Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies present transformative potentials for progressive and refractory cancer treatment. However, therapy-associated neuronal toxicities, cytokine release syndromes, relapse rates, and the complex responses of patients and medical management have increased the cost of patient care. Prompt point-of-care (POC) quantification of circulating CAR T-cells and associated cytokines could enhance safety, simplify patients' management, and decrease patient care costs. While effective, existing standard detection methods, such as Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction(qPCR), and Flow cytometry, are not conducive to quick POC testing due to their complexity and expense. This research introduces a centrifuge-free Rapid Optical Imaging (ROI)-based platform to quantify CAR T-cells and therapy-related cytokine (Interleukin-6) from a single drop of whole blood. Through machine learning, label-free ROI-based CAR T-cell detection has been improved for accuracy compared with fluorescent staining results, and the morphological characteristics of CAR-T cells have been applied to attribute for differentiation and reduce false positives. This multi-layered microfluidic chip integrates cell and cytokines separation, collection, and detection steps, reducing the need for centrifugation or staining procedures. The microfluidic channel system separates white blood cells from whole blood after red blood cell agglutination and membrane filtration. The non-agglutinated samples are then extracted into a subchannel with a functionalized sensor surface for CAR-T-specific detection. Calibration curves were established using blood samples spiked with varying CAR-T cell concentrations. Another subchannel, featuring dual-layer membrane filtration, has been designed for cytokine detection using gold nanoparticle-labeled detection antibodies. Cytokine concentrations are digitally measured by tracking the number of gold nanoparticles in designated zones. This platform aims to offer a rapid and cost-efficient prognostic tool for timely assessment of key molecular and cellular biomarkers of CAR-T therapy patients, facilitating timely and evidence-based treatment adjustments.

To address the issue of excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, many scientists have developed an approach called Electroreduction of CO2 (CO2ER), which can convert CO2 into useful compounds, such as formic acid, methane, ethylene, and more. This study synthesized carbon-supported Bi nanoparticles as a electrocatalyst for the electroreduction of CO2 to formate. The aim of this research was to develop a Bi-based electrocatalyst that can be easily produced on a large scale, as existing Bi-based catalysts are challenging to manufacture in bulk. This M.S. thesis presents the process of synthesizing the catalysts and conducting further electroreduction experiments. Additionally, it reports the surface measurement results of the synthesized carbon-supported Bi particles. The Faradaic Efficiency (FE%) of the carbon-supported Bi particles was 70%, which is a 50% increase compared to the empty experiment. The comparison between carbon-supported Bi particles and a massive Bi rod is also discussed. Moreover, the effect of different catholytes, including KHCO3, KCl, and K2SO4 solutions, is further examined.

Analysis of the characteristics of biomolecules, including size, charge and binding kinetics, is essential for biomedical and life science research and applications. State-of-the-art protein analysis methods rely on separate technologies to quantify these characteristics, and considerable time, cost and analytes are required. Lack of single molecule analysis capability in above methods also making them difficult to study heterogeneous processes and achieving precision diagnosis.To address these issues, several techniques based on surface sensitive optical imaging principles were developed. The first technique is evanescent scattering microscopy (ESM) with single molecule resolution, which is capable of imaging single immunoglobulin G with high signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, nano-oscillator was combined with the ESM to achieve the simultaneous size and charge detection of single proteins. Based on the unique high axial sensitivity of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR), a 3D tracking technique to study the motion and interaction of biomolecules was introduced. With the additional dimension, more information in particle motions can be revealed compared to conventional 2D bright field tracking. By tracking the motion of nanoparticles, motion pattern of tethered nanoparticles and interaction between double-stranded DNA and an enzyme can be visualized. The G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) expressed virion oscillator array for quantification of the binding kinetics of small molecule drugs and different GPCRs was attempted. Cross-talking signals between the array spots were discovered, and several control experiments were performed to explore the possible reason. As an alternative solution for multiplexing, DNA barcode technique was implemented with the GPCR virions and achieved with the ESM, which paved a way for multiplexed single molecule binding kinetics studies. Circular RNAs has been found as an important class of regulators at the transcriptional and posttranscriptional level and could be potential biomarkers for many diseases. However, determination of its existence from the linear RNAs is challenging for the tradition molecular detection methods. Due to the no ending feature, by designing a unique complementary probe sequence, hybridization affinity difference between circular and linear RNA can be distinguished. Affinities with different hybridization nucleotides number were measured and verified.