• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
• /
• v.1997 no.11
• /
• pp.109-112
• /
• 1997

The Hydrodynamic performance of the trileaflet polymer prosthetic valves depends on the design of the leaflet and the physical properties of the leaflet membrane. In order to study the effect of leaflet membrane elasticity on the hemodynamic performance of trileaflet prosthetic valve, leaflet membranes are manufactured using two different polymers - Biospan and Tecoflex SG-93A. The hemodynamic performance parameters are measured under steady and physiological pulsatile flow, and compared with monoleaflet polymer valve(floating valve) and bileaflet mechanical valve(St. Jude Medical valve). Well designed trileaflet valve shows the lowest mean pressure drop among the tested valves. The trileaflet valves with Biospan membrane show lower pressure drop and back low comparing to those with Tecoflex membrane. More elastic membrane may provide wide opening area during systole and close membrane ree edge contact during diastole. Durability of trileaflet valves are also tested in vitro. Trileaflet valves with non-uniform membrane thickness ail within 17 days because of stress concentration. Trileaflet polymer valves with uniform membrane thickness perform well over 55 days without failure.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.310-315
• /
• 2009

We report the fabrication of double clad fiber (DCF) and DCF coupler, suitable for fiber based imaging systems requiring the dual-channel transmission. Unlike the conventional DCF which uses silica for both cladding layers, the proposed DCF uses a low-index polymer for its outer-cladding layer coated over the conventional silica inner-cladding layer. The DCF is drawn with a conventional SMF preform but a low-index polymer coating is used for both jacket and outercladding of the fiber. To achieve the cladding mode coupling, a DCF coupler is fabricated by simply twisting two pieces of the proposed DCF after removing the polymer-coating at contacting regions. A cladding mode coupling ratio of 30% was achieved with a contact length of 16 cm. The proposed DCF and DCF coupler were employed in a composite optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fluorescence spectroscopy (FS) system, and both OCT images and FS signal from a plant tissue are measured simultaneously.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
• /
• v.1995 no.05
• /
• pp.223-226
• /
• 1995

Polymers have been developed and applied in many biomedical areas as well as engineering and industrial fields. The first essential to achieve successful development and applications is that properties of such polymer materials would be investigated. In many cases, such investigations are accomplished by observing polymeric behavior arising from the environmental changes such as pH, temperature, and ionic concentration. It has long been known that NMR is extremely sensitive to many biochemical and physical changes occurring in the polymer samples. In the present study we focus our study on NMR Microimaging, which is one of the important NMR applications, to characterize the swelling effect by observing the time dependent spatial variations of polymer specimens. For the samples three kinds of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) specimens are prepared with different degrees of cross linking density. $^1H$ NMR microimages are acquired as a function of time to visualize the swelling behavior as well as volumetric changes occurring in the specimens. From the acquired time dependent images, the swelling process is exploited.

• Macromolecular Research
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.2-8
• /
• 2003

The self-assembly of polymers can lead to supramolecular systems and is related to the their functions of material and life sciences. In this article, self-assembly of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films, polymer micelles, and polymeric nanoparticles, and their biomedical applications are described. LB surfaces with a well-ordered and layered structure adhered more cells including platelet, hepatocyte, and fibroblast than the cast surfaces with microphase-separated domains. Extensive morphologic changes were observed in LB surface-adhered cells compared to the cast films. Amphiphilic block copolymers, consisting of poly(${\gamma}$-benzyl L-glutamate) (PBLG) as the hydrophobic part and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) [or poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm)] as the hydrophilic one, can self-assemble in water to form nanoparticles presumed to be composed of the hydrophilic shell and hydrophobic core. The release characteristics of hydrophobic drugs from these polymeric nanoparticles were dependent on the drug loading contents and chain length of the hydrophobic part of the copolymers. Achiral hydrophobic merocyanine dyes (MDs) were self-assembled in copolymeric nanoparticles, which provided a chiral microenvironment as red-shifted aggregates, and the circular dichroism (CD) of MD was induced in the self-assembled copolymeric nanoparticles.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
• /
• v.1996 no.05
• /
• pp.84-87
• /
• 1996

