BACKGROUND Aesthetic facial appearance following neurosurgical ablation of frontal fossa tumors is a primary concern for patients and neurosurgeons alike. Craniofacial reconstruction procedures have drastically evolved since the development of three-dimensional computed tomography imaging and computer-assisted programming. Traditionally, two-stage approaches for resection and reconstruction wer...

Nowadays, t he bi otechnologically pr oduced p olymers, e .g. p oly(3hydroxyalkanoates) (PHAs), a re widely used for biomedical ap plications ( e.g. in t issue e ngineering), because of bi odegradation a nd high biocompatibility. PHAs are used for development of various medical devices. These biopolymers can be also used for development of experimental models, e.g. 3D cell culture model. To dev...

Biopolymer Networks play an important role in coordinating and regulating collective cellular dynamics via a number of signaling pathways. Here, we investigate the mechanical response of a model biopolymer network due to the active contraction of embedded cells. Specifically, a graph (bond-node) model derived from confocal microscopy data is used to represent the network microstructure, and cel...

The rising concerns in terms of environmental protection and the search for more versatile polymer-based materials have led to an increasing interest in the use of polymer composites filled with natural organic fillers (biodegradable and/or coming from renewable resources) as a replacement for traditional mineral inorganic fillers. At the same time, the recycling of polymers is still of fundame...

Soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy coupled with nano-scale microscopy has been widely used in material science, environmental science, and physical sciences. In this work, the advantages of soft X-ray absorption spectromicroscopy for plant biopolymer research were demonstrated by determining the chemical sensitivity of the technique to identify common plant biopolymers and to map the distributi...

Batch and column experiments were performed to determine the Cu(II) binding capacity of silica-immobilized humin biomass. For column studies, 500 bed volumes of a 0.1 mM Cu(II) solution were passed through humin packed columns at the flow rates of 1, 1.5, 2, and 3 mL/min. The biopolymer showed an average Cu binding capacity of 12 +/- 1.5 mg/g and a Cu recovery of about 96.5 % +/- 1.5. The break...

The IMB Jena Image Library of Biological Macromolecules (http://www.imb-jena.de/IMAGE.html) is a freely accessible Internet archive with three-dimensional (3D) structural information on proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates and an emphasis on visualization. The visualization techniques used include static mono and stereo representations, virtual reality modeling, the usage of public domain ...

In this review the dispersability of carbon nanotubes in aqueous solutions containing proteins, or nucleic acids, is discussed. Data reported previously are complemented by unpublished ones. In the mentioned nanotube-based systems several different phases are observed, depending on the type and concentration of biopolymer, as well as the amount of dispersed nanotubes. The phase behavior depends...

Mucus is a porous biopolymer matrix that coats all wet epithelia in the human body and serves as the first line of defense against many pathogenic bacteria and viruses. However, under certain conditions viruses are able to penetrate this infection barrier, which compromises the protective function of native mucus. Here, we find that isolated porcine gastric mucin polymers, key structural compon...

The aim of the present work was to prepare and characterize biopolymer nanocarriers and evaluate their suitability in possible oral delivery of insulin. The egg albumin biopolymer was used to prepare nanoparticles which were further characterized by Fourier transformed Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), zeta potential, Dynam...