It is estimated that half of new HIV infections in the U.S. are from patients who know they are HIV-positive but underestimate their transmissibility. Identifying and monitoring the latent HIV reservo...
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In nature, most microbes live in synergistic communities (microbiomes) as a way to thrive in various environments. For example, more than 100 trillion bacteria are estimated to live in the human gut a...
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Biosensors to detect small molecule ligands (e.g., metabolites) have applications in synthetic biology, medical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, bioremediation and bioenergy. Protein-based biosens...
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Mass spectrometry is a highly selective and quantitative technique that is widely used to determine the chemical composition of a sample. Applications of this analytical tool include measuring isotope...
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Mass spectrometry is a broadly applicable analysis tool for detecting and characterizing molecules and other chemical species, including complex mixtures of biomolecules such as peptides, proteins or ...
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To produce pulp from wood, harsh chemicals are applied during cooking and bleaching mainly because lignin is tough to break down. To make it easier to degrade, Wisconsin researchers discovered how che...
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Assays currently used to detect neutralizing antibodies to influenza virus or measure virion binding to cells, antibodies or receptors require multiple steps. These steps are destructive, low sensitiv...
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Influenza infections in humans, from the common seasonal flu to the deadly pandemics of the 20th century, are caused chiefly by influenza A and influenza B viruses. Understanding the in vivo dynamics ...
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Regenerative medicine requires a practical, high throughput method of assessing the cellular components of multicellular entities before transplantation. Such a method would have many clinical and res...
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Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cells shed from tumor deposits that flow into the bloodstream. They are detected at a frequency of about one CTC per one billion surrounding blood cells. The great h...
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Mass spectrometers are analytical instruments that can precisely measure the mass of molecules to determine their composition and identity. Generally, the molecules are ionized and then accelerated by...
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In the past decade, cataloguing the thousands of proteins present in a cell using mass spectrometry (MS) has matured into a procedure both deeply vital and straightforward. Yet discovering how such mo...
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Currently, it is not possible to visualize the in vivo dynamics of an influenza infection. All existing models rely on proxies to measure viral replication (e.g., viral concentration in nasal washes) ...
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For diagnosis and research it often is necessary to isolate a subset of cells from a sample that contains bodily fluids, contaminants, tissue and other types of cells. For example, determining a pati...
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Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging has demonstrated its ability to monitor interactions between biological moieties in real time without the aid of chemical labels such as fluorophores and radioi...
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Liquid crystal materials are promising candidates for many sensing and interfacial applications. Liquid crystals respond to and amplify small changes in temperature, electric or magnetic fields, shear...
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Mass spectrometry (MS) has become the principal tool for routine identification of proteins and their post-translational modifications (PTMs). Quantification of the amounts of proteins and PTMs is req...
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Mass spectrometers are analytic instruments that precisely measure the mass of molecules, and therefore may be used to determine composition and molecule identity based on mass data. Generally, the mo...
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Studying how neurons and other cells work may require stimulating individual or small clusters of cells. The cells conventionally are stimulated through the use of fine electrodes inserted into or nea...
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Studying how neurons and other cells work may require stimulating individual or small clusters of cells.  The cells conventionally are stimulated through the use of fine electrodes inserted into ...
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Several fluorescent reporter molecules, such as the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), are available as research tools to monitor gene activity and protein distribution within cells.  However, curr...
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Botulinum neurotoxins produced by Clostridium botulinum are the most potent toxins known. Because of the threat of bio-terrorism, sensitive methods for detecting botulinum neurotoxin are needed; howev...
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Protein microarrays can be used to analyze hundreds or even thousands of proteins in a single experiment. Numerous methods of creating protein microarrays are known; however, no single strategy for at...
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Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry is commonly used to identify and characterize proteins and to sequence DNA. A key step in this process involves creating sample sp...
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The growth assay is the simplest, most direct measurement of drug efficacy, and is the primary path for discovering antimicrobial drugs. However, most growth assays use relatively large volumes of liq...
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