Building a Simplistic Automatic Extruder: Instrument Development Opportunities for the Laboratory

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00287
• Publication Date: 2024-08-01T20:08:48Z
• Authors: Stefanie Klisch; Dylan Gilbert; Emma Breaux; Aliyah Dalier; Sudipta Gupta; Bruno Jakobi; Gerald J. Schneider
• Keywords: Physics Education (physics.ed-ph); Physics - Physics Education; Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft); FOS: Physical sciences; Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter

This work presents an automatic extruder as a research experience for undergraduate students. The system offers user-friendly approach to preparing vesicles, such liposomes or polymersomes, with defined size and polydispersity-properties crucial in biology macromolecules. It comprises two syringe pumps connected by membrane filter. setup is controlled software. Compared manual extrusion, this automated provides advantages, precisely variables. project describes tool enhance learning science engineering laboratories. Building serves simplified model of complex industrial process. clear advantage: automating well-understood extrusion To make accessible, it broken down into three manageable tasks: software development, hardware assembly, testing procedures. breakdown the created, components used, procedures conducted project. All data, including code, procedures, are freely available online. allows students not only begin their own projects but also contribute educational instrument's ongoing development.