NMR Spectroscopy and Multiscale Modeling Shed Light on Ion-Solvent Interactions and Ion Pairing in Aqueous NaF Solutions.

The balance between ion solvation and ion pairing in aqueous solutions modulates chemical and physical processes from catalysis to protein folding. Yet, despite more than a century of investigation, experimental determination of the distribution of ion-solvation and ion-pairing states remains elusive, even for archetypal systems like aqueous alkali halides. Here, we combine nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and multiscale modeling to disentangle ion-solvent interactions from ion pairing in aqueous sodium fluoride solutions.

Multiplex profiling of developmental cis-regulatory elements with quantitative single-cell expression reporters.

The inability to scalably and precisely measure the activity of developmental cis-regulatory elements (CREs) in multicellular systems is a bottleneck in genomics. Here we develop a dual RNA cassette that decouples the detection and quantification tasks inherent to multiplex single-cell reporter assays. The resulting measurement of reporter expression is accurate over multiple orders of magnitude, with a precision approaching the limit set by Poisson counting noise.

A time-resolved, multi-symbol molecular recorder via sequential genome editing.

DNA is naturally well suited to serve as a digital medium for in vivo molecular recording. However, contemporary DNA-based memory devices are constrained in terms of the number of distinct 'symbols' that can be concurrently recorded and/or by a failure to capture the order in which events occur. Here we describe DNA Typewriter, a general system for in vivo molecular recording that overcomes these and other limitations.

Our Healing Journey: Restoring Connection, Finding Hope and Evolving Wellness.

Wellness is more than the simple absence of disease. As such, health can be envisioned as a journey to a state of optimal wellness and not a simple destination. To measure progress on such a journey, defining wellness by measures other than disease risk factors and biomarkers is necessary.

Dynamic vapor microextraction of ignitable liquid from casework containers.

Dynamic vapor microextraction (DVME) is a headspace concentration method that can be used to collect ignitable liquid (IL) from fire debris onto chilled adsorbent capillaries. Unlike passive headspace concentration onto activated carbon strips (ACSs) that must be eluted with a toxic solvent (carbon disulfide), DVME employs a relatively benign solvent (acetone) to recover the adsorbed IL residue, and each headspace collection is monitored for breakthrough. Here, for the first time, we extend DVME to casework containers while exploring a realistic range of oven temperatures and collection volumes.