Oliver Castell

You can see the Ca2+ plumes move within the droplet. We were pleased/surprised to have the sensitivity to see this given the long working distance, but these convective flows correlate with simulations of the acoustic streaming. More on that in pre-print: biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

By applying acoustic field and magnetic field to a magnetised artificial cell, membrane tension can be induced to activate MscL, enabling Ca2+ flux & thus fluorescence. No protein = no flux, protein but no magnet = no flux. So mag = protein on/off switch! biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

People seemed to quite like levitating droplets, so a couple more vids from @JinLi_AOR First, Jin shows you can spin and reshape droplets, using this to break/reform lipid bilayers (DIBs) between internal cores, and to reconfigure the droplet network. biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

Levitating artificial cells is kinda fun in itself, but @JinLi_AOR also shows how this can be used with microfluidics to reorganise, pattern and manipulate the internal structure and connectivity of artificial cells & also control function with selective activation/deactivation.

As @DrMikeBooth's team point out in their recent review (frontiersin.org/articles/10.…) control of artificial cells is going to be vital for future applications. Here we address this by using ultrasonic & magnetic fields to selectively activate MscL channels in work with @phatmattbaker

We've a new pre-print "Building programmable multicompartment artificial cells incorporating remotely activated protein channels using microfluidics and acoustic levitation" up on @biorxivpreprint. Great effort by @JinLi_AOR on this work. biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…

Think I found myself in a rarely occupied room today. "if you have returned from certain towns in regions of northern Italy...."

We applied to wastewater samples as well. In Cardiff, Swansea & Newport. We see the change in dominance from wildtype to Alpha to Delta - perhaps not surprising - but we also pick up the presence of Beta VoC in the community in a high background of Alpha. Useful for surveillance?

We use CRISPR-Cas detection for Variant-specific SHERLOCK (VarLOCK) reporting on PCR/RPA/LAMP amplified nucleic acid. Optimising this affords ready discrimination of known mutations of concern. We apply this to saliva samples from our @cardiffuni testing pipeline.

Lots of data on covid cases within Cardiff Uni on the website, including data on asymptomatic testing & on those currently isolating whether due to asymptomatic test, NHS test or as a contact. Students please use the asymptomatic testing, it really helps. cardiff.ac.uk/coronavirus/co…

MIT, University of Illinois, Cambridge amongst others are adopting similar asymptomatic testing approaches, so @cardiffuni students & staff can help achieve similar and make the most of campus & the city. Good intro to the principle by @CT_Bergstrom youtube.com/watch?v=7AxeL1Ko…