Synthetic biology and microfluidics have each brought enabling and revolutionary technological advances over the past few decades. However, they have advanced separately and their combined synergy has not yet been fully explored. For this week's research highlight, we selected a recent Nature Communications paper in...
Abstract "Infrared (IR) plasmonic nanoantennas (PNAs) are powerful tools to identify molecules by the IR fingerprint absorption from plasmon-molecules interaction. However, the sensitivity and bandwidth of PNAs are limited by the small overlap between molecules and sensing hotspots and the sharp plasmonic resonance peaks. In addition...
"Mosquito bites transmit a number of pathogens via salivary droplets deposited during blood-feeding, resulting in potentially fatal diseases. Little is known about the genomic content of these nanodroplets, including the transmission dynamics of live pathogens. Here we introduce Vectorchip, a low-cost, scalable microfluidic platform enabling...
Since its emergence as a model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), has appeared as a powerful means for studying a broad range of topics ranging from developmental biology to neuroscience. Having many genes with functional counterparts in humans, a transparent body, a short life cycle...
The modularity of microfluidics enables microfabricated microfluidic chips to be either used as standalone systems or integrated as subsystems into more complex systems. In this week's research highlight, we will introduce one of these advanced technologies that employs a microfluidic pump for Marangoni propulsion in...