Tuesday, March 21, 2023
News on Pathogens and Preparedness
Global Biodefense
  • Featured
  • COVID-19
  • Funding
  • Directory
  • Jobs
  • Events
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
  • Featured
  • COVID-19
  • Funding
  • Directory
  • Jobs
  • Events
  • Subscribe
No Result
View All Result
Global Biodefense
No Result
View All Result
Home Biodetection

Bacteria-Filled Liquid Crystals Could Improve Biosensing

by Global Biodefense Staff
February 26, 2014
Bacteria Filled Crystals
Even at low Reynolds number, active bacteria can create periodic patterns when swimming in the viscoelastic liquid crystal. Credit: S. Zhou, A. Sokolov, O. Lavrentovich and I. Aranson

Plop living, swimming bacteria into a novel water-based, nontoxic liquid crystal and a new physics takes over. The dynamic interaction of the bacteria with the liquid crystal creates a novel form of soft matter: living liquid crystal.

The new type of active material, which holds promise for improving the early detection of diseases, was developed by a research collaboration based at Ohio’s Kent State University and Illinois’ Argonne National Laboratory. The team presented their work at the 58th annual Biophysical Society Meeting, held in San Francisco, Feb.15-19.

As a biomechanical hybrid, living liquid crystal moves and reshapes itself in response to external stimuli. It also stores energy just as living organisms do to drive its internal motion. And it possesses highly desirable optical properties. In a living liquid crystal system, with the aid of a simple polarizing microscope, you can see with unusual clarity the wake-like trail stimulated by the rotation of bacterial flagella just 24-nanometers thick, about 1/4000th the thickness of an average human hair.

You can also control and guide active movements of the bacteria by manipulating variables such as oxygen availability, temperature or surface alignment, thus introducing a new design concept for creating microfluidic biological sensors. Living liquid crystal provides a medium to amplify tiny reactions that occur at the micro- and nano-scales – where molecules and viruses interact – and to also easily optically detect and analyze these reactions. That suits living liquid crystal to making sensing devices that monitor biological processes such as cancer growth, or infection. Such microfluidic technology is of increasing importance to biomedical sensing as a means of detecting disease in its earliest stages when it is most treatable, and most cost-effectively managed.      

“As far as we know, these things have never been done systematically as we did before in experimental physics,” explained Shuang Zhou, a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio’s Kent State University. He collaborated on the project with Oleg Lavrentovich of Kent State, Andrey Sokolov of Argonne National Laboratory, in Illinois, and Igor Aranson of Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill.

“There are many potential applications for this kind of new material, but some of the more immediate are new approaches to biomedical sensing design,” Zhou said. He likens the current investigation to the “first handful of gold scooped out of a just-opened treasure chest. There are many more things to be done.”

Tags: Nanotech

Related Posts

Influenza Proteins Tilt and Wave in ‘Breath-like’ Motions
Pathogens

Influenza Proteins Tilt and Wave in ‘Breath-like’ Motions

January 25, 2023
DARPA Selects Teams to Develop Vaccine Durability Prediction Model
Medical Countermeasures

DARPA Selects Teams to Develop Vaccine Durability Prediction Model

January 13, 2023
The device appears smaller than a playing card, transparent, with visible channels branching off.
Medical Countermeasures

How Organ-on-a-chip Models Could Grease the Drug Development Pipeline

January 10, 2023
New Material Helps Train First Responders on Biothreats
Biodetection

New Material Helps Train First Responders on Biothreats

January 4, 2023
Load More

Latest News

Biodefense Headlines – 12 March 2023

Biodefense Headlines – 12 March 2023

March 12, 2023
Partner Therapeutics’ Novel Approach to Stratify Sepsis Patients Gains Backing From BARDA

Biopreparedness Research Virtual Environment (BRaVE) Initiative Backed by $105M DOE Funding

January 25, 2023
Influenza Proteins Tilt and Wave in ‘Breath-like’ Motions

Influenza Proteins Tilt and Wave in ‘Breath-like’ Motions

January 25, 2023
Biodefense Headlines – 24 January 2023

Biodefense Headlines – 24 January 2023

January 24, 2023

Subscribe

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Subscribe

© 2022 Stemar Media Group LLC

No Result
View All Result
  • Featured
  • COVID-19
  • Funding
  • Directory
  • Jobs
  • Events
  • Subscribe

© 2022 Stemar Media Group LLC