Journal Club: Sandwich Microenvironment For Cell Culture

I got some new data on the pnc-Si capacitive sensor that has not been published on the blog yet. All of the results are summarized in the Spring MRS Proceedings paper mrsspring09_kavalenka. I also uploaded presentation that I made on MRS in “Presentations ” section of the blog. I will talk more about this data…

I was concerned that even though my calculations for etching the microporous MgF2 material show that the silicon nitride was being removed completely, not all of the silicon nitride was indeed being removed. Hypothetically, the presence of additional remnants of silicon nitride could be causing additional film stress and cause membranes to break more frequently. I…

Introduction:  Fibroblasts: Dermal fibroblasts are cells within the dermis layer of skin which are responsible for generating connective tissue and allowing the skin to recover from injury. A fibroblast is a type of biological cell that synthesizes the extracellular matrix and collagen, produces the structural framework (stroma) for animal tissues, and plays a critical role in wound healing. Fibroblasts are…

Last week, I took some of Jess’ 20 nm Au colloids and placed them on a membrane for imaging under TEM. I took images at each of our standard magnifications. Using Mike B.’s pore counting program, I generated statistics and calculated the pixel-to-nm conversion ratio assuming the gold colloids were 20 nm (< 10% variation)....

Summary of Results Membrane Pore Diameter Thickness Porosity Permeability (cc/cm^2*min*bar) SiN 3.2-4.0 um 0.12 um 22.1%-35.3% 30000 PCTE 2.4-3.0 um 9 um 11.9%-16.1% 1652 SiN Experimental Design Permeability of the 3 um pore Si Nitride membranes was assessed using the pictured apparatus: Fluid (ultrapure water) was pumped at a constant rate into a pipet whereupon…

Last week during the deposition step, Chris and I discovered that part of the Cu “power cup” (piece that is bonded to target to make thermal contact with sputter gun) had eroded and coated the inside of the target shield with copper. Later EDX and TEM characterization showed that there was indeed contamination in the…