymers and Extra Cellular Matrix (ECM) of human body have been recommended for being used in tissue engineering approaches aiming to rehabilitate the infarcted site. The use of ECM is recommended for mimicking the microenvironment of the body as much as possible which can be very helpful in proliferation of the cultured cells. In this project, we fabricated a composite... 

Cardiovascular disease is responsible for a majority of health problem in developing countries. Heart diseases are the leading cause of death in the United State with approximately 40% of the death occurs by heart failures and coronary artery defects. Myocardial infarction is one of the diseases that occurs by coronay artery blockage. Cardiac tissue engineering (CTE) is an emerging field that holds great promise towards the development of innovative treatment strategies for heart disease. There are two common scaffolds for CTE, electrospun fiber mats and hydrogels. Although fibers are known as 3D environment for cells, they actually act as a 2D surface, because of lack of cell infilteration.... 

In this study, a new bioink was introduced for the production of tubular tissue structures for cardiac tissue engineering by bioprinter using the FRESH (Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels) method. The novel bioink that we used was a combination of cardiac extracellular matrix (cECM) and oxidized alginate. The cardiac extracellular matrix was used to increase the biomimetic of the printed structures to the actual tissue of the body, and also to create sites for cell adhesion, and to improve cell growth and survival. We used alginate oxide (oxidation degree: 5%) to increase the mechanical properties of the tissue. Alginate oxidation has been due to extracellular matrix (ECM)... 

In this work, we have used a 3D printer and unidirectional ice-templating technique in conjunction, to fabricate a novel composite scaffold to facilitate local osteochondral defects tissue regeneration with a cell-free approach. Using ice-templating to induce radially-aligned porosity formation in type I bovine collagen is known to expedite host cells' migration into the scaffold which their ECM secretion shifts cellular milieu toward that of its neighboring tissue layer. We used numerical analysis to design and optimize appropriate freeze-casting mold, finding the optimum value for pin height and metal slab depth to be 4mm and 14mm, respectively. Collagen content equivalent to 2%w/v was... 

In this project, a novel system of bioactive electrospun scaffold for bladder tissue engineering , has been investigated to control in vitro cell differentiation, and utilize in in vivo vascularization and tissue formation. This method doesn’t have custom bioactive scaffolds problems such as, protein instability, technical complexity and, difficulties in accurate kinetics prediction. First of all, protein loaded chitosan nanoparticles based on ionic gelation interaction between chitosan and Sodium tripolyphosphate were prepared. Maximum protein loading efficiency (80% for BSA & 99% for TGF-beta1) in chitosan nanoparticles was obtained at mean diameter of 51nm. Moreover polycaprolactone... 

Hydrogels are polymeric three-dimensional networks able to swell in the presence of an aqueous medium. Hydrogels from natural proteins and polysaccharides are ideal scaffolds for tissue engineering since they resemble the extracellular matrices of tissue comprised of various amino acids and sugar-based macromolecules.The biocompatible and biodegradable hydrogel scaffolds are promising materials for tissue engineering. Here, we report a new class of hydrogels derived from oxidized alginate (OA) and gelatin. The prepared oxidized alginate was shown to be efficient in crosslinking gelatin, leading to hydrogel formation. The effect of degree of oxidation and concentration of OA on the mechanical... 

In this research, fabrication of a mediator free nano-biosensor for the detection of cyanide has been studied. This biosensor utilizes 75 nm diameter (nano) ZnO particles synthesized with sol- gel method for modification and immobilization of Horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Cyanide plays inhibitory role in decomposition of H2O2 while HRP plays catalyst role in this reaction. Cyanide inhibits enzyme activity thorough binding with enzyme active sites and result in decreasing electrical current in electrochemical decomposition of H2O2. Amperometery response of biosensor shows linear relation between inhibition percent and cyanide concentration in range of 3µM - 24µM with detection limit of 0.62µM... 

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the diseases caused by the temporary or permanent cramp of major coronary arteries. Due to this blockage, blood flow to the heart's myocardial tissue is greatly reduced and finally the person suffered from a Heart stroke (HS). Heart tissue engineering is a promising approach, based on the combination of cells and suitable biomaterials to develop and create heart-like biological substitutes. Since high cardiac cell density, providing metabolic needs like oxygen and nutrients was a challenge. So creation of blood vessel networks within this type of designed tissue has been considered very much.The purpose of this project is to construct scaffolds with... 

