• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.638-647
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• 2021

Organic residues are substances derived from diverse natural sources. Recent scientific analysis of organic residues has yielded important information in restoring the lifestyles of ancient peoples. In this study, the organic material contained within the celadon oil bottle of the Goryeo dynasty, excavated from the Soejoul site in Geumneung-dong, Chungju, was analyzed using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The results showed that the organic materials in the bottle were plant-derived oils. In particular, polyunsaturated fatty acids and phytosterols were detected using GC-MS analysis. Sesamin components were also identified. Sesamin, which is a characteristic component of sesame seeds, is a lignan and an antioxidant. As the organic residues in the oil bottle were derived from sesame seeds, it is presumed that sesame oil was stored in the bottle.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.95-101
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• 2022

Microfluidic radioimmunoassay (RIA) platform called µ-RIA spends less reagent and shorter reaction time for the analysis compared to the conventional tube-based radioimmunoassay. This study reported the design of µ-RIA chips optimized for the gamma counter which could measure the small samples of radioactive materials automatically. Compared with the previous study, the µ-RIA chips developed in this study were designed to be compatible with conventional RIA test tubes. And, the automatic gamma counter could detect radioactivity from the ¹²⁵I labeled anti-PSA attached to the chips. Effects of the multi-layer microchannels and two-phase flow in the µ-RIA chips were investigated in this study. The measured radioactivity from the ¹²⁵I labeled anti-PSA was linearly proportional to the number of stacked chips, representing that the radioactivity in µ-RIA platform could be amplified by designing the chips with multi-layers. In addition, we designed µ-RIA chip to generate liquid-gas plug flow inside the microfluidic channel. The plug flow can promote binding of the biomolecules onto the microfluidic channel surface with recirculation in the liquid phase. The ratio of liquid slug and air slug length was 1 : 1 when the ¹²⁵I labeled anti-PSA and the air were injected at 1 and 35 µL/min, respectively, exhibiting 1.6 times higher biomolecule attachment compared to the microfluidic chip without the air injection. This experimental result indicated that the biomolecular reaction was improved by generating liquid-gas slugs inside the microfluidic channel. In this study, we presented a novel µ-RIA chips that is compatible with the conventional gamma counter with automated sampler. Therefore, high-throughput radioimmunoassay can be carried out by the automatic measurement of radioactivity with reduced radiowaste generation. We expect the µ-RIA platform can successfully replace conventional tube-based radioimmunoassay in the future.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.155-161
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• 2023

Ion concentration polarization (ICP) is one of the essential important mechanisms for biomolecule preconcentration devices as well as a fundamental transport phenomenon found in electrodialysis, electrochemical cell, etc. The ICP triggered by externally applied voltage enables the biomolecular analyte to be preconcentrated at an arbitrary position by a locally amplified electric field inside the microchannel. Conventional preconcentration methodologies using the ICP have two limitations: uncertain equilibrium position and hydrodynamic instability of preconcentration plug. In this work, a new preconcentration method in the dead-end microchannel around cation exchange membrane was numerically studied to resolve the limitations. As a result, the numerical model showed that the analyte was concentrated at a shock front developed in a geometrically confined dead-end channel. Furthermore, the electrokinetic behaviors for preconcentration dynamics were analyzed by changing microchannel's applied voltage and volumetric charge concentration of microchannel as key parameters to describe the dynamics. This work would provide an effective means for a point-of-care platform that requires ultra-fast preconcentration method.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.175-179
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• 2022

