Tetrahydrazide-EDTA Cross-Linked Cellulose Hydrogels for Water Treatment by Heavy Metal Chelation.

Polluting heavy metals persist in the environment, leading to bioaccumulation and toxicity, which is a growing problem in developing countries. Various water filtration systems for heavy metal removal have been developed, with sorption being the simplest and most economically viable. However, many commercial sorbents are powders, leading to inefficient sorbent removal and secondary pollution.

Impacts of non-microbial soils on polychloramide disinfectants.

The presence of some nonmicrobial chemicals and surfaces, herein called "soils", are known to degrade the performance of biocides, and biocidal assays often include mixtures of materials to mimic the effects of soils. We hypothesized that water-soluble anionic polychloramide biocides were less sensitive to soil interference than cationic polymeric biocides. The relationships between soil composition and antimicrobial polymer biocidal activity were compared for an anionic polychloramide, a cationic polychloramide, and a cationic poly(quaternary ammonium) biocide.

Efficient Labeling of Nanocellulose for High-Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy Applications.

The visualization of naturally derived cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) and nanocrystals (CNCs) within nanocomposite materials is key to the development of packaging materials, tissue culture scaffolds, and emulsifying agents, among many other applications. In this work, we develop a versatile and efficient two-step approach based on triazine and azide-alkyne click-chemistry to fluorescently label nanocelluloses with a variety of commercially available dyes. We show that this method can be used to label bacterial cellulose fibrils, plant-derived CNFs, carboxymethylated CNFs, and CNCs with Cy5 and fluorescein derivatives to high degrees of labeling using minimal amounts of dye while preserving their native morphology and crystalline structure.

Tuning the Nanotopography and Chemical Functionality of 3D Printed Scaffolds through Cellulose Nanocrystal Coatings.

In nature, cells exist in three-dimensional (3D) microenvironments with topography, stiffness, surface chemistry, and biological factors that strongly dictate their phenotype and behavior. The cellular microenvironment is an organized structure or scaffold that, together with the cells that live within it, make up living tissue. To mimic these systems and understand how the different properties of a scaffold, such as adhesion, proliferation, or function, influence cell behavior, we need to be able to fabricate cellular microenvironments with tunable properties.

Structural Abnormalities in the Hair of a Patient with a Novel Ribosomopathy.

We report the biophysical characterization of hair from a patient with a de novo ribosomopathy. The patient was diagnosed with a mutation on gene RPS23, which codes for a protein which comprises part of the 40S subunit of the ribosome. The patient presents with a number of phenotypes, including hypotonia, autism, extra teeth, elastic skin, and thin/brittle hair.

One-step in-mould modification of PDMS surfaces and its application in the fabrication of self-driven microfluidic channels.

Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) has become the material of choice for fabricating microfluidic channels for lab-on-a-chip applications. Key challenges that limit the use of PDMS in microfluidic applications are its hydrophobic nature, and the difficulty in obtaining stable surface modifications. Although a number of approaches exist to render PDMS hydrophilic, they suffer from reversion to hydrophobicity and, frequently, surface cracking or roughening.