Archive for the ‘News’ Category

MicroTAS 2018 Highlights

The 22nd International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (aka MicroTAS) was held last year in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Welcoming more than 1000 participants, MicroTAS 2018 conference brought together several disciplines including microfluidics, microfabrication, nanotechnology, integration, materials& surfaces, analysis & synthesis, and detection technologies for life sciences & chemistry. Besides the exciting scientific program and great presentations, social/networking events (welcome reception, student mixer, women night out, and conference banquet) have made MicroTAS 2018 conference an unforgettable one. In this article, we would like to share some of the conference highlights with our Lab on a Chip blog readers.

 

 

Unraveling endothelial cell phenotypic regulation by spatial hemodynamic flows with microfluidics 

Sarvesh Varma, Guillermo Garcia-Cardena, & Joel Voldman

Did you know that artery bifurcations are prone to atherosclerosis? Blood flow profiles in vessels can help us to gain insights towards atherosclerosis. In this work, the authors fabricated a soft microdevice to study the effects of helical and chaotic flows on endothelial cells located in vein walls. They hypothesized and demonstrated that a helical (uniform) flow profile results in endothelial cells aligning upstream to flow and gain atheroprotective properties, while the chaotic flow results in misalignment of cells that give rise to atherosclerosis.

The figure shows the morphological adaptations of cells in response to distinct spatial flows, scale bars are 0.1 mm.

 

 

glass-like polymer

 

3D printing of microfluidic glass reactors 

Patrick Risch, Frederik Kotz, Dorothea Helmer & Bastian Rapp

Microfluidic devices are mostly made from PDMS, although this material is not always well-suited for thermal, optical, mechanical and chemical changes. In this work, the authors present a new resin formulation to inspire the 3D printing of glass, which is more durable than PDMS. The resin was fabricated using stereolithography printer and this technique is useful for rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices made from glass for optical detection or chemical reaction applications.

A 3D gradient generator is shown in this figure, scale bar is 2 mm.

 

A Tetris-like modular microfluidic platform for mimicking multi-organ interactions 

Louis Ong Jun Ye, Terry Chng, Chong Lor Huai, Seep Li Huan & Toh Yi-Chin

Modularization is undoubtedly on the rise in microfluidics and this work demonstrates an interesting approach. The authors focused on solving ‘limited compatibility with existing devices‘ problem. To achieve that, ring magnets were utilized to connect different parts of PDMS building blocks that were previously fabricated using micro molds. A modular platform assembled using this approach was shown to culture cells as a proof-of-concept study. The platform is expected to allow facile configuration of complex experimental set-ups involving multiple tissues.

The image shows a modular device (left), and its parts (right) connected each other via magnets, scale bars are 1 cm.

 

 

A magneto-switchable superhydrophobic surface for droplet manipulation

Chao Yang & Gang Li

Surface hydrophobicity is an important feature when it comes to bio and chemical applications. In this work, magneto switchable micro-pillars were made from PDMS and carbonyl iron particles. The pillars erect under influence of a magnetic field, resulting in subsequent switching of the wettability and adhesion of the surface between the water-repellent and water-adhesive states. The surface becomes superhydrophobic (water-repellent) when the magnetic field is applied. The authors demonstrated droplet lifting and transportation on a surface using this approach.

The image depicts the effect of an external magnetic field on the stiffness of micro-pillars.

 

About the Web writer

Burcu Gumuscu is a postdoctoral fellow in Herr Lab at UC Berkeley in the United States. Her research interests include the development of microfluidic devices for quantitative analysis of proteins from single-cells, next-generation sequencing, compartmentalized organ-on-chip studies, and desalination of water on the microscale.

