Paul De Bank

• BSc (Hons), PhD
• Senior Lecturer at University of Bath

Signalling via the endocannabinoids anandamide and 2-arachidonylglycerol appears to be terminated largely through the action of the enzyme fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). In this report, we describe a simple spectrophotometric assay to detect FAAH activity in vitro using the ability of the enzyme to hydrolyze oleamide and measuring the resultant...

A general procedure to prepare gold nanourchins (GNUs) via a seed-mediated method was followed using dopamine hydrochloride as a reducing agent and silver nitrate salt (AgNO3) as a shape-directing agent. The novelty of this study comes from the successful incorporation of the prepared gold urchins as an aqueous suspension in a nasal pressurized met...

The olfactory region of the nasal cavity directly links the brain to the external environment, presenting a potential direct route to the central nervous system (CNS). However, targeting drugs to the olfactory region is challenging and relies on a combination of drug formulation, delivery device, and administration technique to navigate human nasal...

Aims: This study aimed to develop a wound infection model that could be used to test antibiotic-loaded electrospun matrices for the topical treatment of infected skin, and compare the effectiveness of this treatment to systemically applied antibiotics. Methods and results: 3D-printed flow chambers were made in which Staphylococcus aureus biofilm...

The low permeability of nanoparticles (NPs) across the intestinal epithelium remains a major challenge for their application of delivering macromolecular therapeutic agents via the oral route. Previous studies have demonstrated the epithelial transcytosis capacity of a non-toxic version of Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin A (ntPE). Here, we show tha...

The nasal cavity is an attractive route for both local and systemic drug delivery and holds great potential for access to the brain via the olfactory region, an area where the blood–brain barrier (BBB) is effectively absent. However, the olfactory region is located at the roof of the nasal cavity and only represents ~5–7% of the epithelial surface...

Scaffold materials suitable for the scale-up and subsequent commercialization of tissue engineered products should ideally be cost effective and accessible. For the in vitro culture of certain adherent cells, synthetic fabrication techniques are often employed to produce micro-or nano-patterned substrates to influence cell attachment , morphology,...

Malaria is considered to be one of the most catastrophic health issues in the whole world. Vibrational spectroscopy is a rapid, robust, label-free, inexpensive, highly sensitive, non-perturbative and non-destructive technique with high diagnostic potential for the early detection of disease agents. In particular, the fingerprinting capability of At...

Fluidised bed bioreactors (FBBs) are a promising alternative to provide high cell densities and a more defined culture environment for 2D and 3D cell cultures. However, for their wider use in biotechnology applications, a better understanding of their hydrodynamics is required. In this work, the fluidisation properties of three common particles in...

Chronic wounds, for instance venous, pressure, arterial and diabetic ulcers, are a major health problem throughout the world. Compared with normal wounds, those that take more than four weeks to heal are defined as chronic. Interestingly, the numbers of patients suffering from chronic wounds and the cost for treatment have been increasing during th...

Microcarrier cell scaffolds have potential as injectable cell delivery vehicles or as building blocks for tissue engineering. The use of small cell carriers allows for a ‘bottom up’ approach to tissue assembly when moulding microparticles into larger structures, which can facilitate the introduction of hierarchy by layering different matrices and c...

Cultured meat, as a cellular agriculture product, utilizes tissue engineering techniques and consequently faces not only cell culture challenges but also scale-up limitations. To ensure cultured meat is financially viable, efficient bioprocess design for scale-up is required. In this mini-review we focus on the design of the expansion bioreactor, a...

Chronic wounds, for instance venous, pressure, arterial and diabetic ulcers, are a major health problem throughout the world. Compared with normal wounds, those that take more than four weeks to heal are defined as chronic. Interestingly, the numbers of patients suffering from chronic wounds and the cost for treatment have been increasing during th...

The growing area of tissue engineering has the potential to alleviate the shortage of tissues and organs for transplantation, and electrospun biomaterial scaffolds are extremely promising devices for translating engineered tissues into a clinical setting. However, to be utilized in this capacity, these medical devices need to be sterile. Traditiona...

The present study aimed to develop controlled release beads using sodium alginate and pectin. Calcium chloride and epichlorhydrin were used as crosslinking agent. Repaglinide was used as model drug. The beads were characterized for morphology, size, drug entrapment efficiency and in vitro drug release. The morphological examination was done using s...

Repaglinide, an oral antidiabetic agent, has a rapid onset of action and short half–life of approximately 1 h. Developing a controlled and prolonged release delivery system is required to maintain its therapeutic plasma concentration and to eliminate its adverse effects particularly hypoglycemia. The present study aimed to develop controlled releas...

Revascularisation is a key step for tissue regeneration and complete organ engineering. We describe the generation of human platelet lysate gel (hPLG), an extracellular matrix preparation from human platelets able to support the proliferation of endothelial colony forming cells (ECFCs) in 2D cultures and the formation of a complete microvascular ne...

The use of electrospun nanofibres for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications is a growing trend as they provide improved support for cell proliferation and survival due, in part, to their morphology mimicking that of the extracellular matrix. Sterilization is a critical step in the fabrication process of implantable biomaterial s...

