Tag Archives: microfluidics

Job posting (post doc in tissue engineering [organ-on-a-chip]) for the Istituto Italiano di Technologia

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Here’s the posting (deadline is July 19, 2015),

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genova, Italy (http://www.iit.it) is a private law Foundation, created with special Government Law no. 269 dated September 30th 2003 with the objective of promoting Italy’s technological development and higher education in science and technology. Research at IIT is carried out in highly innovative scientific fields with state-of-the-art technology.

A post-doc position to develop “Organs-on-Chips” is available in the Laboratory of Nanotechnology for Precision Medicine at IIT.

Candidates should have a PhD in Tissue Engineering or closely related fields and an excellent publication record and should be highly motivated to work in an interdisciplinary team.

The candidate will work on the development of microfluidic-based organs-on-chips.

These microchips will be used to recapitulate the microarchitecture and functions of living organs and pathological tissues such as cancer and will possibly form an accurate alternative to traditional animal testing and enable high-throughput screening of drugs and nanomedicines.

The candidate should have:

  • strong skills in tissue engineering as well as in molecular, cellular and in vivo tumor biology;
  • documented experience in primary cell culture and analysis;
  • excellent oral and written communication skills in English and the ability to work both independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team.

Interested applicants should contact directly Dr. Paolo Decuzzi ( paolo.decuzzi@iit.it) for any informal queries.

For a formal application  please send CV, list of publications with Impact Factor and names and email addresses of 2 referees to applications@iit.it

Please apply by July 19, 2015 quoting “Post doc position in Tissue Engineering” in the mail subject. [emphasis mine]

In order to comply with Italian law (art. 23 of Privacy Law of the Italian Legislative Decree n. 196/03), the candidate is kindly asked to give his/her consent to allow Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia to process his/her personal data.

We inform you that the information you provide will be solely used for the purpose of evaluating and selecting candidates in order to meet the requirements of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

Your data will be processed by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, with its headquarters in Genoa, Via Morego 30, acting as the Data Holder, using computer and paper-based means, observing the rules on the protection of personal data, including those relating to the security of data, and they will not be communicated to thirds.

Please also note that, pursuant to art.7 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, you may exercise your rights at any time as a party concerned by contacting the Data Holder.

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is an Equal Opportunity Employer that actively seeks diversity in the workforce.

Don’t forget when preparing your application, should you be living on the West Coast of Canada or the US (not sure about Mexico as its coast veers east somewhat), Italy is +9 hours . This means you’d best get your application submitted by 3 pm PST on July 19, 2015.

A ‘sweat’mometer—sensing your health through your sweat

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At this point, it’s more fitness monitor than diagnostic tool, so, you’ll still need to submit blood, stool, and urine samples when the doctor requests it but the device does offer some tantalizing possibilities according to a May 15, 2015 news item on phys.org,

Made from state-of-the-art silicon transistors, an ultra-low power sensor enables real-time scanning of the contents of liquids such as perspiration. Compatible with advanced electronics, this technology boasts exceptional accuracy – enough to manufacture mobile sensors that monitor health.

Imagine that it is possible, through a tiny adhesive electronic stamp attached to the arm, to know in real time one’s level of hydration, stress or fatigue while jogging. A new sensor developed at the Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (Nanolab) at EPFL [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland] is the first step toward this application. “The ionic equilibrium in a person’s sweat could provide significant information on the state of his health,” says Adrian Ionescu, director of Nanolab. “Our technology detects the presence of elementary charged particles in ultra-small concentrations such as ions and protons, which reflects not only the pH balance of sweat but also more complex hydration of fatigues states. By an adapted functionalization I can also track different kinds of proteins.”

A May 15, 2015 EPFL press release by Laure-Anne Pessina, which originated the news item, includes a good technical explanation of the device for non-experts in the field,

Published in the journal ACS Nano, the device is based on transistors that are comparable to those used by the company Intel in advanced microprocessors. On the state-of-the-art “FinFET” transistor, researchers fixed a microfluidic channel through which the fluid to be analyzed flows. When the molecules pass, their electrical charge disturbs the sensor, which makes it possible to deduce the fluid’s composition.