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Microparticles: Good things come in small packages

Microparticles were first described in 1967 by Peter Wolf, a physician, as ‘minute particulate materials’ when he investigated the platelet activity in human plasma. They were initially used as drug delivery agents because their size is as small as pollens, which can easily go into the human body. Not long after the great promise of microparticles has been realized, and today we use microparticles in numerous applications including pharmaceuticals, biomedicine, bioengineering, cosmetics, printing, and food science. The widespread use is not a coincidence, they can be synthesized from a multitude of materials, i.e. metal, polymer, gel etc. Especially, polymer microparticles, conferring a great versatility in size, shape, and chemistry, gained more attention in industry. Just like their usage areas, fabrication techniques of microparticles vary a lot. Polymer microparticle production is typically done in two ways, first microfluidics-assisted techniques including droplet-based fabrication, flow-lithography-based fabrication, and microjetting; second other techniques including centrifugation, electrohydrodynamics, and molding. With a focus on microfluidics-assisted techniques, we bring a few remarkable and commercialized studies on high throughput production of spherical-shaped and irregular-shaped microparticles to your attention.

Spherical microparticles

Particle monodispersity has to be compromised for high-througput production when using coaxial microfluidic devices, and both features are highly desired in medical applications and industry. Luckily, as a droplet-based fabrication technique, high-throughput step emulsification of microparticles addresses this fundamental problem. David Weitz’s research group at Harvard University has recently reported a droplet generator microchip with 135 step-emulsifier nozzles that produce monodisperse emulsions of polymers at an exceptional throughput of 10K mL/h (Figure 1a).1 This means, monodisperse microparticle production with this device is thousands times higher than a typical droplet generator microchip with one droplet maker and a throughput of 10 mL/h. The chip is made of PDMS, which is a flexible and inexpensive material. Monodispersity  at high flow rates is maintained using microchannels connected through an array of parallelized nozzles (Figure 1b). Microparticles are formed at the step between each nozzle and the continuous-phase channel. The formation can be explained by the Laplace pressure difference developing between the nozzle and the symmetric polymer bulb, resulting in suction of the dispersed phase into the bulb. The growing polymer bulb increases the pressure gradient and a neck forms between the nozzle and the bulb due to depletion of dispersed phase, resulting in release of a droplet. This geometry can produce spherical-shaped microparticles. The production efficiency scales linearly with droplet diameter (Figure 1c). Weitz demonstrated the production of oil microcapsules in water with the envision of standardizing the process by converting the emulsifier into a pipettor tip. Such a technology can replace the existing pipettor technology tools including multi-well and robots, and this replacement can serve for parallelizing and automation of the encapsulation chemi- and bio-assays. This technology has recently been introduced to the market by a Switzerland-based startup company called Microcaps.

As an alternative concept, in-air microfluidics is based on the idea of producing droplets at higher flow rates without using microfluidic channels. In the research groups of Detlef Lohse and Marcel Karperien at University of Twente, microparticles were generated using two nozzles, and one of the nozzles is mounted on a vibrating piezoelectric element (Figure 1d). The breakup of the liquid jet ejected from the first nozzle leads to formation of monodisperse droplets, which hit onto a continuous liquid jet ejected from the second nozzle. After passing ‘the meeting point’, both liquids react with each other to form physically-encapsulated microparticles. This technique provides with hundreds to thousands times faster microparticle production when compared to coaxial microchip setups. Such constructs can be especially beneficial in tissue engineering, where rapid fabrication of multi-scale materials with multiple cell types is an ongoing challenge. This technology has recently been introduced to the market by a Dutch startup company called IamFluidics.

Figure 1. Up-scaled step-emulsification device producing monodisperse droplets. (a) A schematic of the entire microfluidic chip actively producing oil-in-water droplets. (b) The emulsification process. (c) Maximum production rates per nozzle plotted against drop diameter, scale bars are 400 µm.The image is modified from Stolovicki et al. (see the references below). (d) Chip-based microfluidics comparison with in-air microfluidics.

