Date of Graduation

5-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Priya Puvanakrishnan

Committee Member/Reader

Narasimhan Rajaram

Committee Member/Second Reader

Hanna Jensen

Abstract

Radiation therapy is one of the most commonly performed cancer treatment therapies today. Radiation therapy can cause can changes to tumor vasculature and affect blood flow rates. It is important to determine how changes in blood flow rates affect tumor glycolytic uptake to better understand tumor response to radiation therapy (1). The goal of this study was to use a fluorescent analog of glucose, 2-NBDG, to study the effect of varying flow rates on glucose uptake. A microfluidic device was constructed to flow 2-NBDG through. A murine metastatic breast cancer cell line was then cultured inside this microfluidic channel, and 2-NBDG was flowed through the device at .5 microliters/min for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the device was imaged using fluorescence microscopy. The 2-NBDG uptake was measured for only one flow rate. This is not sufficient evidence to determine the effect of varying flow rates on glucose uptake. Future studies should be conducted at increasing flow rates to determine this effect.

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