Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to let you know that I have been working really hard on two simultaneous projects in the laboratory. One focused on using nano-patterened collagen templates to align and differentiate different cell types and the other is that I am writing a review paper with Dr. Hasirci on cell adhesion to nano-grooved templates. I have also started to travel around Turkey during the weekends and have visited Bodrum, Ephesus, Didim, Istanbul, and Izmir. The movies take me about seven or eight hours to make so I have been unfortunately unable to compile the videos and pictures I have taken at all of these places. I will hopefully, this weekend, put together a summary of the last several weeks for your enjoyment. I have two more weeks in the laboratory so I am furiously writing and putting together animated figures for this review. Just a quick update with more to come soon!

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late video! I moved from the dormitory EB2 to a dormitory called EB1 (The school closes one of the dorms during the summer session) so I had to reset my IP address for internet access. Everything is all set up now and my room is great! Here is the video from last week!

Hey guys, here is my video from week 4. Enjoy!

Here is my week 3 video! Enjoy!

Time sped up this week. I don’t mean to say that I accomplished more at work or that I had exceptionally outstanding experiences this week (because this whole trip is full of novel an exciting experiences), but I can say with certainty that this week seemed to pass with a speed at which I had not experienced in Turkey so far on this trip. Life was not slow before, it had a distinct pace and I had developed a routine for everyday and was comfortable having reached a point where I was okay with being by myself for certain parts of the day. Yet, as I look back over this week, I realize that it is already over.

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Hey Guys,

Here is my Week 2 Video from Ankara. Hope you enjoy!

Youtube has been blocked in Turkey as a result of some heated exchanges between Greece and Turkey staged over the internet site (source: en.wikinews.org/wiki/YouTube_banned_in_Turkey_once_again). Although the current president of Turkey has condemned the ban (news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100611/tc_nm/us_turkey_gul_twitter), the ban finally reached the Middle East Technical University and I have been unable to access the site. For this reason I will try and upload my videos to mega video and embed them into this blog in that manner. I hope it works!

Megavideo didn’t work for me so I’m using Dailymotion now to upload my videos. I was hoping to do some HD video production (although I might still be able to) but there is a 2 GB cap on the movie size for uploads.

This week in general has been somewhat slow at work because my project is in its infancy and therefore all of the necessary steps required to start my project have to be performed. As with anything, the set up steps usually take the longest time. My collagen samples were ready so I finally deposited them on the silicon template made by Hayriye.

Below is an illustration of what I am trying to do by making a collagen surface on which to grow cells. This image is taken from a Paper untitled Microstructured Surfaces Cause Severe but Non-Detrimental Deformation of the Cell Nucleus (click on the name for the pdf of the paper).

After I had finished this Özge asked me if I wanted to help her stain her cells and visualize them. After she stained them we examined them under the compound microscope that is in the visualization room at the biotechnology department. (Images of this will be in my week 2 video.)

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Dr. Hasırcı was around for most of the day today but left in the afternoon to go to Ireland for a European conference on Tissue Enginnering. Everybody here calls him Hocam (pronounced ho-jaam), which means on the most basic translation “my teacher”. I was told the word originally comes from Iran where it is spelled hodja and translates loosely to “master”. It is a title used to show respect usually for one’s elders. Here at the Middle East Technical University however, people use hocam all of the time, students regularly call each other hocam when trying to get each other’s attention or just in everyday speech. They say things like “merhaba hocam, nasılsınız?” (hello my teacher, how are you?) Apparently this phenomena has entered into the city of Ankara, where the people in the city are starting to use it as well.

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Today has been somewhat of slow day. I started preparing the collagen films today and the collagen films blended with ELP (elastin like protein) Initially, one of the graduate students I am working with, Hayriye Ozcelık, had questions as to the solubility of the ELP protein. I suggested that depositing the ELP in the acetic acid solution with the collagen would probably work because acetic acid is a good solvent for some peptides. Therefore it was not necessary to change the procedure for making collagen films. The past work in making collagen films has been done at 1.5% by weight but Professor Hasırcı said it was might be necessary to work at a higher concentration, or at 4% by weight to have better resolution for the nano-patterened templates. At this concentration however, it takes much longer for the collagen to dissolve in the 1 ml of acetic acid solution, therefore after setting up the control solution of collagen by itself and the solution of collagen with ELP, the two beakers were placed on a hot plate with a stir bar and were allowed to sit (for at least a day). For this reason, today is going somewhat slowly.
In other experiences, Denise, Pinar, and Albana took me to a restaurant called Dostlar Mantı where we ate Mantı (pictured below).

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