Improved temperature control in liquid phase transmission electron microscopy

The present invention relates to a liquid phase transmission electron microscopy (LP-TEM) holder with integrated temperature regulation for operating with an associated transmission electron microscopy instrument providing an electron beam for imaging, the LP-TEM holder comprising a liquid phase sample receptacle (LPSR, 5) which may be made from two or more layers of materials, e.g. microchips, the LPSR providing a liquid compartment. The LP-TEM holder furthermore comprises an integrated temperature regulating unit (15), capable of regulating the temperature of the LPSR and liquid in the liquid compartment by means of a temperature measuring unit (16) capable of measuring a temperature in the liquid compartment. The LPSR is thermally isolated with a thermal isolating portion (30), with respect to an external environment and associated devices. The invention is particularly advantageous for providing fast temperature regulation and accurate steady state temperatures of one or more fluids to be imaged.</p

Synthesis of eco-friendly multifunctional dextran microbeads for multiplexed assays

There has been an increasing demand for simultaneous detection of multiple analytes in one sample. Microbead-based platforms have been developed for multiplexed assays. However, most of the microbeads are made of non-biodegradable synthetic polymers, leading to environmental and human health concerns. In this study, we developed an environmentally friendly dextran microbeads as a new type of multi-analyte assay platform. Biodegradable dextran was utilized as the primary material. Highly uniform magnetic dextran microspheres were successfully synthesized using the Shirasu porous glass (SPG) membrane emulsification technique. To enhance the amount of surface functional groups for ligand conjugation, we coated the dextran microbeads with a layer of dendrimers via a simple electrostatic adsorption process. Subsequently, a unique and efficient click chemistry coupling technique was developed for the fluorescence encoding of the microspheres, enabling multiplexed detection. The dextran microbeads were tested for 3-plex cytokine analysis, and exhibited excellent biocompatibility, stable coding signals, low background noise and high sensitivity.</p