GUIDELINES ON HOW TO FORMAT A CONTRIBUTION FOR THE EuPA 2009 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Abstract In order to get a homogeneous look for all the abstracts to be collected and printed in the abstract book of EuPA 2009 to be held in Stockholm, Sweden from June 14 to June 17, 2009, a set of guidelines for preparing these extended abstracts are given. Authors are, in fact, strongly encouraged to take this example as a template, adopt the layout and merely exchange the contents of the text blocks with more appropriate scientific results and findings

Direct monitoring of calcium-triggered phase transitions in cubosomes using small-angle X-ray scattering combined with microfluidics

This article introduces a simple microfluidic device that can be combined with synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) for monitoring dynamic structural transitions. The microfluidic device is a thiol-ene-based system equipped with 125 μm-thick polystyrene windows, which are suitable for X-ray experiments. The device was prepared by soft lithography using elastomeric molds followed by a simple UV-initiated curing step to polymerize the chip material and simultaneously seal the device with the polystyrene windows. The microfluidic device was successfully used to explore the dynamics of the structural transitions of phytantriol/dioleoylphosphatidylglycerol-based cubosomes on exposure to a buffer containing calcium ions. The resulting SAXS data were resolved in the time frame between 0.5 and 5.5 s, and a calcium-triggered structural transition from an internal inverted-type cubic phase of symmetry Im3m to an internal inverted-type cubic phase of symmetry Pn3m was detected. The combination of microfluidics with X-ray techniques opens the door to the investigation of early dynamic structural transitions, which is not possible with conventional techniques such as glass flow cells. The combination of microfluidics with X-ray techniques can be used for investigating protein unfolding, for monitoring the formation of nanoparticles in real time, and for other biomedical and pharmaceutical investigations. A combination of microfluidics with X-ray techniques has been used to perform dynamic structural studies on nanoparticulate formulations

Refractive Index Sensor Based on a 1D Photonic Crystal in a Microfluidic Channel

A refractive index sensor has been fabricated in silicon oxynitride by standard UV lithography and dry etching processes. The refractive index sensor consists of a 1D photonic crystal (PhC) embedded in a microfluidic channel addressed by fiber-terminated planar waveguides. Experimental demonstrations performed with several ethanol solutions ranging from a purity of 96.00% (n = 1.36356) to 95.04% (n = 1.36377) yielded a sensitivity (Δλ/Δn) of 836 nm/RIU and a limit of detection (LOD) of 6 × 10−5 RIU, which is, however, still one order of magnitude higher than the theoretical lower limit of the limit of detection 1.3 × 10−6 RIU