Demonstrating the Use of Optical Fibres in Biomedical Sensing: A Collaborative Approach for Engagement and Education.

This paper demonstrates how research at the intersection of physics, engineering, biology and medicine can be presented in an interactive and educational way to a non-scientific audience. Interdisciplinary research with a focus on prevalent diseases provides a relatable context that can be used to engage with the public. Respiratory diseases are significant contributors to avoidable morbidity and mortality and have a growing social and economic impact.

High-Throughput Triggered Merging of Surfactant-Stabilized Droplet Pairs Using Traveling Surface Acoustic Waves.

We present an acoustofluidic device for fluorescently triggered merging of surfactant-stabilized picoliter droplet pairs at high throughput. Droplets that exceed a preset fluorescence threshold level are selectively merged by a traveling surface acoustic wave (T-SAW) pulse. We characterize the operation of our device by analyzing the merging efficiency as a function of acoustic pulse position, duration, and acoustic pressure amplitude.