Irregular-shaped microparticles

Another microfluidics-assisted fabrication concept is stop-flow lithography, introduced by Patrick Doyle’s research group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.2 In this concept, while two (or more) streams of monomers flow side by side through a microchannel made of PFPE coated PDMS, the streams are exposed to intermittent illumination of ultraviolet light through a photomask, which blocks the light selectively. Due to the chemical reaction initiated by ultraviolet light, the liquid solidifies, and forms an individual microparticle (Figure 2a). Upon polymerization, gel particles do not stick to the PFPE microchannel walls, allowing for the production of free-floating particles by the virtue of oxygen lubrication layers. As the ultraviolet light is projected onto the stream through the photomask, each particle takes on the shape of the mask, making the microparticles customizable (Figure 2b). Microparticles composed of multiple monomers can be fabricated by combining multiple monomer streams. The single-step production is advantageous to reduce the production costs, however the particle shape is limited by the photomask and the microchannel geometry – not allowing for generation of spherical-shaped particles. For a proof-of-concept demonstration, upconverting nanocrystal laden-microparticles were synthesized and emitted homogenous visible spectrum of light. The technique allows for synthesis of striped microparticles without losing their homogeneous emission property. The microparticles were also encoded with multiple dot-patterns (Figure 2c), each specific to a target molecule (such as DNA) reacting with the other ingredients in the particle. Such a reaction leads to the formation of a fluorescent color in the microparticle, so the reaction can be traced by microscopy. This technology has been introduced to the market by Firefly Bioworks (acquired by Abcam in 2015), and Motif Micro (acquired by YPB Systems in 2018) startup companies.

microparticles

Figure 2. Stop Flow Lithography concept. (a) A schematic demonstration the coaxial microchip. (b) Bright-field and fluorescent images show triangle-shaped particles (c) A mask with an array of barcode particle shapes was aligned on three phase laminar flows in the microchip. Bright-field and fluorescent images show the barcoded particles with three distinct compartments with a region coding “2013”. The image is modified from Bong et al. (see the references below).

To download the full articles click the links below:

1Throughput enhancement of parallel step emulsifier devices by shear-free and efficient nozzle clearance
Elad Stolovicki, Roy Ziblat, and David A. Weitz
Lab Chip, 2018.
DOI: 10.1039/C7LC01037K

2Stop flow lithography in perfluoropolyether (PFPE) microfluidic channels
W. Bong, J. Lee, and P. S. Doyle
Lab Chip, 2014.
DOI: 10.1039/C4LC00877D

About the Webwriter

Burcu Gumuscu is a postdoctoral fellow in Herr Lab at UC Berkeley in the United States. Her research interests include development of microfluidic devices for single-cell analysis, next generation sequencing, compartmentalized organ-on-chip studies, and desalination of water on the microscale.

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Lab on a Chip introduces optional authorship contributions to increase transparency

Lab on a Chip is introducing recommended authorship contributions in all its published articles from February 2018.

Including a description of author contributions increases transparency of who contributed what to the article and ensures that each author is given the appropriate level of credit (and responsibility) for their contribution. Inclusion of author contributions is already common practice in many biomedical/life sciences journals.

Authors are strongly encouraged to include with their submitted manuscript a section called “Author Contributions”, which will be published with the final article. Contributions should be explained concisely. Authors are strongly encouraged to use the CRediT taxonomy to describe those contributions (see terms below). Authors should have agreed to their individual contributions ahead of submission and should accurately reflect contributions to the work. Please note that for any manuscript with more than 10 co-authors, the corresponding author must provide the editor with a statement to specify the contribution of each author.

CRediT (Contributor Role Taxonomy) is a taxonomy tool by CASRAI (Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration) and it was developed to increase transparency in contributions by researchers to scholarly publications. More information about CRediT can we found on the CASRAI website.

CRediT terms

Contributor Role Role Definition
Conceptualization Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
Methodology Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
Software Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
Validation Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
Formal Analysis Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
Investigation Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
Resources Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
Data Curation Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
Writing – Original Draft Preparation Creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
Writing – Review & Editing Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages.
Visualization Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
Supervision Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
Project Administration Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
Funding Acquisition Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.

 

Any questions regarding “Author Contributions” should be directed to the Lab on a Chip Editorial Office.

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Manabu Tokeshi – Our new Associate Editor

We are delighted to announce our new Associate Editor – Manabu Tokeshi!

“I am excited to join the editorial team of Lab on a Chip, my favorite Journal ever since its inception.  I am looking forward to seeing your excellent research in this Journal.”

Manabu Tokeshi is a Professor at the Division of Applied Chemistry at Hokkaido University, Japan and a visiting Professor at the ImPACT Research Center for Advanced Nanobiodevice, Innovative Research Center for Preventive Medical Engineering, and Institute of Innovation for Future Society at Nagoya University.

