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Elastin-Like Polypeptides (ELPs) may serve as promising drug-delivery agents to treat various types of cancers. In order for our client, Dr. Furgeson, to conduct research on ELPs, soluble form of ELP is required. After harvesting ELPs from bacteria, ELPs become aggregated. ELP aggregation depends on temperature and salt concentration. The purpose of this project is to design a device that will make it easy to convert ELP aggregate into soluble form.
We are currently doing background research and developing the PDS report.
Our design team (left to right): Dhaval Desai (Team Leader), Lee Linstroth (Communicator), Malini Soundarrajan (BSAC), Nathan Kleinhans (BWIG)
The ELP pellet in centrifuge tube.
Prototype drum filled with ice to bring temperature of ELP/PBS solution as close to 0 degrees celsius as possible. We origionally thought ELP might resolublize better at the lower temperatures. Rather, the ELP becomes more viscus, and the ice was removed for subsequent tests.
We tested several different types of beads to use inside the test tube. Shown are glass beads (left) and zinc beads (right). The zinc beads worked the best, but were flaking in our test soltuions. We purchased stainless steel beads to use in the final phase of testing.
Malini and Lee at the spectrophotometer. We used spectrophotometry to measure how much of our "ELP stand-in" (i.e. Honey Butter) resolublized. Absorbance was recorded at 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 minutes.
Dhaval pipetting 1 mL of water into the test tube. The water represented the PBS solution that the ELP is normall dissolved in.
| Week | Reporting Period Beginning | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | January 20 | Formed team, assigned team roles, contacted client, and set up client meeting |
| 2 | January 27 | Met with client, background research, put together rough draft of PDS |
| 3 | February 3 | Team brainstorming meeting, further background research, revised PDS |
| 4 | February 10 | Decided upon three final designs, began work on midsemester paper |
| 5 | February 17 | Visited Dr. Furgeson’s lab to see the process used to make ELP, prepared midsemester presentation |
| 6 | February 24 | Completed midsemester paper on design alternatives and chosen final design |
| 7 | March 3 | Met with client and discussed our final design, decided to do individual research over spring break |
| 8 | March 10 | Spring Break |
| 9 | March 17 | Discussed individual spring break work, decided to see to use Lee’s prototype in place of our previous design |
| 10 | March 24 | Began designing tests to perform to evaluate effectiveness |
| 11 | March 31 | Client evaluated and shared our confidence in Lee’s prototype, researched beads and possible design modifications |
| 12 | April 7 | Tested our device with ELP in Dr. Furgeson’s lab |
| 13 | April 14 | Scheduled and performed testing in a BME department lab using Honey Butter for ELP and water for PBS |
| 14 | April 21 | Concluded prototype testing, finished final paper |
| 15 | April 28 | Poster presentation |
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Midsemester Presentation (Feb 25 2006, 956 kb) |
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Midsemester Paper (Mar 3 2006, 225 kb) |
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Final Paper (Apr 28 2006, 501 kb) |
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PDS Report (Apr 28 2006, 12 kb) |
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Solidworks animation of device (May 4 2006, 1112 kb) |
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Final Poster Presentation (May 5 2006, 916 kb) |
