Date of Award

6-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2024

Department

Bioengineering

First Advisor

Maryam Mobed-Miremadi

Second Advisor

Prashanth Asuri

Abstract

Creating a sustainable, ethical, and affordable substitute for animal blood in balloon catheter testing for Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is important to take into consideration. This research utilizes agarose and dextran to develop hydrogel-based artificial blood clots. These hydro gels replicate the mechanical characteristics of human thrombi across acute, subacute, and chronic stages through their elastic and viscous moduli (G' and G") and phase angles. This project addresses extant testing protocols, including temperature regulation, agarose processing, and well plate size, and suggests efficient approaches to encounter these problems.

The hydrogels were characterized by means of a thorough literature review and rigorous mechanical testing with rheometers, allowing their properties to be aligned with those of human clots at different stages of hardening. The outcomes showed that the mechanical characteristics of the hydro gel may be precisely adjusted to mimic the viscoelastic characteristics of actual thrombi. Future testing will have a solid result thanks to the vital insights about the gels' behavior under varying situations that the data gathered from frequency and amplitude sweeps offered.

By reducing the dependency on animal blood, this technique addresses ethical issues and enhances scalability and cost-efficiency. In order to test medical devices, synthetic hydrogels provide a stable, reusable, and biodegradable resource that encourages sustainability in biomedical research. Subsequent research endeavors will center on optimizing phase angle measurements and classifying hydrogels into distinct clotting phases. This will be done by hands-on catheter manipulation assessments to ascertain the catheters' effectiveness and dependability in replicating authentic medical situations. In addition to advancing the creation of better medical procedures, this research suggests moral and environmentally friendly research methods in the industry.

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