We have been developed electrohydraulic left ventricular assist device and done various in vivo evaluation on the device. Through the in vivo experiment conducted from Jan. 23, 1996 to Feb. 8, we could have experience of long-term evaluation fur the first time. The sheep used in this experiment had survived for 16 days. We used new actuator with reduced size and linear motion guide replacing oil box and ball bearings. Also, we used improved blood chamber with reduced size, reduced weight facilitating fixing the chamber to animal's body, and polymer sac having improved folding pattern. Against suction problem, we used absolute pressure limiter only. Motor current for driving this new actuator was not much higher than older one. Effective stroke volume was about 48 cc. Thrombosis was found around top area and peripheral boundary of the sac and valves. There was no sign of damage from suction problem in the atrium observed at autopsy. Main cause of death was presumed to be progressive formation of thrombosis in the cannulae. In this paper, the results of this experiment are documented.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.36 no.6
• /
• pp.251-263
• /
• 2015

Scaffolds play a crucial role in the tissue engineering. Biodegradable polymers with great processing flexibility and biocompatability are predominant scaffolding materials. New developments in biodegradable polymers and their nanocomposites for the tissue engineering are discussed. Recent development in the scaffold designs that mimic nano and micro features of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of bones, cartilages, and vascular vessels are presented as well.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.33-37
• /
• 2021

In electrochemical glucose sensing, the enhancement of the sensitivity and the response time is essential in developing stable and reliable sensors, especially for continuous glucose monitoring. We developed a method to increase the sensitivity and to shorten the response time for the sensing upon the appropriate addition of single wall carbon nanotube onto the osmium polymer-based hydrogel electrode. Also, the background stabilization is dramatically enhanced.

• Polymer(Korea)
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.390-396
• /
• 2008

The hyaluronic acid (HA) polymers cross-linked with lactide (LA) using the crosslinking agent, 1,3-butadiene diepoxide (BD), were prepared in order to develop a biomedical material for tissue engineering. The degree of lactide and BD reaction of the crosslinked polymer was determined by the analysis of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Both degree of reaction and swelling ratio increased with BD concentration or LA/HA mole ratio. Tensile modulus decreased with increasing BD concentration or decreasing LA/HA mole ratio. Degradation was shown to be progressed at two different stages and became slow with increasing BD concentration. It was shown that the first stage degradation was mainly due to the decomposition of ester linkage in the crosslinked structure. The cell growth inhibition increased with BD concentration. Although cytotoxicity was slightly observed in the high BD concentration, the value was very low (below 6%) enough not to affect the cell growth.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.26 no.4
• /
• pp.523-528
• /
• 2005

Diblock copolymers with different poly($\varepsilon$-caprolactone) (PCL) block lengths were synthesized by ringopening polymerization of $\varepsilon$-caprolactone in the presence of monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol) (mPEG-OH, MW 2000) as initiator. The self-aggregation behaviors of the diblock copolymer nanoparticle, prepared by the diafiltration method, were investigated by using $^1H$ NMR, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and fluorescence spectroscopy. The PEG-PCL block copolymers formed the nano-sized self-aggregate in an aqueous environment by intrsa- and/or intermolecular association between hydrophobic PCL chains. The critical aggregation concentrations (cac) of the block copolymer self-aggregate became lower with increasing hydrophobic PCL block length. On the other hand, reverse trends of mean hydrodynamic diameters were measured by DLS owing to the increasing bulkiness of the hydrophobic chains and hydrophobic interaction between the PCL microdomains. The hydrodynamic diameters of the block copolymer nanoparticles, measured by DLS, were in the range of 65-270 nm. Furthermore, the size of the nanoparticles was scarcely affected by the concentration of the block copolymers in the range of 0.125-5 mg/mL owing to the negligible interparticular aggregation between the self-aggregated nanoparticles. Considered with the fairly low cac and nanoparticle stability, the PEG-PCL nanoparticles can be considered a potential candidate for biomedical applications such as drug carrier or imaging agent.

• Polymer(Korea)
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.210-215
• /
• 2011

Rutin (R) exhibits a wide range of biological activities including anticarcinogenic, antiinflammatory and antiviral actions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of rutin concentrations (1 and 3 wt%) on the antibacterial activity of poly(3-hydroxybutylate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) scaffolds. Antibacterial activity was evaluated by using Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Furthermore, the qualitative ongrowth of human KB endothelial cells was done to study in vitro cytotoxicity of the scaffolds. As the results, PHBV scaffolds containing 3 wt% rutin completely inhibited the proliferation of Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae. In addition, the PHBV/R scaffolds used in this study did not show any cytotoxicity when evaluated them with KB endothelial cells.