Fisher Team update: Half way there
We still have plenty of things to do, but after five weeks working at the UR, we have come a long way:
– Chip production for instructional use: done
– Design and production of SU8 mold: done
– Protocols for (@Fisher) manufacture of micro and milli (silhouette) fluidic devices: done
– Construction and testing of chips used to produce lipid-based nanoparticles: done
– Student exposure to technology in clean room facility and electron microscopy: done and in progress
– Use of nanomembranes to separate/clean/extrude nano particles: in progress
– Building of chambers and channels for cell culture experiments: in progress
Thanks to the nrg group’s advise and expertise, we are now capable of building and running our own devices back at Fisher. What we have learned will have a significant impact on our lab’s research projects and on the nanobiology course to be taught in the Fall.
Things we want to do/are working on:
– Test the interaction of our (lipid) nanoparticles with nanomembranes
– Defining the best parameters to produce microfluidic-based nano particles & imaging of the process
– Build and test PDMS-based cell chambers/channels
– Explore the construction of devices using 3-D printing
Our big emphasis right now is on the use of nano membranes. We have started to learn how to use them and what kinds of things work. More on this soon. We are pretty happy so far, on time and on budget : )
I forgot to add that Ryan seems to be able to produce ~50nm phosphatidylcholine particles using the chips we just built. If we find we can do this consistently, we will be able to avoid manual extrusion using expensive polycarbonate membranes (what we currently do at Fisher).