Abstract
Acoustic droplet vaporization is a technique being developed to aid in blood vessel formation by delivering payloads of angiogenic growth factors and inhibitors upon ultrasound activation. The droplets themselves contain an emulsed liquid perfluorocarbon core and are surrounded by a stable bilipid membrane; activation releases the contents and induces a phase change of the core from liquid to gas. While this core phase transition forcefully pushes the growth factor payload into the surrounding environment, the rapid formation of gas also creates ultra-fast—on the order of microsecond—finite deformations which can damage the biological objects that we seek to grow. Thus, it is of critical importance that we understand the physical behavior of this droplet-matrix system at both ultra-fast and diffusive timescales.
In this talk I will highlight the connection between the design choices of scaffolds—their contents, sizes, and the surrounding materials—and their underlying mechanics. We combine this design space with a presented energy-budget-based physics model that allows us to quickly assess the mechanical behavior of scaffolds.
About the Speaker
Jon Estrada is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Michigan and is a 2024 recipient of an NSF CAREER award. He received a Sc.B. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and both his Sc.M. and Ph.D. in Solid Mechanics from Brown University. His work centers around inverse calibration of complicated soft materials for biological applications.
Host: Professor Taher Saif