Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

This is an overview of designing and building a custom lab instrument using the Multifluidic Evolutionary Component (MEC) system created at UC Riverside. Credit: UC Riverside

Uni of CA, Riverside researchers have created a Lego-like system of blocks that enables users to custom make chemical and biological research instruments quickly, easily and affordably. The system of 3D-printed blocks can be used in university labs, schools, hospitals, and anywhere there is a need to create scientific tools.

Each block, called Multifluidic Evolutionary Components (MECs) because of their flexibility and adaptability, performs a basic task found in a lab instrument, like pumping fluids, making measurements or interfacing with a user...

Arun Kota’s superomniphobic device can sort droplets by surface tension. Credit: Sanli Movafaghi/Colorado State University

Imagine being able to instantly diagnose diabetes, Ebola or some other disease, simply by watching how a droplet of blood moves on a surface. That’s just one potential impact of new research led by Assistant Prof. Arun Kota, Colorado State University. Kota’s lab makes coatings that repel not just water, but virtually any liquid, including oils and acids – a property called superomniphobicity.

They did it by making their device’s surface tunable, meaning they can manipulate its surface chemistry to turn up or turn down how well it repels liquids...

Researchers have developed hierarchical metallic metamaterial with multi-layered, fractal-like 3-D architectures to create structures at centimeter scales incorporating nanoscale features. Credit: Jim Stroup/Virginia Tech

For years, materials have been made at the nanoscale level to take advantage of their mechanical, optical, and energy properties, but efforts to scale these materials to larger sizes have resulted in diminished performance and structural integrity. Now, researchers describe a new process to create lightweight, strong and super elastic 3D printed metallic nanostructured materials with unprecedented scalability, 7 orders of magnitude control of arbitrary 3D architectures.

Strikingly, these multiscale metallic materials have displayed super elasticity because of their design...

Controlling Spatial Heat and Light Distribution by Using Photothermal Enhancing Auto-Regulated Liposomes (PEARLs).

Dr. Gang Zheng and a team of biomedical researchers have discovered a “smart” organic, biodegradable nanoparticle that uses heat and light in a controlled manner to potentially target and ablate tumours with greater precision. The proof-of-concept findings provide a viable approach to boosting the clinical utility of photo-thermal therapy in treating cancer, says Dr. Zheng, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret and Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.He talks about and demonstrates the research at https://youtu.be/EEN6Mz5iWBI.

In the lab, using phantom models, the “smart” nanoparticle the team has dubbed PEARLs – photo-thermal enhancing auto-regula...