Despite the increase in the number of cardiovascular diseases worldwide, the number of new drugs to treat these diseases has been decreasing in the last decade. Current preclinical drug evaluation strategies, which use cell cultures and oversimplified animal models, cannot meet the growing demand for new and effective drugs. In the last decade, the development of microfluidic bioreactors and organ-on-chip systems to improve the drug screening process has been increasing significantly. These systems have shown many advantages over previous preclinical models. Despite all these advantages, keeping the oxygen concentration at the optimal physiological level in microfluidic systems has its own... 

In the last decade, the application of organ-on-chip systems to investigate the effectiveness and side effects of various drugs, modele diseases for different tissues has become noticed a lot because these systems are a promising approach to eliminate animal tests and clinical studies on different people. Current conventional methods for drug testing are expensive, time-consuming, and sometimes unreliable. Various organ-on-a-chip systems have been fabricated in order to mimic the conditions of different native tissues in the human body, but only the blood vessel has been considered in most of them while besides blood vessels, as a source to nourish cells, there are lymph vessels as a sink in... 

Wound healing is a complex and regular process. It makes more challenge when the volume of wound exudate becomes uncontrollable. To solve this problem, hydrofiber wound dressings which contain carboxymethyl cellulose fibers are being used. Fast absorption and keeping the moisture in balance specially in chronic wounds, is one of the major features of hydrofiber wound dressings. In this research, which was conducted with the aim of investigating the synergy effect of active glasses and Hydrofiber commercial wound dressing for the healing of skin wounds, especially chronic wounds, the sol-gel method has been used to synthesize bioactive glasses based on borosilicate, replacing a part of CaO... 

Death can be the result of severe bleeding which is associated with the loss of a high amount of blood like what happens in accidents, wars, or operations. Classic methods to stop bleeding are mostly ineffective to decrease the hemostasis time and the volume of the lost blood. A wide variety of products like powders, foams, and hydrogels have been designed and synthesized either from natural or synthetic polymers. However, limitations like weak tissue adhesion, creating a moist environment in the wound site, infection, weak biodegradation, and hemolysis still have remained. Among the existing options to be used as hemostasis agents, polysaccharides can be appropriate considering their great... 

"osteoarthritis" is one of the most common joint diseases. This disease has a close relationship with factors such as aging, weight gain, genetics, mechanical pressures, and severe injuries. Although the mechanism of this disease is not fully understood, inflammation is one of the main causes of its exacerbation and progression. controlling inflammation can greatly help in controlling the disease. One of the common treatment methods for osteoarthritis is intra-articular injection of hyaluronic acid and triamcinolone as anti-inflammatory drug. Hyaluronic acid is the main component of synovial fluid, with its viscosupplementation property, prevents bones from rubbing against each other in the... 

Tissue engineering is a science that tries to create new tissues by using cells, growth factors and appropriate biological materials in order to repair damaged organs and replace parts lost due to various reasons. In this research, the effect of adding mxene sheets on the oxidized alginate-gelatin hydrogel scaffold was investigated. For this purpose, mxene nanosheets were first synthesized by Max phase chemical etching and its synthesis was confirmed by X-ray diffraction spectroscoy, field emission scanning electron microscope, X-ray energy diffraction spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy. Then, in order to prepare the scaffolds, different amounts of... 

Enzymes are widely used in industry, however, the expensive cost, low stability, and the limited activity in a certain range of temperature and pH, have limited the usage of such bio-catalists. In addition to increasing and preserving their activity under different conditions, the enzyme immobilization can improve its stability in different pH, temperature values and increase its thermostability, storage stability and the possibility of their recycling. Meanwhile, utilizing the super-magnetic systems could be very helpful as well. For instance, separation of the the magnetic nano-particles like Fe3O4 from reaction system using an external magnetic field is easily possible. In this study,... 

The purpose of this study is to assess the inhibitory effects of an appropriate nanoparticles loaded with gallic acid on the fibrillation of alpha-synuclein. Alpha-synuclein is a major component of protein plaques in synucleinopathies, particularly Parkinson’s disease. Gallic acid (GA, 3,4,5-trihydroxy benzoic acid) is a well–known small molecule which can inhibit the formation of α-synuclein fibrils. For the process of fibrillation, purified protein was incubated at 37◦C and pH 7.2. Fibrillation was analyzed by the standard fibril methods.after that investigated fabricating of gallic acid trapped in the chitosan nanoparticles and gallic acid loaded in chitosan –coated mesoporous silica...