ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the all members on my thesis committee for their help and support they have extended through the course of my project. I would like to thank Dr Eberhart and Dr Zimmern for giving me the opportunity to work on this project, for their constant guidance, motivation and encouragement. It has been my great pleasure. I would also like to thank David Muirhead for allowing me to work in the lab after hours and for all the guidance, support and motivation in putting this thesis together. I wish to thank Dr Chuong for his advice and support. I would also like to thank Devraj Subramaniam, Dwight Bronson and Bill Rademaker for their help with the mechanical testing. I would like to thank the research group Dr. Victor Lin and Dolores Vazquez. This project was supported by an internal grant from the Department of Urology and I would like to thank Dr Claus Roehrborn. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the BME program faculty for the opportunity to be a part of the program. I would like to thank my parents for their love and support. I would also like to thank all my friends for their words of encouragement and for all their help. Thank you Tre ′ for recovering my document