Introduction Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is a bioactive sphingolipid with known paradoxical effects on endothelial cell (EC) barrier regulation. S1P binds 5 GPCRs: S1PR1 (Endothelial differentiation gene (EDG)-1), S1PR2 (EDG-5), S1PR3 (EDG-3), S1PR4 (EDG-6), and S1PR5 (EDG-8). Despite the aliases, endothelial cells…
Author: Alec
Alec joined the McGrath Lab as a pre-doctoral student in 2017. His focus is on designing and implementing microfluidic devices for studying sepsis associated vascular damage. His work includes membrane fabrication, human cell culture, and advanced device fabrication in collaboration with Aline Inc.
Maintaining Polarized Inflammation and ICAM-1 mAb Blocking – FINAL Polarized TNF-alpha Revision Experiments
Introduction Read the manuscript here: Integrative Biology Publication Please refer to the linked manuscript for a detailed introduction. In short, we have been interested in characterizing the role of endothelial cell (EC) apicobasal polarity in inflammation. While usually reserved for…
Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cell Shear on Manufactured Hybrid (Dual-Scale) Membranes
Introduction In our labs previously work, difficulties in growing endothelial cells (ECs) under shear flow lead to the exploration of novel membrane technologies that permit firm EC attachment, without compromising membrane permeability or leukocyte transmigration studies. We ultimately landed on…
Size Exclusion of the Vasculature – Polarized TNF-alpha Revision Experiment
Background Previously we characterized HUVEC monolayer barrier via TEER in traditional transwell systems following polarized TNF-alpha exposure (Figure 1). One major shortcoming of this experimental set up for our study is it does not accurately reflect the permeability of HUVECs…
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Characterizing Endothelial Cell S1P Receptor Expression via Flow Cytometry
Introduction Much of the background information for this set of experiments can be found in my previous post. In short, endothelial cells mainly express two receptors to the sphingolipid S1P, S1PR1 and S1PR3. S1PR1 is characterized as a barrier enhancing…
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Sphingosine-1-phosphate: Quick Introduction and TEER Results
Introduction Sphingosine-1-phosphate: production and endothelial cell signaling Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is a bioactive sphingolipid produced through the phosphorylation of sphingosine, a component of the plasma membrane, by SphK1/2. Many cells produce and store S1P, the largest source of which is platelets,…
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EC Apicobasal Polarity Short Summary: IL-8 and ICAM-1
Introduction EC Apicobasal polarity in immunity has and will continue to be a theme of my thesis. I have presented on bits and pieces of this work over the past year or so, but now that this work is under…
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Fabricating 0.5 um Channels in Microscope Slides for Staph Invasion Assays
Summary After success with the development and execution of the μSiM-CA (Canalicular Array; see Masters et al., Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine 2019), Jim wanted to develop a platform to answer some more biophysics focused questions. In order to facilitate…
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Ongoing Human Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Cell Culture and Characterization
Introduction In an effort to move forward with a ‘lung microvasculature on a chip’ model, I have been experimenting with using primary human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells in our devices. The cells (HPMECs) are purchased from Promocell and are collected…
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Sepsis and Sepsis-Associated Neutrophil Dysfunction – BMES 2019
Introduction Sepsis related projects had a decent presence at this years Biomedical Engineering Society (2019). I will detail a few of the talks I found most relevant to our group and research. Nanomedicine for Acute Criticial Illness by Dr. Jacob…
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