Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lam, Raymond Hiu-wai
Other Authors: Todd Thorsen.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62525
_version_ 1826194642882789376
author Lam, Raymond Hiu-wai
author2 Todd Thorsen.
author_facet Todd Thorsen.
Lam, Raymond Hiu-wai
author_sort Lam, Raymond Hiu-wai
collection MIT
description Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T09:59:42Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/62525
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language eng
last_indexed 2024-09-23T09:59:42Z
publishDate 2011
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/625252019-04-12T12:45:29Z Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip Lam, Raymond Hiu-wai Todd Thorsen. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. Mechanical Engineering. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2010. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references. In this thesis, an "artificial teeth" microfluidic device is developed that provides unprecedented control over the conditions required to simulate the growth of complex dental biofilm. Dental plaque formation is not only a precursor to tooth decay, but also induces more serious systemic health problems such as cardiovascular disease, pre-term labor, and diabetes. Therefore, understanding the conditions promoting colonization and subsequent biofilm development involving complex bacteria coaggregation is particularly important. The requirement of the continuous culture and analysis systems for large quantities of growth media and reagents has pushed the move toward microfluidics - the miniaturization and chip-based control of fluidic operations. Microfluidic oxygenation is necessary to regulate the cellular gas condition of culture medium, especially for mixed population biofilms consisting of both anaerobic and aerobic cell populations. A double-layer gas perfusion network structure fabricated above the cell culture regions is developed for culture oxygenation. Throughout the modeling and analysis of the oxygen transfer in microfluidic oxygenators, design strategies for such devices are proposed for different configurations. Various designs of oxygen-nitrogen mixer networks providing parallel oxygenation with differential or tunable oxygen concentrations are described and verified experimentally to test the corresponding applicability in microbiological culture. The microfluidic "artificial teeth" platform, integrated with the microfluidic oxygenators, functions as an effective and inexpensive analysis tool to dynamically adjust critical growth parameters such as bacteria population, growth medium composition, medium flow rate and dissolved oxygen levels. The first single-chamber "artificial tooth" chip is developed for long-term dental biofilm culture with better medium handling, such as mixing, humidification and automated growth medium replenishment. This device is also compatible with different analysis techniques using optical microscopy in order to determine the biofilm thickness, the ratio between viable and dead cells, and the visualization of spatial distribution of different dental bacteria in the biofilm. Furthermore, the single-chamber design is extended to a device containing up to 128 chambers. This "artificial teeth" chip is developed to achieve high-throughput parallel biofilm culture and analysis with a matrix of different growth conditions that can contribute to the quantitative studies of the physiology of dental biofilms. The artificial teeth device is applied to investigate the response of two key dental bacteria, Streptococci sp. and Fusobacterium nucleatum, in the biofilm under different microenvironments, including their growth under different gas conditions and their adherence properties with different sucrose concentrations. This work demonstrates a successful application of microfluidics to long-term biofilm culture applications. by Raymond H. W. Lam. Ph.D. 2011-04-25T16:13:36Z 2011-04-25T16:13:36Z 2010 2010 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62525 712781579 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 134 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering.
Lam, Raymond Hiu-wai
Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip
title Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip
title_full Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip
title_fullStr Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip
title_full_unstemmed Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip
title_short Artificial teeth : dental biofilm analysis on a chip
title_sort artificial teeth dental biofilm analysis on a chip
topic Mechanical Engineering.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/62525
work_keys_str_mv AT lamraymondhiuwai artificialteethdentalbiofilmanalysisonachip