The new device doesn’t host only sensors, but also transistors and circuits enabling the amplification of the signals – a significant innovation. The feat relies on a layered design that isolates the electronic part from the liquid substance. “Usually it is necessary to use separately a sensor for detection and a circuit for computing and signal amplification,” says Sara Rigante, lead author of the publication. “In our chip, sensors and circuits are in the same device – making it a ‘Sensing integrated circuit’. This proximity ensures that the signal is not disturbed or altered. We can thereby obtain extremely stable and accurate measurements.”

But that’s not all. Due to the size of the transistors – 20 nanometers, which is one hundred to one thousand times smaller than the thickness of a hair – it is possible to place a whole network of sensors on one chip, with each sensor locating a different particle. “We could also detect calcium, sodium or potassium in sweat,” the researcher elaborates.

As to what makes the device special (from the press release),

The technology developed at EPFL stands out from its competitors because it is extremely stable, compatible with existing electronics (CMOS), ultra-low power and easy to reproduce in large arrays of sensors. “In the field of biosensors, research around nanotechnology is intense, particularly regarding silicon nanowires and nanotubes. But these technologies are frequently unstable and therefore unusable for now in industrial applications,” says Ionescu. “In the case of our sensor, we started from extremely powerful, advanced technology and adapted it for sensing need in a liquid-gate FinFET configurations. The precision of the electronics is such that it is easy to clone our device in millions with identical characteristics.”

In addition, the technology is not energy intensive. “We could feed 10,000 sensors with a single solar cell,” Professor Ionescu asserts.

Of course, there does seem to be one shortcoming (from the press release),

Thus far, the tests have been carried out by circulating the liquid with a tiny pump. Researchers are currently working on a means of sucking the sweat into the microfluidic tube via wicking. This would rid the small analyzing “band-aid” of the need for an attached pump.

While they work on eliminating the pump part of the device, here’s  a link to and a citation for the paper,

Sensing with Advanced Computing Technology: Fin Field-Effect Transistors with High-k Gate Stack on Bulk Silicon by Sara Rigante, Paolo Scarbolo, Mathias Wipf, Ralph L. Stoop, Kristine Bedner, Elizabeth Buitrago, Antonios Bazigos, Didier Bouvet, Michel Calame, Christian Schönenberger, and Adrian M. Ionescu. ACS Nano, Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/nn5064216 Publication Date (Web): March 27, 2015

Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

As for the ‘sweat’mometer in the headline, I was combining sweat with thermometer.

Whispering about optomechanics and microfluidics

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Whispering galleries are magical, wonderful places which Gaurav Bahl evokes in his June 7, 2013 University of Illinois news release on EurekAlert,

Ever been to a whispering gallery—a quiet, circular space underneath an old cathedral dome that captures and amplifies sounds as quiet as a whisper? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are applying similar principles in the development optomechanical sensors that will help unlock vibrational secrets of chemical and biological samples at the nanoscale.

…

In glass microcavities that function as optical whispering galleries, according to Bahl, these miniscule optical forces can be enhanced by many orders-of-magnitude, which enables ‘conversations’ between light (photons) and vibration (phonons). These devices are of interest to condensed matter physics as the strong phonon-photon coupling enables experiments targeting quantum information storage (i.e. qubits), quantum-mechanical ground state (i.e. optomechanical cooling), and ultra-sensitive force measurements past the standard quantum limit.

Researchers developed a hollow optomechanical device made of fused silica glass, through which fluids and gases could flow. Employing a unique optomechanical interaction called Brillouin Optomechanics (described previously in Bahl et al, Nature Communications 2:403, 2011; Bahl et al, Nature Physics, vol.8, no.3, 2012), the researchers achieved the optical excitation of mechanical whispering-gallery modes at a phenomenal range of frequencies spanning from 2 MHz to 11,000 MHz.

“These mechanical vibrations can, in turn, ‘talk’ to liquids within the hollow device and provide optical readout of the mechanical properties,” said Bahl, who is first author of the paper, “Brillouin cavity optomechanics with microfluidic devices,” published this week in Nature Communications.