He received his PhD degree from Kyushu University, Japan. After a research fellowship of the Japan Society of Promotion of Science at The University of Tokyo, he worked at Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology as a researcher, group subleader and group leader. Before joining Hokkaido University as Professor in 2011, Manabu worked at the Institute of Microchemistry Technology Co. Ltd. as President and at Nagoya University as an Associate Professor.

Professor Tokeshi is a board member of the Chemical & Biological Microsystem Society (CBMS) which oversees the International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemical and Life Sciences (mTAS). He has received various awards for his work, including the Outstanding Researcher Award on Chemistry and Micro-Nano Systems from the Society for Chemistry and Micro-Nano Systems (2007), the Lab on a Chip/Corning Inc Pioneers in Miniaturization Lectureship (2007) and the Masao Horiba Award from HORIBA, Ltd. (2011).

His research interests are in the development of micro- and nano-systems for chemical, biochemical, and clinical applications. You can find out more about Manabu’s research on his homepage.

Manabu will be handling papers from 1st January 2017, so submit your best work to him!

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Emerging Investigator Series for Lab on a Chip

Starting in 2017, Lab on a Chip will be running an Emerging Investigator Series to showcase some of the best work in the field of miniaturisation at the micro- and nano-scale, being conducted by early-career researchers. The Series will ongoing, with articles being published once they are accepted and collated online.

There are many benefits for Emerging Investigators contributing to the series, with articles being featured in an online collection and receiving extensive promotion. This includes a special mention in journal contents alerts and an interview on the journal blog. Published articles will also be made free to access for a limited period. Furthermore, the continuous format is designed to allow more flexibility for contributors to participate in the venture without the restriction of submission deadlines.

We’ve received great feedback from previous Emerging Investigators, including this quote: “Being part of the Emerging Investigators issue was an honor and helpful to my career.  Thanks again for including me” (2012 Emerging Investigator)

Read the articles included in the collection so far at – rsc.li/loc-emerging-investigator

To represent the whole of the Lab on a Chip community, the Series will have three international Series Editors with a broad range of expertise: Editorial Board members, Dino Di Carlo (UCLA, USA), Yoon-Kyoung Cho (UNIST, South Korea) and Piotr Garstecki (IPC PAC, Poland)

 

To be eligible for the new Emerging Investigator Series you will need to have completed your PhD (or equivalent degree) within the last 10 years, although appropriate consideration will be given to those who have taken a career break or followed a different study path, and have an independent career. If you are interested in contributing to the Series please contact the Editorial Office (loc-rsc@rsc.org) and provide the following information:

  • Your up-to-date CV (no longer than 2 pages), which should include a summary of education and career, a list of relevant publications, any notable awards, honours or professional activities in the field, and a website URL if relevant;
  • A title and abstract of the research article intended to be submitted to the Series, including a tentative submission date. Please note that articles submitted to the journal for the Series will undergo the usual peer review process.

Keep up to date with the latest papers added to this Series on our twitter feed (@LabonaChip) with the hashtags #EmergingInvestigators #LabonaChip

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Lab on a Chip will not be accepting new Technical Innovations from 1st December 2016

We would like to inform our authors and readers that as a result of the recent change in the journal scope, the Editorial Board has decided that the journal will not accept Technical Innovations for submission from the 1st December 2016 onwards. All Technical Innovations currently under review for the journal will not be affected.

Technical Innovations currently published in the journal cover new and innovative technologies of immediate value to the Lab-on-a-Chip, micro/nanofluidics or miniaturisation communities or offer novel technical insights to new and/or existing problems.

The revised scope highlights that the journal aims to publish work at the interface between physical technological advancements and high impact applications that are of direct interest to a broad audience. The most important criterion used to assess manuscripts that are submitted to Lab on a Chip is novelty. Papers should demonstrate novelty in both: (i) the device physics, engineering, and materials; and (ii) applications in biology, chemistry, medicine. Submissions that describe novelty in both device and application are most likely to be published.

Outstanding articles featuring novelty in either the device or the application may also be published and therefore articles with outstanding innovation in the device technology may still be submitted to the journal, either as Full Papers or Communications.

