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April Sawvel

Graduate Research Assistant

Education

Please follow this link to April's curriculum vitae.

  • Ph.D. Candidate in Physical Chemistry, University of California Santa Barbara, September 2005 - Present
  • B.S. in Chemistry, University of California Santa Cruz, 2002

Industry Experience

  • Senior Scientific Technologist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (September 2002 - September 2005)
  • Undergraduate Technical Scholar, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (August 1997 - June 2002)

Research: Understanding the Dynamics of Blood Clot Initiation and Propagation at the Surface of Inorganic Materials

A complete understanding of how the surface properties of inorganic materials influence blood clot initiation and propagation is essential for the further development of implantable biomaterials and hemostatic agents. Our goal is to create a surface science model that predicts how material surface properties can be manipulated to create a completely biocompatible surface, where thrombus formation does not occur, or a highly effective hemostatic agent where thrombus formation occurs very rapidly.

Our approach is to relate changes in the surface chemistry and physical properties of inorganic materials to observed changes in the in vitro clotting response to those materials. To date, we have found that properties such as surface potential, surface area, heat of hydration, and ion exchange capacity play a critical role in thrombus formation at the surface of inorganic materials. In addition, our work with mesocellular foams has shown the “protein-accessible” surface area of porous materials can be optimized by tuning their pore-opening diameter to match the hydrodynamic radius of certain blood clotting zymogens. The results of this work have lead to the development of several, highly effective hemostatic agents that are currently used by the United States Military to control hemorrhage due to traumatic injury.

Links

  • Presentation given by Galen at the 2008 UCSB Engineering Insights Conference on our research.
  • Recent article on Wired Magazine highlighting our work.
  • Top military award given to Galen at the ATACCC Conference on August 11th, 2008 for his his role in the development of a blood-clotting gauze that is saving soldiers who suffer severe, life-threatening injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Publications

  1. Baker, S.E., Sawvel, A.M., Fan, J., Shi, Q., Stucky, G.D., "Blood Clot Initiation by Mesocellular Foams: Impacts of Pore Size Variation and Enzyme Immobilization." Lagmuir, in press, 2008
  2. Baker, S.E., Sawvel, A.M., Zheng, N., Stucky, G.D., “Controlling Bioprocesses with Inorganic Surfaces: Layered Clay Hemostatic Agents.” Chemistry of Materials, 19, 4390, 2007.
  3. Sawvel, A.M., Chinn, S.C., Bourcier, W.L., Maxwell, R.S., “Local Structure of Amorphous (PbO)x[(B2O3)1-z(Al2O3)z]y(SiO2)y Dielectric Materials by Multinuclear Solid State NMR.” Chemistry of Materials 17, 1493, 2005.

Invention Disclosures

  1. “Hemostatic Compositions and Methods of Use.” Baker, S.E., Sawvel, A.M., Stucky, G.D., 2007. Patent pending.
  2. “Mesocellular Oxide Foams as Hemostatic Compositions and Methods of Use.” Baker, S.E., Sawvel, A.M., Stucky, G.D., 2007. Patent pending

Contact

asawvel [at] chem.ucsb.edu

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