Bryan D James

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | WHOI · Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry

In late May 2021, the M/V X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire while anchored 18 km off the coast of Colombo, Sri Lanka and spilled upward of 70 billion pieces of plastic or "nurdles" (∼1680 tons), littering the country's coastline. Exposure to combustion, heat, chemicals, and petroleum products led to an apparent continuum of changes from no o...

Microplastics are an emerging pollutant with many fundamental questions still left unresolved. Are they toxic? How do they change over time? How long do they persist? Environmental scientists are asking many of these questions about the fate and effects of plastics in the natural environment, while biomaterials scientists have been asking the same...

Like marine mussels, freshwater zebra and quagga mussels adhere via the byssus, a proteinaceous attachment apparatus. Attachment to various surfaces allows these invasive mussels to rapidly spread, however the adhesion mechanism is not fully understood. While marine mussel adhesion mechanics has been studied at the individual byssal-strand level, f...

In May 2021, the M/V X-Press Pearl cargo ship caught fire 18 km off the west coast of Sri Lanka and spilled ∼1680 tons of spherical pieces of plastic or “nurdles” (∼5 mm; white in color). Nurdles are the preproduction plastic used to manufacture a wide range of end products. Exposure to combustion, heat, and chemicals led to agglomeration, fragment...

Sex Differences The work presented in article number 2100735 by Bryan D. James and Josephine B. Allen highlights the differential response of male and female endothelial cells to microenvironments of physiological shear stress and substrates stiffness. In terms of cell spreading and YAP1 expression, conditions where male endothelial cells showed se...

By using a full factorial design of experiment, the combinatorial effects of biological sex, shear stress, and substrate stiffness on human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) spreading and Yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) activity are able to be efficiently evaluated. Within the range of shear stress (0.5–1.5 Pa) and substrate stiffness (10–100...

Blood vessels in the body are multiphasic organs with microenvironmental niches specific to the cells that inhabit each section. Electrospinning is a fabrication technique used to produce nano- to micro- fibrous architectures capable of mimicking native extracellular matrix structure. Likewise, polycitrate elastomers are favorable luminal materials...

Due to the multifunctionality of bone within the body, developing an appropriate material for therapy or transplantation is a challenge. Thus, many criteria must be considered when designing an engineered bone tissue construct, including the native properties and characteristics of bone. Also important is understanding the mediators that create, re...

Hydrogels have gained interest for use in tissue regeneration and wound healing because of their absorbing and swelling properties as well as their ability to mimic the natural extracellular matrix. Their use in wound healing specifically may be in the form of a patch or wound dressing or they may be administered within the wound bed as a filler, g...

Vascularization of engineered tissue is one of the hallmark challenges of tissue engineering. Leveraging self-assembled nucleic acid-collagen complexes (NACCs), we mixed a VEGF-R2 targeting aptamer or its receptor agonist divalent assembly with type I collagen to assemble NACC microfibers. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) quickly rem...

Precision medicine aims to better individualize healthcare. It requires that biomaterials be designed for the physiological characteristics of a specific patient. To make this a reality, biomaterials research and development must address differences of biological sex. More specifically, biomaterials should be designed with properties optimized and...

DNA is a highly polyanionic biomolecule that complexes with both collagen and hydroxyapatite. By combining these complexes, we synthesized nucleic-acid collagen complexes (NACC) mineralized with hydroxyapatite. The composite complexes were made using a short, monodisperse single-stranded DNA, type I collagen, and mineralizing medium. They rapidly s...

Increasingly being recognized is the role of the complex microenvironment to regulate cell phenotype; however, the cell culture systems used to study these effects in vitro are lagging. The complex microenvironment is host to a combination of biological interactions, chemical factors, and mechanical stimuli. Many devices have been designed to probe...

Collagen and single stranded DNA (ssDNA) complex to self-assemble into fibers depending on the length of the ssDNA and the relative amounts of collagen and ssDNA in solution. When monodisperse, random sequences of ssDNA in the range of 15 to 90 nucleotides and type I collagen were mixed together at room-temperature, we report for the first-time fib...

Plant-based fibers are a potential alternative to synthetic polymer fibers that can yield enhanced biocompatibility and mechanical properties matching those properties of tissue. Given the unique morphology of the bract of the Manicaria saccifera palm, being an interwoven meshwork of fibers, we believe that these fibers with this built-in structure...

The remarkable underwater adhesion capacity of the invasive freshwater mussel species Dreissena polymorpha (zebra mussel) causes extensive damage each year. The adhesive interface between the substrate surface and the mussels’ adhesive plaques plays a key role in zebra mussel biofouling. Silicone oil-infused polydimethylsiloxane (iPDMS), an omnipho...

In the body, cells exist in a complex chemo-mechanical microenvironment, which regulates the cells' functional behavior. In recent years, many novel bioreactor systems have been developed to expose cells to individual stimuli such as fluid wall shear stress (WSS), cyclic stretching, hydrostatic pressure, substrate stiffness, substrate topography, a...

Renewable energy sources are being increasingly adopted, however their efficiency is limited by their intermittent nature leading to a mismatch with peak energy grid loading hours and dumping of excess produced energy. To date, much of the focus in renewable vehicles has been on automobiles. This largely overlooks the contribution from recreational...

In the body, cells exist in a complex chemo-mechanical microenvironment, which works to regulate the cell’s functional behavior. In recent years, many novel bioreactor systems have been developed to expose cells to individual stimuli such as fluid wall shear stress (WSS), cyclic stretching, hydrostatic pressure, substrate stiffness, substrate topog...

The vascular mechanical microenvironment consists of a mixture of spatially and temporally changing mechanical forces. This exposes vascular endothelial cells to both hemodynamic forces (fluid flow, cyclic stretching, lateral pressure) and vessel forces (basement membrane mechanical and topographical properties). The vascular mechanical microenviro...

Optofluidic devices are being developed as point-of-care methods for bioanalyses. These devices are commonly produced using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) silicone elastomers, due to the material's low cost, ease for prototyping, and optical clarity. One challenge faced is adequate means for guiding light. Gradient-index optics are one means for produ...