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Abstract
More than 500,000 open-heart surgeries are performed in the United States every year. The anticoagulant Heparin is used to decrease the likelihood of thrombosis or hemorrhaging in each surgery by bonding to the enzyme inhibitor antithrombin III (AT-III). However, anesthesiologists currently lack the ability to measure antithrombin levels in a patient quickly, making appropriate Heparin dosages difficult to determine and possibly resulting in thrombosis or hemorrhaging if thrombin levels move outside the allowable range. This could be prevented with a simple bedside test. Current tests use gold, but we believe Iron (III) Oxide (commonly known as rust) can be used at a much lower price. Given a thrombin molecule with a fluorescein and quencher, the process to design and synthesize a test particle from Iron (III) Oxide coated in an aminosilane to detect AT-III levels was investigated.
Publication Date
2015
Keywords
chemical and life science engineering, open-heart surgery
Disciplines
Chemical Engineering | Engineering
Faculty Advisor/Mentor
B. Frank Gupton
Faculty Advisor/Mentor
Rudy Krack
Faculty Advisor/Mentor
Nastassja A. Lewinski
Faculty Advisor/Mentor
Umesh R. Desai
VCU Capstone Design Expo Posters
Rights
© The Author(s)
Date of Submission
July 2015