Mark Borden
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering and Bioengineering
University of Colorado, Boulder
Thursday, October 30, 2014, 3pm
The George Washington University
801 22nd Street NW, Phillips Hall 736
Washington, DC 20052
Hosted by: Dr. Kausik Sarkar ([email protected])
Abstract: Microbubbles are being developed for a variety of biomedical applications, including ultrasound molecular imaging, ultrasound-targeted drug delivery and injectable oxygenation. Each of these applications requires a unique optimization of shell mechanical and gas transport properties by control of molecular composition and shell microstructure. This talk will cover phospholipid monolayer-coated microbubbles, which are commonly used in these biomedical applications and also provide insight into the biophysics of natural lung alveoli. At a first approximation, the monolayer cohesive energy should increase linearly with phospholipid acyl chain length. Furthermore, since the cohesive energy contributes to the energy barriers for monolayer permeation and collapse, microbubble stability should increase exponentially with acyl chain length. A more complex picture emerges, however, owing to the influence of microstructure on in-plane rigidity. The discussion will focus on intermolecular forces and illustrative results taken from in vitro and in vivo experiments for a homologous series of acyl chain lengths (C16 to C24) to provide some molecular design principles for microbubble shells.
Biographical Sketch: Mark Andrew Borden is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Colorado. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Arizona in 1999 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California Davis in 2003. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis and visiting scientist in Radiology at the Arizona Cancer Center. In 2007, he took the position of Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. He accepted his current position at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2010. He has published over 50 journal articles, 4 book chapters and 13 patents on microbubbles and their biomedical applications. His honors include an NSF CAREER Award and the James D. Watson Investigator Award.