Strategic marketing of educational institutions

Strategy development in higher education (HE) institutions has not been investigated a great extent. To address this issue, this study reports on the first stage of a larger investigation of strategy development in HE. The theoretical background draws on two theories of strategy and competitive advantage, namely, industrial organisation (IO) and resource-based view (RBV). These are used to guide 32 in-depth interviews that explore the elements of external industry structure, internal resources and capabilities, and institutional performance with senior HE decision-makers. Factors of competitive advantage and the indicators of institutional performance identified in the study verify and further develop the limited understanding relating to strategic marketing of educational institutions.<br /

Isolation of exosomes from whole blood by integrating acoustics and microfluidics

Exosomes are nanoscale extracellular vesicles that play an important role in many biological processes, including intercellular communications, antigen presentation, and the transport of proteins, RNA, and other molecules. Recently there has been significant interest in exosome-related fundamental research, seeking new exosome-based biomarkers for health monitoring and disease diagnoses. Here, we report a separation method based on acoustofluidics (i.e., the integration of acoustics and microfluidics) to isolate exosomes directly from whole blood in a label-free and contact-free manner. This acoustofluidic platform consists of two modules: a microscale cell-removal module that first removes larger blood components, followed by extracellular vesicle subgroup separation in the exosome-isolation module. In the cell-removal module, we demonstrate the isolation of 110-nm particles from a mixture of micro- and nanosized particles with a yield greater than 99%. In the exosome-isolation module, we isolate exosomes from an extracellular vesicle mixture with a purity of 98.4%. Integrating the two acoustofluidic modules onto a single chip, we isolated exosomes from whole blood with a blood cell removal rate of over 99.999%. With its ability to perform rapid, biocompatible, label-free, contact-free, and continuous-flow exosome isolation, the integrated acoustofluidic device offers a unique approach to investigate the role of exosomes in the onset and progression of human diseases with potential applications in health monitoring, medical diagnosis, targeted drug delivery, and personalized medicine. Keywords: extracellular vesicles; exosomes; blood-borne vesicles; surface acoustic waves; acoustic tweezersNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant R01 HD086325)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIP-1534645

Acoustic separation of circulating tumor cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are important targets for cancer biology studies. To further elucidate the role of CTCs in cancer metastasis and prognosis, effective methods for isolating extremely rare tumor cells from peripheral blood must be developed. Acoustic-based methods, which are known to preserve the integrity, functionality, and viability of biological cells using label-free and contact-free sorting, have thus far not been successfully developed to isolate rare CTCs using clinical samples from cancer patients owing to technical constraints, insufficient throughput, and lack of long-term device stability. In this work, we demonstrate the development of an acoustic-based microfluidic device that is capable of high-throughput separation of CTCs from peripheral blood samples obtained from cancer patients. Our method uses tilted-angle standing surface acoustic waves. Parametric numerical simulations were performed to design optimum device geometry, tilt angle, and cell throughput that is more than 20 times higher than previously possible for such devices. We first validated the capability of this device by successfully separating low concentrations (~100 cells/mL) of a variety of cancer cells from cell culture lines from WBCs with a recovery rate better than 83%. We then demonstrated the isolation of CTCs in blood samples obtained from patients with breast cancer. Our acoustic-based separation method thus offers the potential to serve as an invaluable supplemental tool in cancer research, diagnostics, drug efficacy assessment, and therapeutics owing to its excellent biocompatibility, simple design, and label-free automated operation while offering the capability to isolate rare CTCs in a viable state.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1 R01 GM112048-01A1)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R33EB019785-01)National Science Foundation (U.S.)Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science (Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Grant DMR-0820404)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant U01HL114476

Probing Cell Deformability via Acoustically Actuated Bubbles

An acoustically actuated, bubble-based technique is developed to investigate the deformability of cells suspended in microfluidic devices. A microsized bubble is generated by an optothermal effect near the targeted cells, which are suspended in a microfluidic chamber. Subsequently, acoustic actuation is employed to create localized acoustic streaming. In turn, the streaming flow results in hydrodynamic forces that deform the cells in situ. The deformability of the cells is indicative of their mechanical properties. The method in this study measures mechanical biomarkers from multiple cells in a single experiment, and it can be conveniently integrated with other bioanalysis and drug-screening platforms. Using this technique, the mean deformability of tens of HeLa, HEK, and HUVEC cells is measured to distinguish their mechanical properties. HeLa cells are deformed upon treatment with Cytochalasin. The technique also reveals the deformability of each subpopulation in a mixed, heterogeneous cell sample by the use of both fluorescent markers and mechanical biomarkers. The technique in this study, apart from being relevant to cell biology, will also enable biophysical cellular diagnosis

Acoustic Streaming: Probing Cell Deformability via Acoustically Actuated Bubbles

An acoustically actuated, bubble-based technique is developed to investigate the deformability of cells suspended in microfluidic devices. On page 902, measurements of mechanical biomarkers from multiple cells made by T. J. Huang and co-workers are conducted in a single experiment, and integrated with other bioanalysis and drug-screening platforms. It is expected that this technique could provide insights for cell biology studies and biophysical cellular diagnosis