Relationships between community-led mutual aid groups and the state during the COVID-19 pandemic: complementary, supplementary, or adversarial?

This research explores ways public service ecosystems developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on relationships between community-led mutual aid groups and the state. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and mobile ethnographic methods with 30 participants from the public sector and three mutual aid groups across Scotland. We show how relationships between mutual aid groups and the state - whether complementary, supplementary, or adversarial - shifted over the course of the pandemic. Our findings add nuance to understandings that presuppose mutual aid as antagonistic, highlighting ways that mutual aid groups may be brought into existing public service ecosystems.

Development of an integrated microsystem for injection, transport and manipulation of encoded microbeads.

An integrated microsystem for injection, transport and manipulation of encoded microbeads on a single microchip is presented. The device also incorporates a customized reaction chamber to process individual, optically encoded microbeads. This research illustrates how microfabrication technologies enable convenient integration of multiple capabilities of microbeads, controlled microfluidic injection, integration of heater elements and temperature sensors and detection of microbeads in a single microfluidic chip. A practical application for the integrated microsystem is confirmed by the ability to select a specific DNA sequence of interest from a 4 x 4 cDNA library. This application emphasizes the advantages of component integration for rapid bio-assay development in a complete microsystem.

Selective release of DNA from the surface of indium-tin oxide thin electrode films using thiol-disulfide exchange chemistry.

A new challenge in biointerfacial science is the development of dynamic surfaces with the ability to adjust and tune the chemical functionality at the interface between the biological and nonbiological entities. In this paper we describe fabrication of indium-tin oxide (ITO) electrodes and the design of a ligand that can be switched to enable selectively controlled interactions with DNA. Tailoring the surface composition of the ITO electrode to optimize its optical and electrical properties was also studied. The surface attachment chemistry investigated utilizes thiol-disulfide exchange chemistry. This chemistry involved the covalent attachment of a thiol-functionalized silane anchor to a hydroxyl-activated ITO electrode surface. Subsequent reaction with 2-(2-pyridinyldithio)ethanamine hydrochloride formed the disulfide bridge and provided the terminal amine group, which facilitates addition of a cross-linker. DNA was then covalently bound to the cross-linker, and hybridization with the complementary Cy3-labeled target DNA was achieved. Selective release of the attached DNA was demonstrated by both chemical and electrical reduction of the disulfide bond. The surface chemistry was then recycled, and rehybridization of the target DNA was achieved. The ability to control specific release of biomolecules has applications for the development of novel biosensor platforms and a range of medical devices.