Projects

TUBITAK 1001- 55k USD
15 Dec 2023- 15 Jun 2026

Summary

Preclinical medicine, vaccine trials, and personalized medicine are gaining importance for scientific communities. Cell culture is an indispensable tool for preclinical data analysis in cell biology, cell division mechanisms, material testing, and drug development. The most popular cell culture models are two-dimensional (2D) as a monolayer. However, this model fails to mimic the natural cell environment because most matrices lack cell-cell and cell-extracellular circuits. In recent years, in-vitro three-dimensional (3D) cell culture models have been eliminating the inadequacy of 2D models by better imitating the in-body natural environment. Our project, proposing a new generation dynamic magnetic 3D (m3D) microfluidic cell culture model, aims to solve the problems experienced in 3D cell culture models and magnetic 3D cell culture models in microfluidic systems.

TUBITAK 2218
01 Aug 2023-01 Aug 2025
6000USD

Summary

Targeted particles are used primarily in diagnosis and/or treating regional diseases for which surgery is impossible. Hybrid particles in organosilica structures are frequently preferred to obtain targeted particles because they are both biocompatible and suitable for different surface modifications in materials science studies. These structures are generally obtained by silica precursors and conventional (Stober, sol-gel, etc.) synthesis.

Within the scope of the project, it was aimed for the first time in the literature to polymerize the cage-structured POSS molecule with the green synthesis procedure and to obtain these particles with different fluorescence properties by using continuous-microfluidic reactor systems as an alternative to conventional batch reactors and known organosilica precursors. The fact that the particles are suitable for surface modification facilitates target molecule modification. Aptamers are short artificial DNA or RNA sequences that bind a specific target molecule. Like antibodies used for similar purposes in biotechnology and medicine, these molecules that can show strong selective binding to their targets will be attached to the synthesized fluorescent hybrid particles. The aptamer-attached fluorescence particles developed in the study aimed to be used as aptasensors in diagnosing bacteria.