Haven't been on here much, mainly due to recovering from longcovid and it being exhausting. Despite all that, v.pleased with our latest collaborative work (aptly) on rapid SARS-CoV-2 variant detection with ability to discriminate single nucleotide changes.

RT @CUBiosciences: 3/ The cross-School @cardiffuni Screening Service based in @CUBiosciences , led by Dr Tomasz Jurkowski and Prof Pete Kil….

Congrats to Tomasz!! Well deserved.

RT @EricTopol: The first comprehensive assessment of the cardiovascular complications of #LongCovid at 1 year, just published @NatureMedici….

Excellent stuff from @WDJamieson on the protein assays and microscopy too!.

@JinLi_AOR did an great job driving this work. I’m sure he’d be keen to give a talk/seminar if anyone's keen to hear more. Give him a follow too!.

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:

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!.

We also built a fluorescent microscope to image the levitating droplet. With this we could measure Ca2+ flux through MscL protein channels in the membrane between two adjoining compartments. Ca2+ moves through the channel into recipient compartment causing Ca2+ dye to fluoresce.

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.

RT @ArisKatzourakis: Wordle 2022 5/5 (with apologies to

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 ( 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.

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

RT @biorxivpreprint: Building programmable multicompartment artificial cells incorporating remotely activated protein channels using microf….

RT @philbiggin: Come and join us! . Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.Department of Biochemistry in association w….

This is a great move. .

RT @NewsMedical: VarLOCK approach for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and wastewater monitoring @….

Can be readily adapted to any newly identified VOCs or other pathogens. Lots of hard work from Xinsheng and @tomek_criters and everyone really, but especially these two. Great project to be involved in. Have a read here (pre-print, not yet peer-reviewed)

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?