A microfluidic design for desalination and selective removal and addition of components in biosamples.

We present the development of a microfluidic device that is able to selectively and nondisturbingly remove or add components to liquid samples, which allows control and conditioning of the samples for biomedical tests. The device consists of a series of chambers for sample retention and a through channel. Because smaller particles diffuse faster, small particles in the sample such as salt ions rapidly escape the chamber by diffusion and are subsequently removed by a carrier flow in the channel, leaving macromolecules of interest in the "desalted" solution.

A single-cell translocation and secretion assay (TransSeA).

Understanding biological heterogeneity at the single cell level is required for advancing insights into the complexity of human physiology and diseases. While advances in technological and analytical methods have afforded unprecedented glimpses of this heterogeneity, the information captured to date largely represents one-time "snap" shots of single cell physiology. To address the limits of existing methods and to accelerate discoveries from single cell studies, we developed a single-cell translocation and secretion assay (TransSeA) that supports time lapse analysis, enables molecular cargo analysis of secretions such as extracellular vesicles (EVs) from single cells, allows massively parallel single cell transfer according to user-defined cell selection criteria, and supports tracking of phenotypes between parental and progeny cells derived from single cells.

A robust vitronectin-derived peptide for the scalable long-term expansion and neuronal differentiation of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived neural progenitor cells (hNPCs).

Despite therapeutic advances, neurodegenerative diseases and disorders remain some of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in the United States. Therefore, cell-based therapies to replace lost or damaged neurons and supporting cells of the central nervous system (CNS) are of great therapeutic interest. To that end, human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) derived neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) and their neuronal derivatives could provide the cellular 'raw material' needed for regenerative medicine therapies for a variety of CNS disorders.

A chemically defined substrate for the expansion and neuronal differentiation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells.

Due to the limitation of current pharmacological therapeutic strategies, stem cell therapies have emerged as a viable option for treating many incurable neurological disorders. Specifically, human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived neural progenitor cells (hNPCs), a multipotent cell population that is capable of near indefinite expansion and subsequent differentiation into the various cell types that comprise the central nervous system (CNS), could provide an unlimited source of cells for such cell-based therapies. However the clinical application of these cells will require (i) defined, xeno-free conditions for their expansion and neuronal differentiation and (ii) scalable culture systems that enable their expansion and neuronal differentiation in numbers sufficient for regenerative medicine and drug screening purposes.