Date of Graduation

5-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Muldoon, Timothy

Abstract

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a gastrointestinal, autoimmune disease that causes ulceration and inflammation of the colon with an incidence 10 out of every 100,000 people in North America and Western Europe. Though the exact etiology is uncertain, a number of studies have shown that inflammatory cells along with environmental factors, genetics, and lifestyle habits can contribute to the sustained inflammatory response. In order to determine the cellular mechanism behind relapse and remission of UC, researchers have frequently employed immunohistochemistry, western blotting and gene sequencing, but these destructive analysis methods require the removal of a sample, necessarily limiting these methods to non-living tissues. There is an emerging interest in using non-invasive techniques to study the in vivo, longitudinal effects of UC on the mucosa in the colon. Here we have developed a mouse model of UC using dextran sulfate sodium and a non-invasive spectroscopy monitoring modality to study the changes in the tissue hemodynamics during active UC.

Keywords

Ulcerative Colitis, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, hemodynamics, colonoscopy, dextran sulfate sodium

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