A pilot biomedical engineering course in rapid prototyping for mobile health.

Rapid prototyping of medically assistive mobile devices promises to fuel innovation and provides opportunity for hands-on engineering training in biomedical engineering curricula. This paper presents the design and outcomes of a course offered during a 16-week semester in Fall 2011 with 11 students enrolled. The syllabus covered a mobile health design process from end-to-end, including storyboarding, non-functional prototypes, integrated circuit programming, 3D modeling, 3D printing, cloud computing database programming, and developing patient engagement through animated videos describing the benefits of a new device. Most technologies presented in this class are open source and thus provide unlimited "hackability". They are also cost-effective and easily transferrable to other departments.

Unmixing of spectrally similar quantum dots using filter selection.

This paper explores the possibilities for quantitative analysis of multiplexed Quantum Dot Immunohistochemical (QDIHC) staining using a 10-slot fluorescence microscope filter wheel. QDs are an ideal fluorophore for staining biomarkers due to their unique properties, including greater photostability and relatively narrower emission bandwidths compared to organic dyes. We imaged a slide containing 5 pure QD spots and 6 QD mixtures with a customized scanning fluorescence microscope. The QD mixtures contained either two or three QDs in equal amounts. Ten filter cubes were used to gather emission signal and then fast non-negative least squares regression (FNNLS) performed the unmixing process by assigning components of the 10-channel raw data to one of the five QDs used. the average error in the unmixing process was measured to be 7.60% when all filters were used and 7.80% when only 6 filters were used.

Feasibility of multiplex quantum dot stain using primary antibodies from four distinct host animals.

We discuss the feasibility of multiplex QD stain for four biomarkers and our progress in finding four suitable biomarkers from four different hosts. There is a demand for using more than three fluorescent probes on a single tissue sample for disease detection to offer a more reliable prediction of disease progression. We developed a protocol for targeting four biomarkers using four primary antibodies from four different animal hosts. We performed primary-secondary antibody binding assays on nitrocellulose paper and stained breast cancer microarray slides with known expression of ER, PR, and HER2. We identified the lack of a standard protocol and the limited supply of primary antibodies from hosts other than rabbit and mouse in the market as key challenges. The results show variable success in both assays, but indicate future potential for this protocol with more development.