Vertically aligned mesoporous silica films electrogenerated on indium-tin oxide (ITO) electrodes are used as hard templates for the electrochemical growth of polyaniline (PANI) nanofilaments. To ensure proper adhesion PANI to underlying ITO surface, aniline moieties first covalently attached bottom mesochannels via electrografting aminophenyl diazonium cations, serving in a second step precurso...

Effects of silica, diamond dust, and carrageenan on mouse macrophages were studied by phase-contrast cine-micrography, electron microscopy, histochemical techniques for lysosomal enzymes and measurements of the release of lysosomal enzymes into the culture medium. All added materials were rapidly taken up into phagosomes, to which lysosomes became attached. In all cases lysosomal enzymes were d...

Figure 1. Flowchart of the fabrication process for interconnected silica nanotubes from hyperbranched PbSe nanowires. Inorganic nanofluidic devices, such as nanopores, nanochannels, and nanotubes (NTs) have been actively studied in bioseparation, bioanalysis, fluidic transistors, power generation, and fast mass transport. Compared to biological nanopores, inorganic nanofluidic devices have been...

A novel Nafion®-based nanocomposite membrane was synthesized to be applied as direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were coated with a layer of silica and then reacted by chlorosulfonic acid to produce sulfonate-functionalized silicon dioxide coated carbon nanotubes (CNT@SiO2-SO3H). The functionalized CNTs were then introduced to Nafion®, and subsequently, methanol permeab...

Many biological processes rely on protein-membrane interactions in the presence of mechanical forces, yet high resolution methods to quantify such interactions are lacking. Here, we describe a single-molecule force spectroscopy approach to quantify membrane binding of C2 domains in Synaptotagmin-1 (Syt1) and Extended Synaptotagmin-2 (E-Syt2). Syts and E-Syts bind the plasma membrane via multipl...

In this work we describe a novel and simple self-assembly process of colloidal silica beads to create a nanofluidic junction between two microchannels. The nanoporous membrane was used to induce ion concentration polarization inside the microchannel and this electrokinetic preconcentration system allowed rapid concentration of DNA samples by ~1700 times and of protein samples by ~100 times with...