Modeling Bacterial Adhesion to Unconditioned Abiotic Surfaces

Understanding bacterial adhesion as a first step toward biofilm formation is of fundamental interests in many applications. While adhesion to abiotic surfaces is directly relevant for some applications, it also provides a controlled reference setting to study details of the adhesion process in general. This review describes the traditional approaches from contact mechanics and colloidal science, which treat the bacterium–substratum interaction in a continuous manner. We will discuss its shortcomings and provide an introduction to different approaches, which understand the adhesion process as a result of individual stochastic interactions of many macromolecules with the substratum.

Simultaneous polydirectional transport of colloidal bipeds

Detailed control over the motion of colloidal particles is relevant in many applications in colloidal science such as lab-on-a-chip devices. Here, we use an external magnetic field to assemble paramagnetic colloidal spheres into colloidal rods of several lengths. The rods reside above a square magnetic pattern and are transported via modulation of the direction of the external magnetic field. The rods behave like bipeds walking above the pattern. Depending on their length, the bipeds perform topologically distinct classes of protected walks. We design parallel polydirectional modulation loops of the external field that command up to six classes of bipeds to walk on distinct predesigned paths. Using such loops, we induce the collision of reactant bipeds, their polymerization addition reaction to larger bipeds, the separation of product bipeds from the educts, the sorting of different product bipeds, and also the parallel writing of a word consisting of several letters. Our ideas and methodology might be transferred to other systems for which topological protection is at work.

Quantifying patterns in optical micrographs of one- and two-dimensional ellipsoidal particle assemblies

Current developments in colloidal science include the assembly of anisotropic colloids with broad geometric diversity.

Colloidal metal–organic framework particles: the pioneering case of ZIF-8

As a pioneering MOF constituent of colloidal science, this tutorial summarizes the advances in the synthesis of colloidal ZIF-8.

Tandem blocking of PCR extension to form a single-stranded overhang for facile, visual, and ultrasensitive gene detection

Here we present a simple but practically useful assay for gene detection. This strategy employs the advantages of both PCR and Au colloidal science, and thus satisfactorily fulfills the factors required for Point-of-Care detection.