EO at 1 mM vs 100 mM salts & the role of a meniscus in pressure measurements

Background: Similar to the Gaborski lab, the authors of the publication “Microfabrication of high-resolution porous membranes for cell culture” fabricated and characterized ultra-thin polymeric membranes for use as cell culture substrates. Upon reviewing their publication, Tom and I discussed some of the experiments that we’d like to replicate to further characterize the SiO2 membrane for our…

Here is a look at all our water permeability through nanomembranes to-date. There appears to be subtle trends showing increasing permeability with radial position (r – values) and a not-so-subtle trend showing decreasing flow with protein (cyt and albumin). Note that with the more recent membranes we’ve been able to do repeats. The permeabilities are…

Now that I’ve got plenty of fluorescent protein, I’ve moved back to testing protein adsorption to various surfaces. I’ve repeated the n-Dodecyl β-D-Maltoside (“DDM”) coating procedure (reference) with the goal of preventing or heavily decreasing the protein adsorption to the PDMS surface. This time I had a total of four samples: DDM treated, sham treated, untreated,…

Here is the analysis of the wafers used in the pressurized gold separations: SC 199   Stat Result Mean Equiv Diameter 17.84 nm Median Diameter 18.30 nm Porosity 2.2% Weighted Mean Diameter 20.81 nm 90% Diameter 26.64 nm Roundness .782 Separates 10 nm from 15 nm w225   Stat Result Mean Equiv Diameter 18.33 nm…

On Friday I posted results from a diffusion experiment in which I tested “treated” and “untreated” SC256 samples against the diffusion of a mixture of DDM and BSA. The DDM-BSA solution contained an initial DDM concentration of 1.0% and an initial BSA concentration of 2.5mg/mL; the solution also contained 20mM HEPES and was at a…

Introduction The invasion of Staphlyococcus aureus into the cracks of cortical bone leads to osteomyelitis, a devastating disease often resolved by amputation [1]. The μSiM platform has been used to study the genetic mechanisms of S. aureus invasion. The membrane pores mimic the network of cracks in bone, referred to as the osteocyte lacuno-canalicular network…