Parylene-C, which is traditionally used to coat implantable devices, has emerged as a promising material to generate miniaturized devices due to its unique mechanical properties and inertness. In this paper we compared the surface properties and cell and protein compatibility of parylene-C relative to other commonly used BioMEMS materials. We evaluated the surface hydrophobicity and roughness o...

Introduction: Substrate stiffness regulates cellular behavior as cells experience different stiffness values of tissues in the body. For example, endothelial cells (ECs) covering the inner layer of blood vessels are exposed to different stiffness values due to various pathologic and physiologic conditions. Despite numerous studies, cells by time span sense mechanical properties of the substrate...

The potential of microalgae for steroid transformation has been studied less than other microorganisms. They have been applied for the years in the treatment of environmental pollutions and preparation of nutrients. At the first time, Abul-Hajj and Qian indicated the conversion of androstendione (AD) to testosterone with eleven different strains of microalgae. Previtera’s group showed the trans...

efficiency of pleurotus ostreatus and p. sajor-caju as biocontrol agents of the root knot nematode, meloidogyne javanica, was evaluated in vitro and in greenhouse experiments. population of the nematode were prepared and nematicidal effects of culture filtrates of the fungal specieson second stage juveniles of m. javanica were tested. substrates completely colonized by tested fungi as fungal in...

Culturing pluripotent stem cells effectively requires substrates coated with feeder cell layers or cell-adhesive matrices. It is difficult to employ as resources for regenerative medicine due risks of culture system contamination by animal-derived factors, the large costs associated use adhesive To enable a coating-free system, we focused on UV/ozone surface modification and atmospheric pressur...

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are a class of "smart" materials that have the ability to change from a fixed, temporary shape to a pre-determined permanent shape upon the application of a stimulus such as heat(1-5). In a typical shape memory cycle, the SMP is first deformed at an elevated temperature that is higher than its transition temperature, T(trans;) [either the melting temperature (T(m;))...

The adhesion forces of cervical carcinoma cells in tissue culture were measured by using the manipulation force microscope, a novel atomic force microscope. The forces were studied as a function of time and temperature for cells cultured on hydrophilic and hydrophobic polystyrene substrates with preadsorbed proteins. The cells attached faster and stronger at 37 degreesC than at 23 degreesC and ...

It is unknown to which extent phototrophic Fe(II) oxidation takes place in the simultaneous presence of organic electron donors (e.g., acetate/lactate). Therefore, the photoferrotrophic strain Rhodopseudomonas palustris TIE-1 was inoculated with various combinations of Fe(II), acetate and lactate to understand metabolic substrate preference. When acetate was provided together with Fe(II), TIE-1...

Methods for efficient detachment of cells avoiding damage are required in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. We introduce a bottom-up approach to build plasmonic substrates using micellar block copolymer nanolithography to generate a 2D array of Au seeds, followed by chemical growth leading to anisotropic nanoparticles. The resulting plasmonic substrates show a broad plasmon band cov...