CIE-USA DFW Chapter

On April 9, 2005, the CIE/USA Dallas Chapter hosted two biotechnology seminars at the Nedderman Hall of UTA.

The first topic 'Preventive Maintenance of Your Cardiac Pump' was presented by Dr. Subhash Airy, an assistant director of Alcon Research Ltd., Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Airy pointed out that determining your risk of heart disease is not as simple as just measuring and monitoring your cholesterol levels. It is well recognized that blocking of arteries that causes heart attack is caused by lipoprotein particles and not by cholesterol. Lipoprotein particles are the principal way that cholesterol gets transported in the blood. It is the numbers of various lipoprotein particles present that can contribute to the sluggish performance of your “cardiac pump” and cause heart disease. Just think of lipoproteins as cars that carry passengers along a highway, and think of the passengers as cholesterol. It’s NOT the number of passengers that causes the traffic jam; it is the number of cars. He concluded that heart disease can be prevented with proper dietary intake of nutritional supplements, including but not limited to antioxidants.

The second topic 'Molecular Surface Tailoring via Pulsed Plasma Polymerizations: Applications to Biomaterials' was presented by Richard B. Timmons, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Timmons briefly introduced the basic theory and techniques of Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD), a commonly used coatings technology. He further explained the variable duty cycle pulsed plasma technique employed by his research group has significantly better film chemistry controllability over the typical continuous-wave plasma conditions. A number of examples involving biomaterials currently under study in his laboratory were also presented. These examples included both preparation of biologically non-fouling surfaces as well as applications in drug delivery and analysis of complex biomolecular mixtures.