For presubmission enquries, please contact the Editorial Office.

Submit your latest research here.

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Major society chemistry publishers jointly commit to integration with ORCID

ORCID provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship and innovation activities, ensuring authors gain full credit for their work.

Today, we signed their open letter, along with ACS Publications, committing to unambiguous identification of all authors that publish in our journals.

image block
The Royal Society of Chemistry and the Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) today each became signatories to the ORCID Open Letter, reasserting the commitment of both organizations to enhancing the scholarly publishing experience for researchers worldwide who are involved in chemistry and allied fields.

The commitment by these two global chemistry publishers to undertake new workflow integration with technology infrastructure provided by ORCID, a not-for-profit organization that provides unique identifiers for researchers and scholars, will enable both societies to provide unambiguous designation of author names within chemistry and across the broader sciences. This partnership with ORCID will resolve ambiguity in researcher identification caused by name changes, cultural differences in name presentation, and the inconsistent use of name abbreviations that is too often a source of confusion for those who must rely on the published scientific record.

By becoming signatories to the ORCID Open Letter, these two major chemical societies are voicing their intent to collect ORCID iDs for all submitting authors through use of the ORCID API, and to display such identifiers in the articles published in their respective society journals. The integration of such activities within the publishers’ workflows means authors will benefit from automated linkages between their ORCID record and unique identifiers embedded within their published research articles, ensuring their contributions are appropriately recognized and credited.

During the publishing process, ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry will automatically deposit publications to Crossref, which in turn will coordinate with ORCID to link and update the publishing activity populated to authors’ respective ORCID profiles, thus attributing each published work to the correct researcher. Existing holders of an ORCID iD will encounter a one-time prompt to grant permission for the linkage. If authors do not have an ORCID iD, they can easily enroll without navigating away from the publishers’ manuscript submission site. If users wish to revoke integrated ORCID profile access at any time, they can elect to do so through their ACS, Royal Society of Chemistry or ORCID accounts.

Both ACS Publications and the Royal Society of Chemistry understand the importance of attributing accurately the scholarly contributions of research scientists in the context of their other professional activities. “ACS has supported ORCID since the outset of the initiative,” says Sarah Tegen, Ph.D., Vice President of Global Editorial & Author Services at ACS Publications. “We are pleased now to align with the Royal Society of Chemistry in this endeavor, as both societies underscore our willingness not only to encourage and assist our respective authors in establishing their unique ORCID profiles, but also to help tackle the broader challenge of researcher name disambiguation in the scholarly literature. With the integration of author ORCID iDs in our publishing workflows, we will ensure that researchers receive proper credit for their accomplishments.”

Emma Wilson, Ph.D., Director of Publishing at the Royal Society of Chemistry adds, “We have been a supporter of ORCID since 2013, recognizing the benefits it brings to researchers; ORCID can and will make a huge difference to our authors’ ability to gain full credit for their work. ORCID will also help researchers meet the requirements of their research funders — for example, a number of funders have already announced that all grant applicants must now include a researcher’s ORCID iD. A unified system that integrates and links research-related information with accurate and timely linkage to the publishing output of authors has the potential to simplify and speed up their grant applications — something we know is important to researchers.”

“The ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry have been long-standing supporters of ORCID,” says Laurel Haak, Ph.D., Executive Director, ORCID. “We are pleased to see ORCID integration into ACS and Royal Society of Chemistry Publications systems. This will be a substantial benefit to researchers in the chemistry community, both in improving search and discovery of research articles, and for attribution and recognition of researchers’ contributions to the discipline.”

About the American Chemical Society and ACS Publications

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With nearly 157,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

ACS Publications, a division of the American Chemical Society, is a nonprofit scholarly publisher of 50 peer-reviewed journals and a range of eBooks at the interface of chemistry and allied sciences, including physics and biology. ACS Publications journals are among the most-cited, most-trusted and most-read within the scientific literature. Respected for their editorial rigor, ACS journals offer high-quality service to authors and readers, including rapid time to publication, a range of channels for researchers to access ACS Publications’ award-winning web and mobile delivery platforms, and a comprehensive program of open access publishing options for authors and their funders. ACS Publications also publishes Chemical & Engineering News — the Society’s newsmagazine covering science and technology, business and industry, government and policy, education and employment aspects of the chemistry field.

