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Background
Carolyn Bayer (maiden name
Lester) received a B.S. degree in Electrical
Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in
May 1998. After graduation, she worked for Motorola
in Phoenix, AZ for four years. While at Motorola,
she participated in the development of DNA
microarrays within the Life Sciences Division (now
part of GE Medical). Her experience at Motorola led
to a position as a senior engineer at Neogenesis
(now part of Schering-Plough) in Cambridge, MA. She
was employed there for three years, developing
processes for their high throughput drug screening
lines. She returned to school in the fall of 2005 to
pursue a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, working with
Dr. Peppas at the University of Texas at Austin.
Research Summary
My PhD research seeks to develop novel sensing
and recognition nanodevices that are entirely
synthetic and tailored to have various biomedical
and perhaps even diagnostic or recognitive
properties. We investigate nanosystems based on
intelligent diagnostic polymer layers such as ionic
and biomimetic networks.
These network films are desirable alternatives to
biological entities because they can be designed to
mimic biological recognition pathways and at the
same time exhibit properties that are more favorable
for nanosensing applications. Procedures will be
developed to facilitate integration of intelligent
polymer networks and silicon substrates at the
nanoscale. Mask aligned systems will be utilized to
precisely micropattern ultra-thin polymers films
into silicon. Biomolecules will be micropatterned
onto silicon substrates via UV free-radical
polymerization. Due to the inherent dissimilarities
of organic polymer networks and inorganic silicon
devices, either an organosilane coupling agent will
be utilized to gain covalent adhesion between the
polymer network and the silicon surface or an
Iniferter-based method will be applied. These
general procedures will be applied to multiple
intelligent polymer networks.
Biomimetic recognitive networks specific for a
target substrates and characterized by single and
competitive fluorescent and confocal microscopy
studies, SEM, and profilometry. Specifically, we
micropattern biomimetic recognitive hydrogel
networks that selectively recognizes various
biomolecules among similar molecules via
non-covalent complexation.
Publications
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