@phdthesis{FirdessaFite2015,
  author    = {Firdessa Fite, Rebuma},
  title     = {Use of polyhexanide and nanomedicine approach for effective treatments of cutaneous leishmaniasis},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-115072},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Despite huge suffering caused by cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), there is no effective and affordable treatment strategy against CL and no licensed vaccines. The current treatments show limited efficacy and high toxicity. Improved therapies through discovery of novel drugs and/or an alternative treatment approaches are/is urgently needed. We aimed at identifying a novel antileishmanial agent and developing an innovative nanoparticle (NP) based platform for safe and effective treatments against CL. We discovered that polyhexanide (PHMB), a widely used antimicrobial polymer and wound antisepsis, shows an inherent antileishmanial activity at submicromolar concentrations. PHMB appears to kill L. major parasites via a dual mechanism involving disruption of membrane integrity and selective chromosome condensation. However, host chromosomes binding appear to be limited by exclusion from mammalian cell nuclei. Moreover, we attempted to establish effective drug delivery systems that overcome the various shortcomings in the present treatment of CL. In this scenario, we initially studied the cellular interactions of NPs and their uptake mechanisms into mammalian cells before applying them in drug delivery system. We obtained clear evidence for the involvement of multiple endocytic routes to internalize NPs. Physicochemical properties of NPs, cell type, temperature and pathogenesis of the target diseases were shown to be determinant factors. Thereafter, a mechanism based host- and pathogen-directed combination therapy comprising PHMB and CpG ODN immunomodulator was established for overall synergistic effect against CL. It simultaneously targets the pathogen and the host immunity with effective delivery system. The results show that PHMB binds to CpG ODN and form stable nanopolyplexes for efficient cell entry and therapy. The nanopolyplexes displayed enhanced cellular uptake and antileishmanial potency while drastically reducing the toxicity against mammalian cells. In conclusion, our findings clearly indicate that PHMB can be used as effective candidate drug against CL and as non-viral delivery of immunomodulatorynucleic acids. Moreover, our proof-of concept study showed nanomedicine approaches are effective strategy to challenge CL and other human diseases.},
  subject      = {Leishmaniose},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Namal2018,
  author    = {Namal, Imge},
  title     = {Fabrication and Optical and Electronic Characterization of Conjugated Polymer-Stabilized Semiconducting Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes in Dispersions and Thin Films},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-162393},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {In order to shrink the size of semiconductor devices and improve their efficiency at the same time, silicon-based semiconductor devices have been engineered, until the material almost reaches its performance limits. As the candidate to be used next in semiconducting devices, single-wall carbon nanotubes show a great potential due to their promise of increased device efficiency and their high charge carrier mobilities in the nanometer size active areas. However, there are material based problems to overcome in order to imply SWNTs in the semiconductor devices. SWNTs tend to aggregate in bundles and it is not trivial to obtain an electronically or chirally homogeneous SWNT dispersion and when it is done, a homogeneous thin film needs to be produced with a technique that is practical, easy and scalable. This work was aimed to solve both of these problems. In the first part of this study, six different polymers, containing fluorene or carbazole as the rigid part and bipyridine, bithiophene or biphenyl as the accompanying copolymer unit, were used to selectively disperse semiconducting SWNTs. With the data obtained from absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy of the corresponding dispersions, it was found out that the rigid part of the copolymer plays a primary role in determining its dispersion efficiency and electronic sorting ability. Within the two tested units, carbazole has a higher π electron density. Due to increased π-π interactions, carbazole containing copolymers have higher dispersion efficiency. However, the electronic sorting ability of fluorene containing polymers is superior. Chiral selection of the polymers in the dispersion is not directly foreseeable from the selection of backbone units. At the end, obtaining a monochiral dispersion is found to be highly dependent on the used raw material in combination to the preferred polymer. Next, one of the best performing polymers due to high chirality enrichment and electronic sorting ability was chosen in order to disperse SWNTs. Thin films of varying thickness between 18 ± 5 to 755o±o5 nm were prepared using vacuum filtration wet transfer method in order to analyze them optically and electronically. The scalability and efficiency of the integrated thin film production method were shown using optical, topographical and electronic measurements. The relative photoluminescence quantum yield of the radiative decay from the SWNT thin films was found to be constant for the thickness scale. Constant roughness on the film surface and linearly increasing concentration of SWNTs were also supporting the scalability of this thin film production method. Electronic measurements on bottom gate top contact transistors have shown an increasing charge carrier mobility for linear and saturation regimes. This was caused by the missing normalization of the mobility for the thickness of the active layer. This emphasizes the importance of considering this dimension for comparison of different field effect transistor mobilities.},
  subject      = {Feldeffekttransistor},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MarkensteinAppeltMenzelMetzgeretal.2014,
  author    = {Markenstein, Lisa and Appelt-Menzel, Antje and Metzger, Marco and Wenz, Gerhard},
  title     = {Conjugates of methylated cyclodextrin derivatives and hydroxyethyl starch (HES): Synthesis, cytotoxicity and inclusion of anaesthetic actives},
  series = {Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry},
  volume    = {10},
  journal   = {Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry},