The physical properties of biomaterials are important for their isolation and separation from body fluids. In particular, the precise evaluation of the multi-physical properties of single biomolecules is essential in that the correlation between physical and biological properties of specific biomolecule. However, the majority of scientific equipment, can only determine specific-physical properties of single nanoparticles, making the evaluation of the multi-physical properties difficult. The improvement of analytical techniques for the evaluation of multi-physical properties is therefore required in various research fields. In this study, we developed a motion-tracking algorithm to evaluate the multi-physical properties of single-nanoparticles by analyzing their behavior. We observed the Brownian motion and electric-field-induced drift of fluorescent nanoparticles injected in a microfluidic chip with two electrodes using confocal microscopy. The proposed algorithm is able to determine the size of the nanoparticles by i) removing the background noise from images, ii) tracking the motion of nanoparticles using the circular-Hough transform, iii) extracting the mean squared displacement (MSD) of the tracked nanoparticles, and iv) applying the MSD to the Stokes-Einstein equation. We compared the evaluated size of the nanoparticles with the size measured by SEM. We also determined the zeta-potential and surface-charge density of the nanoparticles using the extracted electrophoretic velocity and the Helmholtz-Smoluchowski equation. The proposed motion-tracking algorithm could be employed in various fields related to biomaterial analysis, such as exosome analysis.

• FOCUS: LIFE SCIENCE
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• no.1
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• pp.3.1-3.7
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• 2024

The article discusses the critical role of chromatography in the analysis and purification of proteins in biopharmaceuticals, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive characterization for ensuring their safety and efficacy. It highlights the use of Avantor® ACE® HPLC columns for the separation and purification of proteins, focusing on the analysis of intact proteins using reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) with fully porous particles. This article also details the application of different mobile phase additives, such as TFA and formic acid, and emphasizes the advantages of using type B ultra-pure silica-based columns for efficiency and peak shape in biomolecule analysis. Additionally, it addresses the challenges of analyzing intact proteins due to slow molecular diffusion and introduces the concept of solid-core (or superficially porous) particles, emphasizing their benefits over traditional porous particles for the analysis of therapeutic proteins. Furthermore, it discusses the development of Avantor® ACE® UltraCore BIO columns, specifically designed for the high-efficiency separation of large biomolecules, such as proteins, and demonstrates their effectiveness in achieving high-resolution separations, even for higher molecular weight proteins like monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). In addition, it underscores the complexity of analyzing and characterizing intact protein biopharmaceuticals, requiring a range of analytical techniques and the use of wide-pore stationary phases, operated at elevated temperatures and with relatively shallow gradients. It highlights the comprehensive range of options offered by Avantor® ACE® wide pore columns, including both fully porous and solid-core particles, bonded with a variety of complementary stationary phase chemistries to optimize selectivity during method development. The use of ultrapure and highly inert base silica is emphasized for enabling the use of lower concentrations of mobile phase modifiers without compromising analyte peak shape, particularly beneficial for LC-MS applications. Then the article concludes by emphasizing the significance of reversed-phase liquid chromatography and its compatibility with mass spectrometry as a valuable tool for the separation and analysis of intact proteins and their closely related variants in biopharmaceuticals.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.443-455
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• 2013

Electrochemical studies on charge transfer reactions across the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES) have greatly attracted researcher's attentions due to their wide applicability in research fields such as ion sensing and biosensing, modeling of biomembranes, pharmacokinetics, phase-transfer catalysis, fuel generation and solar energy conversion. In particular, there have been extensive efforts made on developing sensing platforms for ionic species and biomolecules via gelifying one of the liquid phases to improve mechanical stability in addition to creating microscale interfaces to reduce ohmic loss. In this review, we will mainly discuss on the basic principles, applications and future aspects of various sensing platforms utilizing ion transfer reactions across the ITIES. The ITIES is classified into four types : (i) a conventional liquid/liquid interface, (ii) a micropipette supported liquid/liquid interface, (iii) a single microhole or an array of microholes supported liquid/ liquid interface on a thin polymer film, and (iv) a microhole array liquid/liquid interface on a silicon membrane. Research efforts on developing ion selective sensors for water pollutants as well as biomolecule sensors will be highlighted based on the use of direct and assisted ion transfer reactions across these different ITIES configurations.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.371-377
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• 2007

