2008 NOV 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- According to recent research from Komaba, Japan, "Real-time observation of biomolecular behavior focusing on high speed temperature response is an essential endeavor for further biological study at the molecular level. This is because most of the important biological functions at the molecular level happen at the sub-second time scale."

  "We used our own on-chip microheaters and microcontainers to observe the denaturation dynamics of fluorescent proteins at the millisecond time scale. The microheater controls the temperature in 1 ms under the microscope. Fluorescent proteins were contained in 28 fL PDMS microcontainers to prevent them from diffusing into the solution. The proteins were denatured by high temperatures and observed by a high speed CCD camera with 5 ms per frame. Hence, denaturation speeds of red fluorescent proteins (rDsRed and rHcRed) were measured to be 5-10 ms. Green fluorescent proteins (rAcGFP and rGFPuv) denatured with bi-exponential decay. rAcGFP denatured with time constants of 5 ms and 75 ms while rGFPuv denatured with 10 ms and 130 ms. This may be the reverse process of a two step renaturation of GFP observed in a previous report. This micro-thermodevice is applicable to other biomaterials such as nucleic acids or other proteins. It does not require any chemical treatment nor mutation to the biomaterial itself," wrote H.F. Arata and colleagues, University of Tokyo ...read more

  2008 NOV 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "We demonstrate a highly-sensitive and label-free method for characterizing cells based on cell-surface receptors. The method involves measuring a current pulse generated when an individual cell passes through an artificial pore," scientists in the United States report.

  "When the pore is functionalized with proteins, specific interactions between a cell-surface marker and the functionalized proteins retard the cell, thus leading to an increased pulse duration that indicates the presence of that specific biomarker. For proof-of-principle, we successfully screened murine erythroleukemia cells based on their CD34 surface marker in both a single and mixed population of cells. Further, we developed a unified constrained statistical model for estimating the ratios of cells in a mixed population. Finally, we demonstrated our ability to screen a small number of cells (hundreds or less) with high accuracy and sensitivity," wrote A. Carbonaro and colleagues, University of California ...read more

  2008 NOV 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- According to recent research published in the journal Lab on a Chip, "A simple low temperature adhesive 'stamp-and-stick' bonding procedure for lab-on-a-chip glass devices has been tested for capillary electrophoresis applications. This technique involves use of a mask aligner to transfer a UV-curable adhesive selectively onto the top CE substrate which is then aligned with and bonded to the bottom CE wafer. ...read more