To investigate the destruction of clinically-relevant bacteria within biofilms via the sustained release of the antibiotic tetracycline from zein-based electrospun polymeric fibrous matrices and to demonstrate the compatibility of such wound dressing matrices with human skin cells. Zein/PCL triple layered fibrous dressings with entrapped tetracycli...

Chemical and biochemical modification of hydrogels is one strategy to create physiological constructs that maintain cell function. The aim of this study was to apply oxidised alginate hydrogels as a basis for development of a biomimetic niche for limbal epithelial stem cells that may be applied to treating corneal dysfunction. The stem phenotype of...

Chemoselective ligation, including “click” chemistry, has found wide utility in general synthetic strategies and the specific modification of polymers and biomolecules. This has resulted in a number of applications of such approaches, particularly in the biomedical area, including diagnostic imaging and drug delivery. However, tools to chemoselecti...

The scale-up of tissue engineering cell culture must ensure that conditions are maintained while also being cost effective. Here we analyse the stability of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) to investigate whether concentrations change under dynamic conditions, and compare commercial recombinant human HGF as an additive in ‘standard medium’, to HGF se...

We report the controlled release of the antibiotic tetracycline (tet) HCl from a triple-layered electrospun matrix consisting of a central layer of poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate (PEVA) sandwiched between outer layers of poly-Ɛ-caprolactone (PCL). These micro/nanofibre layers with tet successfully encapsulated (essentially quantitatively at 3% and...

We report the controlled release of the antibiotic tetracycline (Tet) from triple-layered (3L) electrospun matrices consisting of zein or a zein/PCL blend, where the drug was loaded into the central layer with the two outer layers acting as diffusion barriers. These fibrous matrices successfully encapsulated Tet and efficiently inhibited the growth...

The synthesis of a maltol-derived hydrazide is described which, once attached to a cell surface, induces rapid multicellular aggregation selectively in the presence of Fe(3+) ions. Heterocellular aggregates are also reported.

The synthesis and antiproliferative activity of eleven 3-(pyrid-2-yl)-pyrazolines in two cancer cell lines are reported. X-ray crystallography was obtained of the lead compound 8i which was screened in the NCI 60 human tumour cell line and displayed sub-micromolar activity. Cell cycle analysis, in vitro tubulin assay and confocal microscopy are als...

We report the controlled release of tetracycline (Tet) HCl from a three-layered electrospun matrix for the first time. Five formulations of electrospun poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL) and poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (PEVA) have been designed, prepared as micro/nanofibre layers, and assayed for the controlled release of the clinically useful antibioti...

An efficient two-step synthesis of pyrazoline ligand is described which is an effective "turn on" fluorescent sensor for Cd(2+) in MeCN. Oxidation to the corresponding pyrazole ligand creates a "turn on" fluorescent sensor now selective for Zn(2+) and able to distinguish it from Cd(2+).

The functionalization of matrices with “caged” functional groups and their subsequent selective uncaging is a promising approach for generating patterns of bioactive molecules to guide cell growth or recreate in vivo microarchitectures. To date, this has been limited to caged carboxylic acids, amines and thiols, functional groups found within biolo...

Regenerative medicine is concerned with aiding the body’s natural healing process. Tissue engineering is a branch of regenerative medicine in which cell biology is combined with engineering principles to replicate the tissue in vitro. Tissue engineering is therefore used to develop tissue constructs within the body to aid healing, or to model the t...

Hollow fibre membrane bioreactors are ideal for tissue engineering applications because they can offer a large surface area to volume ratio in order to culture large numbers of cells in relatively small volumes of media. Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) hollow fibres have great potential for use in tissue engineering due to their biocompatibili...

The three-dimensional (3-D) arrangement of cells within tissues is integral to their development and function. Advances in stem cell science and regenerative medicine have stimulated interest in the replication of this architecture in vitro. We have developed a versatile method for controlling short-term cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions via a...

In the field of tissue engineering, there is a constant drive to develop materials that enable control over cell adhesion, growth and differentiation for optimal tissue development. In many cases, these materials incorporate or are coated with extracellular matrix proteins to increase cell adhesion and spreading. Here we show that chemoselective mo...

Tissue engineering aims to develop functional substitutes for damaged or diseased tissues through complex constructs of living cells, bioactive molecules and three-dimensional porous scaffolds, which support cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation. Such constructs can be formed either by seeding cells within a pre-formed scaffold or thro...

The mammalian cell surface is a highly heterogeneous chemical environment with proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and composite molecules controlling vital cell functions. Chemical modification of this environment is a challenge due to the complexity of the surface chemistry and the fragility of the cell. Here, we review recent attempts to perform tar...

Cell surface molecules are vital for normal cell activity. To study the functions of these molecules or manipulate cell behavior, the ability to decorate cell surfaces with bioactive molecules of our choosing is a potentially powerful technique. Here, we describe the molecular engineering of living L6 myoblast monolayers via selective periodate oxi...