Label-Free Cell-Based Assay for Characterization of Biomolecules and Receptors.

We present a method to study the interaction between biomolecules and receptors present on the cell surface. This enables studies of molecular interactions in a natural biological context. As the analyte interacts with the receptors still intact on the cell surface, the experimental data provides complete dynamics and complexity of the interaction, thereby generating highly informative data.

Label-free in-flow detection of receptor recognition motifs on the biomolecular corona of nanoparticles.

Nanomedicine, nanotargeting and nanotherapeutics have in the last few years faced several difficulties in translating the promising results obtained in vitro to an in vivo scenario. The origin of this discrepancy might be found in the lack of a detailed and realistic characterization of the biological surface of nanoparticles. Despite the capability to engineer nanomaterials with a great variety and a precise control of the surface functionalization, the targeting capability is lost when the nanoparticles are embedded in complex biological media, due to the formation of a biological layer (biomolecular corona).

Plasma nanotextured polymeric lab-on-a-chip for highly efficient bacteria capture and lysis.

We describe the design, fabrication, and successful demonstration of a sample preparation module comprising bacteria cell capture and thermal lysis on-chip with potential applications in food sample pathogen analysis. Plasma nanotexturing of the polymeric substrate allows increase of the surface area of the chip and the antibody binding capacity. Three different anti-Salmonella antibodies were directly and covalently linked to plasma treated chips without any additional linker chemistry or other treatment.

Reading and visual processing in Greek dyslexic children: an eye-movement study.

We examined the impact of the effects of dyslexia on various processing and cognitive components (e.g., reading speed and accuracy) in a language with high phonological and orthographic consistency.

Dynamics of swollen gel layers anchored to solid surfaces.

We employ a dynamic micro light scattering technique to probe the thermal concentration fluctuations in surface-attached poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PNIPAAm) gel layers swollen in ethanol as a good solvent. At the equilibrium swelling state, the relaxation function exhibits two decays in the time range between microseconds and seconds and the characteristic rates display a pure diffusive behavior. The fast cooperative diffusion increases with crosslinking density as a result of the decrease in the dynamic network mesh size.