Introduction Etaluma is a company that builds high resolution microscopes in a compact format for integration into cell culture incubators. This shifts from the traditional stage top or incubator cage approach to live cell imaging to allow for steady time-lapse…

Introduction Currently, no FDA approved drug exist for the treatment of sepsis. Past sepsis pharmaceuticals attempted to target mediators of the innate immune response. These drugs, however, struggled to balance remedial immune suppression from complete immune knockdown in a patient…

This initial aim of this project was to obtain “pockets” with sub-100nm pores, while the top opening is much larger. Dr. Carter is the mastermind behind this project. The following simple fabrication process diagram explains the current approach. After initial…

Thanks to Ian Krout for the data. As covered in our last post, we hope to distinguish between different kinds of microdebris caught on silicon nanomembranes through the material’s different melting points. Plastics can have a wide range of melting…

Document: Ian’s Presentation Thanks to Ian Krout for the experiment and the writeup, which I have organized here. The purpose of this set-up was to develop a tool to melt plastic particles collected on the silicon nanomembranes membranes. Due to…

  Continuing the studies on neutrophil transmigration in devices with embedded parylene membranes of different pore sizes and thicknesses, three pore sizes (1.0 um, 1.4 um and 1.7 um) and two thicknesses (0.7 um and 1.2 um) were used for…

We previously explored cellular behavior on porous substrates and discontinuous substrates. We have seen differences in cell migration and cell-substrate interactions in the form of altered f-actin polymerization, focal adhesion formation, and fibronectin fibrillogenesis on these discontinuous substrates. We were…

Here are my proposal exam materials for reference. Proposal Document: Proposal_Salminen Proposal Presentation (No Animations or Videos): Proposal Presentation_No Animations

Word Document: Blog Write Up 4.8.19 Over the past two weeks I have been working on creating a protocol to eliminate the organic debris from environmental water samples, leaving only microplastics behind on the silicon filters. The goal for this…

This post has been a long time coming, but I have finally (essentially) finished all the work for Aim 1 of my thesis. (Credit to Dan for helping with part of it and getting a thesis along the way, see…