Using runaway replication to express polyhydroxyalkanoic acid (pha) genes from a novel marine bacterium in enteric bacteria: The influence of temperature and phasins on PHA accumulation.

While plastics have revolutionized our world, plastic waste has serious environmental and economic impacts. Polyhydroxyalkanoic acid (PHA) is a bacterial carbon and energy reserve shown to be both biodegradable and biocompatible and could potentially replace conventional plastics. However, cost-effective mass production remains elusive.

Demonstration of trapping, motion control, sensing and fluorescence detection of polystyrene beads in a multi-fiber optical trap.

We demonstrate a multi-functional optical trap capable of trapping, motion control, position sensing and fluorescence detection of chemically treated polystyrene beads, using off-the-shelve optical components. It consists of two collinearly aligned single-mode fibers separated by a spacing of 130-170mum for trapping, another single-mode fiber for probing/pumping and a fourth multi-mode fiber for optical detection. The fibers are mounted either on V-grooved Si or PDMS platforms fabricated using microfabrication and molding techniques, respectively.