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of microbial polyesters that can be produced by fermentation from renewable resources. PHAs can be used as completely biodegradable plastics or elastomers. In this paper, novel applications of PHAs in biosensor are described. A general platform technology was developed by using the substrate binding domain (SBD) of PHA depolymerase as a fusion partner to immobilize proteins of interest on PHA surface. It could be shown that the proteins fused to the SBD of PHA depolymerase could be specifically immobilized onto PHA film, PHA microbead, and microcontact printed PHA surface. We review the results obtained for monitoring the specific interaction between the SBO and PHA by using enhanced green fluorescent protein, red fluorescent protein, single chain antibody against hepatitis B virus preS2 surface protein and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus surface antigen as model proteins. Thus, this system can be efficiently used for studying protein-protein and possibly protein-biomolecule interactions for various biotechnological applications.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.219-224
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• 2011

The motion features of sanals inside of the primo vascular system (PVS), that is so-called the Kyungrak system, are investigated under a low static magnetic field by using the anatomy technology and optical microscope. The sanals with a size of about 1 selected and separated from the primo vessel and node of the real PVS inside of the surface of the internal organs are observed from rabbits' abdominal wall and dipped with PBS liquid inside of petri dish. The sanal's moving velocity along the direction of magnetic field (xdirection) and perpendicular to the direction of magnetic field (y-direction) under the low magnetic field of 0 Oe, 20 Oe, 40 Oe, 60 Oe, and 80 Oe, respectively, is observed below a internal temperature of $38^{\circ}C$. Ten sanals' moving velocities versus magnetic field are shown two differently dominant tendencies with an average velocity of 0.9 pixel/s and a random velocity according to the x-direction and y-direction, respectively. This experimental results imply that the rotating motion of sanal with nuclei DNA composed of many inorganic magnetic materials of Mn and Co is monotonically weakened by the increase of applied magnetic field.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.300-307
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• 2022

Time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography (TR-SFX) is a powerful technique for determining temporal variations in the structural properties of biomacromolecules on ultra-short time scales without causing structure damage by employing femtosecond X-ray laser pulses generated by an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL). The mixing rate of reactants and biomolecule samples, as well as the hit rate between crystal samples and x-ray pulses, are critical factors determining TR-SFX performance, such as accurate image acquisition and efficient sample consumption. We here develop two distinct sample delivery systems that enable ultra-fast mixing and on-demand droplet injecting via pneumatic application with a square pulse signal. The first strategy relies on inertial mixing, which is caused by the high-speed collision and subsequent coalescence of droplets ejected through a double nozzle, while the second relies on on-demand pneumatic jetting embedded with a 3D-printed micromixer. First, the colliding behaviors of the droplets ejected through the double nozzle, as well as the inertial mixing within the coalesced droplets, are investigated experimentally and numerically. The mixing performance of the pneumatic jetting system with an integrated micromixer is then evaluated by using similar approaches. The sample delivery system devised in this work is very valuable for three-dimensional biomolecular structure analysis, which is critical for elucidating the mechanisms by which certain proteins cause disease, as well as searching for antibody drugs and new drug candidates.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.13-31
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• 2023

The sesarmid crab Muradium tetragonum, inhabiting the mangrove, are considered as a key consumer of litter and thereby play an important role in the detritus food chain and energy flow in the mangrove ecosystem. The present investigation was carried out with objectives to enlighten the reproductive system of Muradium tetragonum through histological and histochemical studies. Histological organization of the testis of M. tetragonum revealed that each testis has a lobular structure consisting of several testicular lobules arranged around the collecting duct. Histology of the deferens of M. tetragonum revealed it to be composed of three-layer of tissues along the entire length:the outer connective tissue, the middle muscular and the inner epithelial layer. Based on the histological architecture these three regions are recognized as proximal vas deferens (PVD), middle vas deferens (MVD) and distal vas deferens (DVD). Histological characteristics of the ovary of M. tetragonum during different phases of ovarian development were studied. Based on the colour changes of the ovary and diameter of the oocytes five stages of ovarian development can be pronounced. Histochemical analysis of the male reproductive tissues of M. tetragonum signifies the secretion of a different biomolecule by specifying their origin in the reproductive tissue and their possible transformation into spermatophores. In the female reproductive tissues, histochemical evaluation envisaged the secretory products during different stages of ovarian development The secretory substances of the spermatheca expound on the significance of its secretion in dehiscing the spermatophore wall and in nourishing as well as protecting the spermatozoa.