https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/index.htmlcover image (-7.jpg) About me Hii! I am a product design student from India.I love tackling messy, real-world problems from healthcare and assistive technology to biodesign. Contact info Homework, Labs, and Projects See the nav bar on the left to look through my work for How To Biomanufacture Almost Anything (Fall 2026)!Hugoenhttps://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-01-hw-project-ideas/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-01-hw-project-ideas/index.htmlBioFit — Grown-to-Shape Bacterial Cellulose Prosthetics/orthotics Interface 1. What would I like to biomanufacture, and why? I want to biomanufacture a custom-fitted bacterial-cellulose inner interface for lower-limb prosthetic sockets/ knee braces and potentially other wearable orthopedic devices. Instead of manufacturing a flat sheet of material and then cutting, joining, stretching, or thermoforming it around the residual limb, the material would be grown directly around a digitally fabricated 3D former derived from the user’s residual-limb scan. The result would be a seamless, body-specific cellulose structure whose thickness, surface texture, porosity, and geometry could potentially be varied across different regions of the limb. This interests me primarily from a product-design and human-factors perspective. The interface between the residual limb and prosthetic socket is extremely demanding: it experiences pressure, shear, friction, heat, and moisture. These conditions contribute to irritation, blisters, dermatitis, pressure injuries and other skin problems. Heat and perspiration are also significant problems; a literature review found that more than 53% of people with amputations in the included studies experienced heat and/or perspiration discomfort inside their prostheses. . Not just from comfort but even from a functionality point of view , one of the most notable problems related to knee braces is brace migration and that clubs in with interface pressure, thermal comfort, airflow etc . Conventional silicon liners or EVA foam provide cushioning and suspension, but they can also trap heat and perspiration. Research on perforated liners suggests that deliberately controlling moisture pathways can improve residual-limb conditions. (PubMed) Orthopedic wearables have a difficult design problem: the device needs to apply forces to the body, but the interface needs to remain comfortable while doing so. For example, a knee brace may need to apply localized pressure to control movement or unload a joint, while simultaneously avoiding excessive pressure, friction, heat and discomfort. Similarly, prosthetic sockets have to transfer loads between a rigid device and soft biological tissue. That creates an interesting design opportunity for bacterial cellulose because I could potentially spatially engineer the material rather than treating the entire interface as one uniform piece..https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-02-hw-dna-design/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-02-hw-dna-design/index.htmlBioFit — Grown-to-Shape Bacterial Cellulose Prosthetic/Orthotic Interface Part 0 — Kernel setup I created a Kernel repository and project folder for BioFit and used Kernel to assemble and inspect the genetic construct. I used Kernel’s sequence viewer, construct checker, codon optimization tool, sequence search/BLAST, and Biosecurity Sequence Scanner to design and quality-check the sequence. Repository: Rosalea_BioFit Construct: BioFit-Expressionhttps://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-03-hw-cell-free/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/week-03-hw-cell-free/index.htmlObjective The objective of this assignment was to design novel cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) reaction compositions for three target proteins — sfGFP, PETase, and Reteplase — with the goal of reducing the cost per gram of functional protein. CFPS uses cell lysate containing the machinery required for transcription and translation, combined with DNA, amino acids, nucleotides, energy sources, salts, cofactors, and other components. Since individual reaction components can be adjusted independently, CFPS provides a flexible platform for optimizing protein production and cost. The three proteins were selected because they represent increasing levels of folding difficulty: sfGFP has no disulfide bonds, PETase has one disulfide bond, and Reteplase has nine disulfide bonds. A. COMPARE CELL-FREE REACTION COMPOSITIONS (20 minutes) Why does the concentration of potassium glutamate and magnesium glutamate differ between compositions? Which is more sensitive? Potassium glutamate (K-Glu) and magnesium glutamate (Mg-Glu) both contribute to the ionic environment required for efficient transcription and translation. However, they do not play identical roles. K-Glu primarily helps establish the overall ionic strength of the reaction, while Mg²⁺ has a more sensitive role in processes involving nucleic acids, ribosomes, and ATP/NTP interactions. Therefore, the concentrations of K-Glu and Mg-Glu differ between optimized formulations because the two ions affect the CFPS system differently. Mg-Glu is generally the more sensitive parameter, meaning relatively small changes in Mg²⁺ concentration can significantly affect reaction performance.https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/final-project/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/rosalea-matta/final-project/index.html