By confining various liquids inside a hollow microfluidic optomechanical (μFOM) resonator, researchers built the first-ever bridge between optomechanics and microfluidics.

If I read the news release correctly, there will be biomedical applications for this work,

Potential uses for this technology include optomechanical biosensors that can measure various optical and mechanical properties of a single cell, ultra-high-frequency analysis of fluids, and the optical control of fluid flow.

Here’s a link to and citation for the research paper,

Brillouin cavity optomechanics with microfluidic devices by Gaurav Bahl, Kyu Hyun Kim, Wonsuk Lee, Jing Liu, Xudong Fan,  & Tal Carmon  Nature Communications 4, Article number: 1994 doi:10.1038/ncomms2994 Published: 07 June 2013

This paper is behind a paywall.

BTW, there is a sound tourism website that includes this page on the whispering gallery in St. Paul’s Cathedral (London, England).

Watch out Roomba! Camouflaging soft robots are on the move

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Roomba, one of the better known consumer-class robots, is a hard-bodied robot used for vacuum-cleaning (or, hoovering as the Brits say). These days scientists are working on soft-bodied robots modeled on an octopus or a starfish or a squid. A team at Harvard University has added a camouflaging feature to its soft robot.

The Aug. 16, 2012 news release on EurekAlert provides some detail about the inspiration (in a field generally known as biomimicry or biomimetics),

A team of researchers led by George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor [and well known within the field of nanotechnology], has already broken new engineering ground with the development of soft, silicone-based robots inspired by creatures like starfish and squid.

Now, they’re working to give those robots the ability to disguise themselves.

…

“When we began working on soft robots, we were inspired by soft organisms, including octopi and squid,” Morin said [Stephen Morin, a Post-Doctoral Fellow and first author for the paper]. “One of the fascinating characteristics of these animals is their ability to control their appearance, and that inspired us to take this idea further and explore dynamic coloration. I think the important thing we’ve shown in this paper is that even when using simple systems – in this case we have simple, open-ended micro-channels – you can achieve a great deal in terms of your ability to camouflage an object, or to display where an object is.”

“One of the most interesting questions in science is ‘Why do animals have the shape, and color, and capabilities that they do?'” said Whitesides. “Evolution might lead to a particular form, but why? One function of our work on robotics is to give us, and others interested in this kind of question, systems that we can use to test ideas. Here the question might be: ‘How does a small crawling organism most efficiently disguise (or advertise) itself in leaves?’ These robots are test-beds for ideas about form and color and movement.”

Peter Reuell’s Aug. 16, 2012 article for Harvard Science, which originated the news release, describes some of the technology and capabilities,

Just as with the soft robots, the “color layers” used in the camouflage start as molds created using 3-D printers. Silicone is then poured into the molds to create micro-channels, which are topped with another layer of silicone. The layers can be created as a separate sheet that sits atop the soft robots, or incorporated directly into their structure. Once created, researchers can pump colored liquids into the channels, causing the robot to mimic the colors and patterns of its environment.

The system’s camouflage capabilities aren’t limited to visible colors though.

By pumping heated or cooled liquids into the channels, researchers can camouflage the robots thermally (infrared color). Other tests described in the Science [journal]  paper used fluorescent liquids that allowed the color layers to literally glow in the dark.

“There is an enormous amount of spectral control we can exert with this system,” Morin said. “We can design color layers with multiple channels, which can be activated independently. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface, I think, of what’s possible.”

The uses for the color-layer technology, however, don’t end at camouflage.

Just as animals use color change to communicate, Morin envisions robots using the system as a way to signal their position, both to other robots, and to the public. As an example, he cited the possible use of the soft machines during search and rescue operations following a disaster. In dimly lit conditions, he said, a robot that stands out from its surroundings (or even glows in the dark) could be useful in leading rescue crews trying to locate survivors.

So,  if the scientists are pumping the colour into the soft robot, it’s still a long way from nature’s design where the creature produces its own colourants and controls its own camouflage in response to environmental factors.

Interestingly, there’s no mention of military applications for this camouflaging robot.