A precision agriculture solution for water stress estimation in Hass avocado farms in Colombia.

Agriculture 4.0 technologies continue to see low adoption among small and medium-sized farmers, primarily because these solutions often fail to account for the specific challenges of rural areas. In this work, we propose and implement a design methodology to develop a Precision Agriculture solution aimed at assisting farmers in managing water stress in Hass avocado crops.

Necrostatin-1 releasing nanoparticles: In vitro and in vivo efficacy for supporting immunoisolated islet transplantation outcomes.

Immunoisolation of pancreatic islets in alginate microcapsules allows for transplantation in the absence of immunosuppression but graft survival time is still limited. This limited graft survival is caused by a combination of tissue responses to the encapsulating biomaterial and islets. A significant loss of islet cells occurs in the immediate period after transplantation and is caused by a high susceptibility of islet cells to inflammatory stress during this period.

Delayed graft rejection in autoimmune islet transplantation via biomaterial immunotherapy.

The induction of operational immune tolerance is a major goal in beta-cell replacement strategies for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Our group previously reported long-term efficacy via biomaterial-mediated programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunotherapy in islet allografts in nonautoimmune models. In this study, we evaluated autoimmune recurrence and allograft rejection during islet transplantation in spontaneous nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice.

A hydrogel platform for co-delivery of immunomodulatory proteins for pancreatic islet allografts.

Type 1 diabetes (T1D), an autoimmune disorder in which the insulin-producing β-cells in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas are destroyed, afflicts over 1.6 million Americans. Although pancreatic islet transplantation has shown promise in treating T1D, continuous use of required immunosuppression regimens limits clinical islet transplantation as it poses significant adverse effects on graft recipients and does not achieve consistent long-term graft survival with 50%-70% of recipients maintaining insulin independence at 5 years.

Open-source low-cost design of a buoy for remote water quality monitoring in fish farming.

In this paper we present the design of an open-source and low-cost buoy prototype for remote monitoring of water quality variables in fish farming. The designed battery-powered system periodically measures temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen, transmitting the information locally through a low-power wide-area network protocol to a gateway connected to a cloud service for data storage and visualization. We provide a novel buoy design that can be easily constructed with off-the-shelf materials, delivering a stable anchored float for the IoT device and the probes immersed in the water pond.

Toll-like receptor 2-modulating pectin-polymers in alginate-based microcapsules attenuate immune responses and support islet-xenograft survival.

Encapsulation of pancreatic islets in alginate-microcapsules is used to reduce or avoid the application of life-long immunosuppression in preventing rejection. Long-term graft function, however, is limited due to varying degrees of host tissue responses against the capsules. Major graft-longevity limiting responses include inflammatory responses provoked by biomaterials and islet-derived danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs).

Immunotherapy via PD-L1-presenting biomaterials leads to long-term islet graft survival.

Antibody-mediated immune checkpoint blockade is a transformative immunotherapy for cancer. These same mechanisms can be repurposed for the control of destructive alloreactive immune responses in the transplantation setting. Here, we implement a synthetic biomaterial platform for the local delivery of a chimeric streptavidin/programmed cell death-1 (SA-PD-L1) protein to direct "reprogramming" of local immune responses to transplanted pancreatic islets.

Functionalization of Alginate with Extracellular Matrix Peptides Enhances Viability and Function of Encapsulated Porcine Islets.

Translation of transplanted alginate-encapsulated pancreatic islets to treat type 1 diabetes has been hindered by inconsistent long-term efficacy. This loss of graft function can be partially attributed to islet dysfunction associated with the destruction of extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions during the islet isolation process as well as immunosuppression-associated side effects. This study aims at recapitulating islet-ECM interactions by the direct functionalization of alginate with the ECM-derived peptides RGD, LRE, YIGSR, PDGEA, and PDSGR.

Linkage Groups within Thiol-Ene Photoclickable PEG Hydrogels Control In Vivo Stability.

Thiol-norbornene (thiol-ene) photoclickable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels are a versatile biomaterial for cell encapsulation, drug delivery, and regenerative medicine. Numerous in vitro studies with these 4-arm ester-linked PEG-norbornene (PEG-4eNB) hydrogels demonstrate robust cytocompatibility and ability to retain long-term integrity with nondegradable crosslinkers. However, when transplanted in vivo into the subcutaneous or intraperitoneal space, these PEG-4eNB hydrogels with nondegradable crosslinkers rapidly degrade within 24 h.