India Barnett

she/her

Education: Majoring in biomedical engineering

McNair Project : Current In Vitro Platforms for Thermal Therapies (2021)

Mentor: Punit Prakash, Ph.D.

Hyperthermia treatment between 41-45°C can enhance cancer therapy in a temperature/time dependent manner. Cell viability measurements following in vitro hyperthermia experiments can provide a basis for design of thermal dosimetry guidelines, contributing to development of computational predictive models as a function of thermal stress. Precise control and accurate measurement of temperature during hyperthermia treatment is necessary to determine the relationship between hyperthermia protocols and cell damage. Numerous studies have attempted to study the effects of hyperthermia at cellular levels; however, further research into in vitro thermal exposure systems may improve upon the limitations of existing systems.

As a team, we conducted a detailed literature review regarding different experimental techniques and methods for evaluating bio-effects of heating in cells in vitro. Articles were collected from PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus using a set of keywords developed for the search. The keywords that were used for the search are as follows:

“Nanoparticle heating,” “Cell heating,” “In Vitro,” “Nanoparticle,” “Magnetic hyperthermia,” “In Vitro Hyperthermia,” “incubator,” “thermal therapies,” and “hyperthermia”. A specific focus was geared towards nanoparticle heating techniques articles to review.

The objective of this review is to present a comprehensive applications-based overview of in vitro heating instrumentation platforms. We focus on critical heating parameters including heat-up phase, heating accuracy, level of integration, peak temperature, heating limitations, and ease of use. Finally, research challenges and future trends in the related areas are presented.