Translating diagnostic assays from the laboratory to the clinic: analytical and clinical metrics for device development and evaluation.

As lab-on-a-chip health diagnostic technologies mature, there is a push to translate them from the laboratory to the clinic. For these diagnostics to achieve maximum impact on patient care, scientists and engineers developing the tests should understand the analytical and clinical statistical metrics that determine the efficacy of the test. Appreciating and using these metrics will benefit test developers by providing consistent measures to evaluate analytical and clinical test performance, as well as guide the design of tests that will most benefit clinicians and patients.

NAIL: Nucleic Acid detection using Isotachophoresis and Loop-mediated isothermal amplification.

Nucleic acid amplification tests are the gold standard for many infectious disease diagnoses due to high sensitivity and specificity, rapid operation, and low limits of detection. Despite the advantages of nucleic acid amplification tests, they currently offer limited point-of-care (POC) utility due to the need for complex instruments and laborious sample preparation. We report the development of the Nucleic Acid Isotachophoresis LAMP (NAIL) diagnostic device.

Colorimetric detection of catalytic reactivity of nanoparticles in complex matrices.

There is a need for new methodologies to quickly assess the presence and reactivity of nanoparticles (NPs) in commercial, environmental, and biological samples since current detection techniques require expensive and complex analytical instrumentation. Here, we investigate a simple and portable colorimetric detection assay that assesses the surface reactivity of NPs, which can be used to detect the presence of NPs, in complex matrices (e.g.

Simple, low-cost styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene microdevices for electrokinetic applications.

Styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (SEBS) copolymers combine thermoplastic and elastomeric properties to provide microdevices with the advantageous properties of hard thermoplastics and ease of fabrication similar to PDMS. This work describes the electrical surface properties of SEBS block copolymers using current monitoring experiments to determine zeta potential. We show that SEBS exhibits a stable and relatively high zeta potential magnitude compared to similar polymers.

Simple replica micromolding of biocompatible styrenic elastomers.

In this work, we introduce a simple solvent-assisted micromolding technique for the fabrication of high-fidelity styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (SEBS) microfluidic devices with high polystyrene (PS) content (42 wt% PS, SEBS42). SEBS triblock copolymers are styrenic thermoplastic elastomers that exhibit both glassy thermoplastic and elastomeric properties resulting from their respective hard PS and rubbery ethylene/butylene segments. The PS fraction gives SEBS microdevices many of the appealing properties of pure PS devices, while the elastomeric properties simplify fabrication of the devices, similar to PDMS.

Graphene films with large domain size by a two-step chemical vapor deposition process.

The fundamental properties of graphene are making it an attractive material for a wide variety of applications. Various techniques have been developed to produce graphene and recently we discovered the synthesis of large area graphene by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of methane on Cu foils. We also showed that graphene growth on Cu is a surface-mediated process and the films were polycrystalline with domains having an area of tens of square micrometers.

Transfer of large-area graphene films for high-performance transparent conductive electrodes.

Graphene, a two-dimensional monolayer of sp(2)-bonded carbon atoms, has been attracting great interest due to its unique transport properties. One of the promising applications of graphene is as a transparent conductive electrode owing to its high optical transmittance and conductivity. In this paper, we report on an improved transfer process of large-area graphene grown on Cu foils by chemical vapor deposition.