Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic exposed difficulties in scaling current quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based diagnostic methodologies for large-scale infectious disease testing. Bottlenecks include lengthy multi-step processes nucleic acid extraction followed by qPCR readouts, which require costly instrumentation and infrastructure, as well reagent plastic consumable shortages stemming from supply chain constraints. Here we report an Oil Immersed Lossless Total Analysis System (OIL-TAS), integrates...

Double-exclusive liquid repellency (double-ELR) is an extreme wettability phenomenon in which adjacent regions selectively and completely repel immiscible liquids with different surface chemistries on a non-textured substrate (i.e., absence of micro/nano-structures). Under double-ELR conditions, each exhibits no physical contact (contact angle 180°) its non-preferred chemistry, thus enabling complete partitioning fluidic volumes (e.g., between water oil). This enables new type cell...

In vitro testing of drug compounds on cell models during the development process represents an indispensable step in initial screening process. Although three-dimensional (3D) cultured cells may provide a more accurate prediction efficacy, it is relatively costly and time-consuming to perform compared with conventional 2D cultures due thick z-axis 3D models. this study, we have presented microfluidic platform integrated pneumatic valves for producing thin-gel culture-based combinatorial...

Exclusive liquid repellency (ELR) describes an extreme wettability phenomenon in which a phase droplet is completely repelled from solid when exposed to secondary immiscible phase. Earlier, we developed multi-liquid-phase open microfluidic (or underoil) system based on ELR facilitate rare-cell culture and single-cell processing. The can allow for the handling of small volumes droplets with ultra-low sample loss biofouling, makes it attractive platform biological applications that require...

The extraction of bioanalytes is the first step in many diagnostic and analytical assays. However, most bioanalyte methods require extensive dilution-based washing processes that are not only time-consuming laborious but can also result significant sample loss, limiting their applications rare analyses. Here, we present a method enables efficient multiple different from samples (down to 10 cells) without washing—centrifugation-assisted immiscible fluid filtration (CIFF). CIFF utilizes...

We report a versatile method for delivering reagents into microscale droplets without increasing volume.

Fluorous-modified surfaces have emerged as a powerful tool for the immobilization of fluorous-tagged biomolecules based on their specificity and strength fluorous-fluorous interactions. To fabricate fluorous-based protein microarray, we designed two strategies site-specific modification proteins with fluorous tag: attaching tag to C-termini expressed by native chemical ligation (NCL) or Fc domain antibodies through boronic acid (BA)-diol The perfluoro-tagged could be easily purified...

Abstract Enzymes are important catalysts in biochemical reactions with superior regio, stereo, and substrate selectivity. However, enzymatic reaction systems have drawbacks including product inhibition, difficulty recycling, poor stability. Importantly, the rate of an enzyme catalyzed diminishes rapidly due to inhibition depletion, making it difficult for many enzymes catalyze a completion. The outcome is mixture unreacted substrates being present final reaction, necessitating additional...

In vitro devices offer more numerous methods than in vivo models to investigate how cells respond pressure stress and quantify those responses. Several have been developed study the cell response compression force. However, they are unable observe morphological changes of real-time. There is also a concern about damage during process harvesting from 3D gels. Here we report device employing transparent, thin gel layers clamp between interfaces applied controllable force by stacking multiple...

DNA methylation alterations have emerged as hallmarks of cancer and been proposed screening, prognostic, predictive biomarkers. Traditional approaches for analysis relied on bisulfite conversion DNA, which can damage is not suitable targeted gene in low-input samples. Here, we adapted methyl-CpG-binding domain protein 2 (MBD2)-based enrichment use a semi-automated exclusion-based sample preparation (ESP) platform robust scalable methylated from samples, called SEEMLIS. We show that combining...

Here, we report the novel application of a material with self-concentrating properties for enhancing sensitivity immunoassays. Termed as glass microbubbles, they are antibody functionalized buoyant hollow microspheres that simultaneously float and concentrate into dense monolayer when dispensed in liquid droplet. This charactaristic microbubbles allow autonomous signal localization, which translates to higher compared other microparticle-based We then demonstrated "microbubble array"...

As a leading cause of mortality and morbidity, stroke constitutes significant global health burden. Ischemic accounts for 80% cases occurs due to an arterial thrombus, which impedes cerebral blood flow rapidly leads cell death. the most abundant type within central nervous system, astrocytes play critical role injured brain. We developed novel microphysiological platform that permits induction spatiotemporally controlled nutrient gradients, allowing us study astrocytic response during after...

Abstract Biological tissues are highly organized structures where spatial-temporal gradients (e.g., nutrients, hypoxia, cytokines) modulate multiple physiological and pathological processes including inflammation, tissue regeneration, embryogenesis, cancer progression. Current in vitro technologies struggle to capture the complexity of these transient microenvironmental gradients, do not provide dynamic control over gradient profile, complex poorly suited for high throughput applications....

Elucidation of protein–protein interactions (PPIs) is often very challenging and yields complex unclear results. Lectin–glycoprotein are especially difficult to study due the noncovalent nature inherently low binding affinities proteins glycan ligands on glycoproteins. Here, we report a "ligand-directed labeling probe (LLP)"-based approach fabricate protein probes for elucidating protein–glycoprotein interactions. LLP was designed with dual photoactivatable groups introduction an alkyne...

In vitro cell motility assays are frequently used in the study of migration response to anti-cancer drug treatment. Microfluidic systems represent a unique tool for analysis motility. However, they usually rely on using time-lapse microscopy record spatial temporal locations individual cells being tested. This has created bottleneck microfluidic perform high-throughput experiments due requirement costly system. Here, we describe development portable device endpoint The reported incorporates...

Abstract Introduction/Background: Epigenetic alterations, including histone modifications and DNA methylation, drive treatment resistance lethal prostate cancer. However, epigenetic assays typically require thousands of cells are difficult to scale for patient tumor biopsies. While identifying these alterations is possible in cell lines, analytes more follow clinical settings. Patient-derived organoids have emerged as viable intermediaries investigate the changing chromatin landscape during...

Multispecies microbial communities drive most ecosystems on Earth. Chemical and biological interactions within these can affect the survival of individual members entire community. However, prohibitively high number possible a community has made characterization factors that influence development challenging. Here, we report Microbial Community Interaction (µCI) device to advance systematic study chemical The µCI creates combinatorial landscape up an array triangular wells interconnected...

Abstract Pre-clinical models have identified diverse epigenetic alterations in prostate cancer that associate with treatment resistance and may also be therapeutic targets. However, these assays typically require thousands of cells are difficult to scale for patient tumor biopsies. This report seeks adapt the Cleavage Under Targets Tagmentation (CUT&Tag) assay use on a microfluidic technology eliminate cell loss associated complex, multi-step facilitate analysis low input primary...

Abstract The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic exposed difficulties in scaling current quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based diagnostic methodologies for large-scale infectious testing. Bottlenecks include the lengthy multi-step process of nucleic acid extraction followed by qPCR readouts, which require costly instrumentation and infrastructure, as well reagent plastic consumable shortages stemming from supply chain constraints. Here we report a novel Oil Immersed Lossless Total Analysis...

Abstract Multispecies microbial communities drive most ecosystems on Earth. Chemical and biological interactions within these can affect survival of individual members the entire community. However, prohibitively high number possible a community has made characterization factors that influence development challenging. Here we report Microbial Community Interaction (μCI) device to advance systematic study chemical The μCI creates combinatorial landscape up an array triangular wells...