When developing a new method to measure the concentration or the quantity of an element (molecule, micro organism, ...) you might want to check whether it gives results that are similar to a reference or comparative method or not. If there is a difference, you might be interested in knowing if this is due to a bias that depends on where you are on the scale variation. If a new measurement metho...

Molecular hydrogen is the most abundant molecule in the universe. It is the first one to form and survive photo-dissociation in tenuous environments. Its formation involves catalytic reactions on the surface of interstellar grains. The micro-physics of the formation process has been investigated intensively in the last 20 years, in parallel of new astrophysical observational and modeling progre...

Background Coxsackievirus A21 (CVA21) is a naturally occurring “common cold” intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1)-targeted RNA virus. Surface ICAM-1 is upregulated on a number of cancers including melanoma, non-small cell lung, bladder and prostate cancers. CAVATAK is a novel bio-selected formulation of CVA21, which displays potent oncolytic activity against in vitro cultures of cancer ce...

Specially synthesized extra-large crystallites of zeolite LTA with intentionally added mesoporosity are used for an in-depth study of guest diffusion in hierarchical nanoporous materials by the pulsed field gradient NMR technique. Using propane as a guest molecule, intracrystalline mass transfer is demonstrated to be adequately described by a single effective diffusivity resulting from the weig...

Micromechanical cantilevers show great potential as highly sensitive biochemical sensors. Cantilever-based sensing involves the transduction of a biomolecular interaction to a measurable mechanical change in the cantilever resulting from induced surface stresses added mass. In surface stress sensing applications, one side of the cantilever beam is rendered sensitive to a specific target molecul...

We present the characterization of a decanedithiol monolayer using a technique which is based on micro-transfer printing. This technique allows us to contact molecular monolayers on the scale of 100μm2 without producing electrical shorts between the metallic contacts. This opens the possibility to characterize the behavior of metal–molecule contacts on a large ensemble. Electrical measurements ...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES Preeclampsia is a life-threatening hypertensive disease affecting 3-5% of pregnancies. While the pathogenesis of preeclampsia remains unclear, it is known that placenta-derived factors trigger the disease by activating maternal endothelial cells prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) of different sizes extruded by the placenta may be one fact...

Azobenzene is a photo-isomerizing molecule whose end-to-end distance changes upon external illumination. When combined with site-specific reactive groups, it can be used as molecular tweezers to remote-control the structure and function of protein targets. The present study gives a brief overview over the rational design strategies that use an azobenzene-based photoswitchable cross-linker to en...

The construction with biomolecules and their manipulation represent a key step for developing new miniaturized structures. Such micro or nanometer systems promise a variety of novel features. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a powerful tool for trapping and orienting individual molecules in microelectrode arrangements, and was demonstrated to be applicable to DNA. This relatively rigid biomolecule co...

A new biosensing system is described that is based on the aggregation of nanoparticles by a target biological molecule and dielectrophoretic impedance measurement of these aggregates. The aggregation process was verified within a microchannel via fluorescence microscopy, demonstrating that this process can be used in a real time sensor application. Positive dielectrophoresis is employed to capt...