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Polymer-Based Biosensors, Drug Delivery and Waste Remediation Systems
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- Author / Creator
- Wei Zhang
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Temperature responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAm) microgels, first reported
in 1986, have attracted extensive attention due to their potential applications in many
fields, such as controlled drug delivery, chemical separation, sensors, and microreactors.
Much attention has been focused on developing biosensors because people, especially
those in resource limited areas, need inexpensive and easy-to-use technology to diagnose
quickly and accurately some common disease/health issues. Most of my work focused on
developing polymer-based sensors and polymer microgel-based drug delivery systems. In
addition to these studies, I also developed a new method to turn chewing gum waste into
materials that can be used to adsorb organic dyes, and heavy metal ions, and to reduce the
toxicity of oil sands tailings pond water. According to the focus of different chapters, I
divided my dissertation into the following three parts.
Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 focus on the development of biosensors. In Chapter 2, I
introduce a fluorescence-based immunoassay with which I can determine the
concentration of an antigen solution containing mouse IgG by measuring the fluorescence
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intensity of solution after the antigen reacts with excess antibody-modified magnetic
beads and excess FITC-modified antibody. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate the preparation of
an alkaline phosphatase-assisted pNIPAm microgel-based biosensor.
In Chapter 4, I develop near infrared-responsive etalons and utilize the etalons for
enhanced drug delivery.
In Chapter 5, I separate materials from chewing gum waste and use them to remove
organic dyes and heavy metal ions from water. These materials also can be used to reduce
the toxicity of oil sands tailing ponds water.
In Chapter 6, I draw conclusions for each chapter and give the future works of my
researches.
In addition, three appendices, A, B, and C, have been added. These contain
additional preliminary experimental results on related topics. -
- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.