Use Microfluidic Chips to Study the Phototaxis of Lung Cancer Cells.

Cell migration is an important process involved in wound healing, tissue development, and so on. Many studies have been conducted to explore how certain chemicals and electric fields induce cell movements in specific directions, which are phenomena termed chemotaxis and electrotaxis, respectively. However, phototaxis, the directional migration of cells or organisms toward or away from light, is rarely investigated due to the difficulty of generating a precise and controllable light gradient. In this study, we designed and fabricated a microfluidic chip for simultaneously culturing cells and generating a blue light gradient for guiding cell migration. A concentration gradient was first established inside this chip, and by illuminating it with a blue light-emitting diode (LED), a blue light gradient was generated underneath. Cell migration in response to this light stimulus was observed. It was found that lung cancer cells migrated to the dark side of the gradient, and the intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) was proportional to the intensity of the blue light.

Establishing a quick screening method by using a microfluidic chip to evaluate cytotoxicity of metal contaminants.

Due to rapid industrialization and urbanization, the environment is exposed to many chemicals from natural or anthropogenic sources. The contaminants impact eco-system and human health via food chain. Animals, including humans, are likely to accumulate contaminants in their bodies from direct exposure or feeding behavior, resulting in toxicity. Therefore, evaluation of the toxicity of contaminants is an important issue. Metals are highly toxic but the toxicity depends on many factors, including the valance and the complex form of metals, the organic matter level in the environment, the reducing/oxidizing condition of the environment, and etc. Since the level of metal amount does not directly correlate to bioavailability, cell culture is usually used for toxicity evaluation. In this study, a microfluidic chip was developed to evaluate the cell toxicity from exposure to metals, copper and thallium. Compared to traditional cytotoxicity assay using static state culture with tetrazolium reagent, this microfluidic chip can generate various shear stresses by changing geometry of culture areas or flow rate. Enhancement of shear stresses could increase cell sensitivity toward metal exposure. Therefore, this platform provides a more sensitive platform for quantitative analysis of cell toxicity and could be applied to evaluate toxicity from environmental samples.

Enhancement Performances in White Organic Light-Emitting Diode (WOLED) by Formation of Charge-Transfer (CT) Complex.

This study elucidates the optoelectronic properties of high efficiency white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLED) with molybdenum oxide (MoO3) doping into N, N0-di (naphthalene-1-yl)-N, N0-diphenyl-benzidine (NPB) as a p-doping hole-transport layer (p-HTL). The device with a MoO3-doping NPB layer shows a turn-on voltage of 2.01 V and the maximum power efficiency of 4.6 lm/W. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and UV-vis-NIR absorption spectra of MoO3-doping NPB layer revealed that the MoO3-doping NPB p-HTL had an improvement on holes injection. The improvement is caused by the formation of the charge transfer (CT) complex (NPB(+)-MoO3-) that is generated by doping MoO3 into NPB, markedly increasing the number of holes carrier, improving the balance of the electrons and holes in recombination zone. The pure white light emission with Commissions Internationale De L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.335, 0.321) was achieved at the operating voltage of 6 V. This device shows the maximum luminance of 12230 cd/cm2 and the maximum luminous efficiency of 7.01 cd/A at an operating voltage of 7 V.