About the Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry is the world’s leading chemistry community, advancing excellence in the chemical sciences. With over 50,000 members and a knowledge business that spans the globe, we are the U.K.’s professional body for chemical scientists; a not-for-profit organisation with 175 years of history and an international vision for the future. We promote, support and celebrate chemistry. We work to shape the future of the chemical sciences — for the benefit of science and humanity.

About ORCID

ORCID’s vision is a world where all who participate in research, scholarship and innovation are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, borders and time. ORCID provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship and innovation activities. It provides open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions and affiliations. The organization provides this service to help people find information and to simplify reporting and analysis. ORCID is a not-for-profit organization, sustained by fees from member organizations. Its work is open, transparent and non-proprietary. The organization strives to be a trusted component of research infrastructure with the goal of providing clarity in the breadth of research contributions and the people who make them.

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Google Glass to monitor plant health

‘Okay Glass, image a leaf’

Scientists in the US have developed their very own pair of rose-tinted spectacles by adapting Google Glass to measure the chlorophyll concentration of leaves.

Aydogan Ozcan and his research group at the University of California are passionate about creating new technologies through innovative, photonic methods and are well acquainted with the possibilities of wearable technology in scientific research. Chlorophyll concentration is a handy metric for monitoring plant health and the system devised by Ozcan’s team combines Google Glass with a custom made leaf holder and bespoke software to determine just that.

To read the full article visit Chemistry World.

Quantification of plant chlorophyll content using Google Glass
Bingen Cortazar, Hatice Ceylan Koydemir, Derek Tseng, Steve Feng and Aydogan Ozcan  
Lab Chip, 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4LC01279H, Paper

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Silver lining for paper Ebola test

Ebola, yellow fever and dengue can be tested for in one go

Researchers in the US have developed a silver nanoparticle-based paper test to simultaneously detect dengue, yellow fever and Ebola. This could provide a cheap and reliable diagnosis for all three diseases, that’s as quick as a home pregnancy test.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa underscores an urgent need for rapid diagnostics; quick identification and patient isolation can benefit the sick and the healthy. However, dengue, yellow fever and Ebola all initially manifest as a fever and headache, so are easily mixed up.

To read the full article please visit Chemistry World.

Multicolored silver nanoparticles for multiplexed disease diagnostics: distinguishing dengue, yellow fever, and Ebola viruses
Chun-Wan Yen, Helena de Puig, Justina O. Tam, José Gómez-Márquez, Irene Bosch, Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli and Lee Gehrke  
Lab Chip, 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5LC00055F, Communication

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Introducing Editorial Board Member Xudong Fan

We are delighted to welcome Xudong (Sherman) Fan to the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board.

Dr Fan is currently a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Having completed his B.S and M.S at Peking University, Xudong moved to the USA to complete his PhD at the University of Oregon in the Oregon Center for Optics. From 2000 to 2004, Xudong worked at Research Corporate Lab at 3M Company. In 2004 he took up a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri where he became a member of Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center and the International Center for Nano/Micro Systems and Nanotechnology. In 2010 Xudong moved to the University of Michigan where he is currently a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, a member of Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care and Wireless Integrated Microsensing and Systems.

My Research Goal:
“My research goal is to use the state-of-the-art photonics, nanotechnology, microfluidics, and other engineering tools to detect and analyse bio/chemical species in both liquid and gas phases.”
Professor Xudong (Sherman) Fan, Lab on a Chip Editorial Board Member

Research in The Fan Lab focuses on the development of novel bio/chemical sensor platforms for analytes in either liquid or gas phase using optofluidic technology and multi-dimensional micro-gas chromatography technology. The groups most recent publication in Lab on a Chip ‘Optofluidic lasers with a single molecular layer of gain’ was added to our Lab on a Chip 2014 HOT Articles collection as it received particularly high scores during peer review.

Last year Xudong received a Departmental Award for Outstanding Accomplishment and become a fellow of Optical Society of America. Congratulations Xudong!

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