  issn      = {1860-5397},
  doi       = {10.3762/bjoc.10.325},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-114280},
  pages     = {3087 - 3096},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {The mono-6-deoxy-6-azides of 2,6-di-O-methyl-beta-cyclodextrin (DIMEB) and randomly methylated-beta-cyclodextrin (RAMEB) were conjugated to propargylated hydroxyethyl starch (HES) by Cu+-catalysed [2 + 3] cycloaddition. The resulting water soluble polymers showed lower critical solution temperatures (LCST) at 52.5 degrees C (DIMEB-HES) and 84.5 degrees C (RAMEB-HES), respectively. LCST phase separations could be completely avoided by the introduction of a small amount of carboxylate groups at the HES backbone. The methylated CDs conjugated to the HES backbone exhibited significantly lower cytotoxicities than the corresponding monomeric CD derivatives. Since the binding potentials of these CD conjugates were very high, they are promising candidates for new oral dosage forms of anaesthetic actives.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Hochleitner2018,
  author    = {Hochleitner, Gernot},
  title     = {Advancing melt electrospinning writing for fabrication of biomimetic structures},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-162197},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {In order to mimic the extracellular matrix for tissue engineering, recent research approaches often involve 3D printing or electrospinning of fibres to scaffolds as cell carrier material. Within this thesis, a micron fibre printing process, called melt electrospinning writing (MEW), combining both additive manufacturing and electrospinning, has been investigated and improved. Thus, a unique device was developed for accurate process control and manufacturing of high quality constructs. Thereby, different studies could be conducted in order to understand the electrohydrodynamic printing behaviour of different medically relevant thermoplastics as well as to characterise the influence of MEW on the resulting scaffold performance. For reproducible scaffold printing, a commonly occurring processing instability was investigated and defined as pulsing, or in extreme cases as long beading. Here, processing analysis could be performed with the aim to overcome those instabilities and prevent the resulting manufacturing issues. Two different biocompatible polymers were utilised for this study: poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) as the only material available for MEW until then and poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) for the first time. A hypothesis including the dependency of pulsing regarding involved mass flows regulated by the feeding pressure and the electrical field strength could be presented. Further, a guide via fibre diameter quantification was established to assess and accomplish high quality printing of scaffolds for subsequent research tasks. By following a combined approach including small sized spinnerets, small flow rates and high field strengths, PCL fibres with submicron-sized fibre diameters (f{\O} = 817 ± 165 nm) were deposited to defined scaffolds. The resulting material characteristics could be investigated regarding molecular orientation and morphological aspects. Thereby, an alignment and isotropic crystallinity was observed that can be attributed to the distinct acceleration of the solidifying jet in the electrical field and by the collector uptake. Resulting submicron fibres formed accurate but mechanically sensitive structures requiring further preparation for a suitable use in cell biology. To overcome this handling issue, a coating procedure, by using hydrophilic and cross-linkable star-shaped molecules for preparing fibre adhesive but cell repellent collector surfaces, was used. Printing PCL fibre patterns below the critical translation speed (CTS) revealed the opportunity to manufacture sinusoidal shaped fibres analogously to those observed using purely viscous fluids falling on a moving belt. No significant influence of the high voltage field during MEW processing could be observed on the buckling phenomenon. A study on the sinusoidal geometry revealed increasing peak-to-peak values and decreasing wavelengths as a function of decreasing collector speeds sc between CTS > sc ≥ 2/3 CTS independent of feeding pressures. Resulting scaffolds printed at 100 \%, 90 \%, 80 \% and 70 \% of CTS exhibited significantly different tensile properties, foremost regarding Young's moduli (E = 42 ± 7 MPa to 173 ± 22 MPa at 1 - 3 \% strain). As known from literature, a changed morphology and mechanical environment can impact cell performance substantially leading to a new opportunity of tailoring TE scaffolds. Further, poly(L-lactide-co-ε-caprolactone-co-acryloyl carbonate) as well as poly(ε-caprolactone-co-acryloyl carbonate) (PCLAC) copolymers could be used for MEW printing. Those exhibit the opportunity for UV-initiated radical cross-linking in a post-processing step leading to significantly increased mechanical characteristics. Here, single fibres of the polymer composed of 90 mol.\% CL and 10 mol.\% AC showed a considerable maximum tensile strength of σmax = 53 ± 16 MPa. Furthermore, sinusoidal meanders made of PCLAC yielded a specific tensile stress-strain characteristic mimicking the qualitative behaviour of tendons or ligaments. Cell viability by L929 murine fibroblasts and live/dead staining with human mesenchymal stem cells revealed a promising biomaterial behaviour pointing out MEW printed PCLAC scaffolds as promising choice for medical repair of load-bearing soft tissue. Indeed, one apparent drawback, the small throughput similar to other AM methods, may still prevent MEW's industrial application yet. However, ongoing research focusses on enlargement of manufacturing speed with the clear perspective of relevant improvement. Thereby, the utilisation of large spinneret sizes may enable printing of high volume rates, while downsizing the resulting fibre diameter via electrical field and mechanical stretching by the collector uptake. Using this approach, limitations of FDM by small nozzle sizes could be overcome. Thinking visionary, such printing devices could be placed in hospitals for patient-specific printing-on-demand therapies one day. Taking the evolved high deposition precision combined with the unique small fibre diameter sizes into account, technical processing of high performance membranes, filters or functional surface finishes also stands to reason.},
  subject      = {scaffold},
  language  = {en}
}