2011 – Page 8 – Lab on a Chip Blog

Archive for 2011

LOC article on brain cell networks in the press!

06 Jun 2011

The recent LOC article from Henry Zeringue (University of Pittsburgh) and team has been highlighted on ScienceDaily. The article describes the creation of a model of the ring-shaped networks of neurons in the brain, to help understand the mechanisms behind persistent activity – which is involved in memory and motor planning.

Congratulations to Henry Zeringue and team!

You can read Carl Saxton’s Chemistry World article online here or go straight to the Lab on a Chip paper:

Ring-shaped neuronal networks: a platform to study persistent activity
Ashwin Vishwanathan, Guo-Qiang Bi and Henry C. Zeringue,
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 1081
DOI: 10.1039/c0lc00450b

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Issue 12 now available online – focussing on Dutch research

03 Jun 2011

View the issue online here

This month’s issue is the next instalment in our series of 10th anniversary issues, this time focussing on the best new research from the Netherlands. Sabeth Verpoorte introduces the issue in her Editorial, describing the progression from macro- to microfluidics in this small, but scientifically strong country.

The issue features work on floating electrodes from Albert van den Berg, artificial cilia from P. R. Onck and J. Westerweel, capillary Stokes drift from Dirk van den Ende, microbubble generation from José Gordillo, two-phase flow systems from Sabeth Verpoorte and micromolding from Michiel Kreutzer.

The issue also features HOT articles from Ryan Bailey, Masaya Hagiwara and Daniel Chiu:

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HOT: new driving force for high accuracy microrobot to manipulate single cells

02 Jun 2011

Manipulating cells in microfluidic chips is often accomplished with a magnetically driven microtool (MMT), driven by a permanent magnet. However MMTs driven by permanent magnets suffer from low positioning accuracy and response speed. Here, Masaya Hagiwara (Nagoya University) and colleagues have devised a new way of driving MMTs – using a piezoelectric ceramic induce ultrasonic vibration and reduce the effective friction. The result is a 1.1 mm positioning accuracy of the microrobot, which is 100 times higher than operating without vibration.

This HOT article is featured on the cover of Issue 12 and is free to access for 6 weeks:

On-chip magnetically actuated robot with ultrasonic vibration for single cell manipulations
Masaya Hagiwara, Tomohiro Kawahara, Yoko Yamanishi, Taisuke Masuda, Lin Feng and Fumihito Arai
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2049-2054
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20164F

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HOT: detecting CRP over six orders of magnitude using silicon photonic microring resonators

01 Jun 2011

In their recent paper Ryan Bailey and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign address the challenge of creating a biomarker assay capable of spanning a clinically relevant dynamic range. The ability to accurately detect protein biomarkers over a wide dynamic range is extremely important to determine the stage a disease is at, as well as monitoring the effects of any treatments.

They have developed a a silicon photonic microring resonator-based platform that can quantify the cardiovascular risk biomarker C-reactive protein over a dynamic range of six orders of magnitude. The 3 step assay increases the dynamic range beyond that possible for a single-step assay and also reduces false positive results.

Download the article for the details – the article is currently free to access:

Sensitive on-chip detection of a protein biomarker in human serum and plasma over an extended dynamic range using silicon photonic microring resonators and sub-micron beads
Matthew S. Luchansky, Adam L. Washburn, Melinda S. McClellan and Ryan C. Bailey
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2042-2044
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20231F

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Nanospray for nanodrugs

26 May 2011

Over the last decade, the molecular complexity of drugs has increased significantly, leading to poor solubility, which means that the compounds can’t be used in the human body. To determine if new formulations have potential as successful drugs, solubility tests are run at an early stage of development. However, the amount of drug available for these tests is usually very small.

One way to get around this problem is by decreasing the compounds’ particle size. David Weitz from Harvard University, Cambridge, US, and colleagues, have done just that by developing a microfluidic device made from poly(dimethylsiloxane), incorporating two flow-focussing streams and a third for compressed air to form a spray, that can generate particle sizes below 100nm.

To find out more read Rebecca Brodie’s Chemistry World article or download the article itself here:

Early development drug formulation on a chip: Fabrication of nanoparticles using a microfluidic spray dryer
Julian Thiele, Maike Windbergs, Adam R. Abate, Martin Trebbin, Ho Cheung Shum, Stephan Förster and David A. Weitz
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20298G

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Animated abstracts for LOC!

