Utilization of accessible resources in the fabrication of an affordable, portable, high-resolution, 3D printed, digital microscope for Philippine diagnostic applications.

Philippine clinical laboratory licensing requirements mandate that diagnostic microscopy for Tuberculosis (TB) sputum microscopy, urinalysis, pap smears, wet smears, an option for complete blood count, stool exams, and malaria thick and thin smears should be accessible and available in health facilities including primary care centers. However, access to these essential diagnostics is hampered by the lack of trained personnel, relatively high costs for supplies and equipment especially in rural and underserved areas. This served as motivation for our team to utilize accessible resources in the form of affordable 3D printers, available CAD software, and components to build our low-cost Openflexure microscope (OFM) prototype.

Synthesis and Pyrolysis of Fullerenol-stabilized Pt Nanocolloids as a unique Approach to Pt-doped Carbon.

An aqueous colloidal dispersion of Pt nanoparticles (NPs) stabilized by fullerenol C (OH) (Pt:C (OH) ) was successfully synthesized via liquid-phase chemical reduction. The subsequent pyrolysis of Pt:C (OH) at different temperatures was conducted to afford Pt-doped carbon with different chemical compositions (Pt:C60 ). X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and Infrared (IR) absorption spectroscopy and thermogravimetric measurements revealed that the thus-prepared nanocomposite consists of Pt NPs and high valent Pt-C (OH) complex.

Application of cup-shaped trilactams for selective extraction of volatile compounds by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Chiral cyclic trilactams ((+)-1 and (-)-1) with C symmetry were investigated as liquid phase extraction materials of volatile compounds. Perfume samples, involving a range of chiral odor active terpenoids, were applied and each sample before and after the liquid phase extraction was analyzed by solid phase microextraction (SPME)-gas chromatography hyphenated with mass spectrometry. It was found that (+)-1 exhibited significantly higher enrichment factors for several terpenoids, while (-)-1 did not.