Ultrasound, photoacoustic, and magnetic resonance imaging to study hyperacute pathophysiology of traumatic and vascular brain injury.

Background And Purpose: Cerebrovascular dynamics and pathomechanisms that evolve in the minutes and hours following traumatic vascular injury in the brain remain largely unknown. We investigated the pathophysiology evolution in mice within the first 3 hours after closed-head traumatic brain injury (TBI) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), two significant traumatic vascular injuries.

Methods: We took a multimodal imaging approach using photoacoustic imaging, color Doppler ultrasound, and MRI to track injury outcomes using a variety of metrics.

Contamination-resistant, rapid emulsion-based isothermal nucleic acid amplification with Mie-scatter inspired light scatter analysis for bacterial identification.

An emulsion loop-mediated isothermal amplification (eLAMP) platform was developed to reduce the impact that contamination has on assay performance. Ongoing LAMP reactions within the emulsion droplets cause a decrease in interfacial tension, causing a decrease in droplet size, which results in decreased light scatter intensity due to Mie theory. Light scatter intensity was monitored via spectrophotometers and fiber optic cables placed at 30° and 60°.

Emulsion-based isothermal nucleic acid amplification for rapid SARS-CoV-2 detection via angle-dependent light scatter analysis.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, an ongoing global health crisis, has revealed the need for new technologies that integrate the sensitivity and specificity of RT-PCR tests with a faster time-to-detection. Here, an emulsion loop-mediated isothermal amplification (eLAMP) platform was developed to allow for the compartmentalization of LAMP reactions, leading to faster changes in emulsion characteristics, and thus lowering time-to-detection. Within these droplets, ongoing LAMP reactions lead to adsorption of amplicons to the water-oil interface, causing a decrease in interfacial tension, resulting in smaller emulsion diameters.

Smartphone-Based Paper Microfluidic Immunoassay of Salmonella and E. coli.

Previous studies from our lab have created a simple procedure for single-cell count of bacteria on a paper chip platform using optical detection from a smartphone. The procedure and steps employed are outlined along with the lessons learned and details of certain steps and how the design was optimized. Smartphone optical detection is easy to use, low cost, and potentially field deployable, which can be useful for early and rapid detection of pathogens.