26 May 2011

Check out the shiny new animated abstracts from our authors!

Got a cool piece of animation for your paper? Why not submit it to us today at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lc


Pneumatically tunable optofluidic 2 × 2 switch for reconfigurable optical circuit Wuzhou Song and Demetri Psaltis Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20220K	Measuring the local pressure amplitude in microchannel acoustophoresis Rune Barnkob, Per Augustsson, Thomas Laurell and Henrik Bruus Lab Chip, 2010, 10, 563-570 DOI: 10.1039/B920376A

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Issue 11 now online – 10th anniversary issue Singapore

19 May 2011

View the issue online here

As part of our 10th anniversary series we are delighted to publish this issue which includes a collection of articles focussed on lab on a chip research in Singapore.

Read guest editor Ai-Qun Liu‘s editorial, which introduces this themed issue dedicated to the memory of Professor Zhao-Lun Fang, formerly of the Zhe Jiang University, and check out the author profiles from Yi-Chin Toh, Tae Goo Kang, Danny van Noort, Bill Burkholder and Jing Bo Zhang.

The issue also includes plenty of regular content, and a HOT article on the inside front cover from Claire Wilhelm and Nicole Pamme on cell sorting by endocytotic capacity in a microfluidic magnetophoresis device.

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HOT: separating cells through their ability to engulf nanoparticles

13 May 2011

Cells labelled with magnetic nanoparticles are useful for a number of applications, ranging from MRI to drug delivery and cancer therapy, and being able to sort said cells based on their magnetic nanoparticle loading is obviously necessary. Continuous flow methods currently exist for separating cells based on the extent of their magnetisation, but only for cells where the nanoparticles have been bound to them via specific surface markers.

Photograph of the microfluidic magnetophoresis chip

In this paper Claire Wilhelm (University of Paris Diderot) and Nicole Pamme (University of Hull) make use of the other mechanism of introducing nanoparticles to the cells – exploiting the natural ability of monocytes and macrophages to engulf molecules. The team produced a free-flow microfluidic chip with an external magnet to separate the cells through five different exits, depending on the loading of magnetic nanoparticles. They demonstrated successful and efficient separation of the monocytes and macrophages, with monocytes displaying a much weaker endocytotic ability than macrophages, at rates of 10 to 100 cells per second.

For the full details download the article – it’s free to access for 4 weeks:

Cell sorting by endocytotic capacity in a microfluidic magnetophoresis device
Damien Robert, Nicole Pamme, Hélène Conjeaud, Florence Gazeau, Alexander Iles and Claire Wilhelm
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00656D

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LOC paper wins Corning’s 2010 Outstanding Publication Award

09 May 2011

Congratulations to Po Ki Yuen and Roland Faris (Corning Inc.) et al., whose recent Lab on a Chip paper won Corning’s Outstanding Publication Award, 2010.

The prize is awarded annually to recognise an exemplary published paper for its impact on advancing science and technology in areas relevant to Corning’s strategic focus and expanding commercial opportunities for Corning.

The paper also featured on the cover of Issue 24 – why not take a look, we’ve made it free to access for 2 weeks:

Perfusion-based microfluidic device for three-dimensional dynamic primary human hepatocyte cell culture in the absence of biological or synthetic matrices or coagulants
Vasiliy N. Goral, Yi-Cheng Hsieh, Odessa N. Petzold, Jeffery S. Clark, Po Ki Yuen and Ronald A. Faris
Lab Chip, 2010, 10, 3380-3386
DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00135J

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Lab on a Chip in the New Scientist!

06 May 2011

An article from LOC Editorial Board member Donald Ingber has been cited in the New Scientist’s Health section. The piece describes recent research using magnets to reduce infection diagnosis time – the proof-of-principle for which was demonstrated in Ingber’s article.

Interested? Why not take a look at the article, we’ve made it free to access for the next 2 weeks:

Micromagnetic–microfluidic blood cleansing device
Chong Wing Yung, Jason Fiering, Andrew J. Mueller and Donald E. Ingber
Lab Chip, 2009, 9, 1171-1177
DOI: 10.1039/B816986A

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