Georgette B. Salieb-Beugelaar

Universitätsspital Basel · Medical Intensive Care Unit (Research group Nanomedicine - CLINAM)

Caption: Schistosoma mansoni life cycle (1) Paired adult worms (female is thin, male is bigger), (2) Eggs (see note below), (3) Ciliated miracidium, (4) Biomphalaria intermediate host snail, (5) Sporocyst, (6) Cercariae, the infective stage, and (7) Schistosomula, the young parasite. Abstract Schistosomiasis is a neglected invasive worm disease wit...

Background Reducing morbidity is the main target of schistosomiasis control efforts, yet only rarely do control programmes assess morbidity linked to Schistosoma sp. infection. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and particularly in north-eastern Ituri Province, little is known about morbidity associated with Schistosoma mansoni infection. F...

Background Schistosomiasis, caused by Schistosoma mansoni , is of great significance to public health in sub–Saharan Africa. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), information on the burden of S . mansoni infection is scarce, which hinders the implementation of adequate control measures. We assessed the geographical distribution of S . mansoni...

Background Severe hepatosplenic complications arise in patients with chronic Schistosoma mansoni infection after heavy exposure to disease agents in endemic areas. These complications are rarely reported and, hence, underestimated. Case presentation We report on eight patients with severe morbidity associated with S. mansoni infection in Ituri Pro...

Background Controlling morbidity is the main target of schistosomiasis control. Yet, only rarely do we assess morbidity linked to Schistosoma sp. infection. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and particularly in the northeastern Ituri province, morbidity associated with Schistosoma mansoni infection is unknown. For this reason, we aimed to...

Subtractive manufacturing using the thread template approach is an emerging technique for rapid prototyping of complex, true 3D microfluidic systems, offering advantages to photolithography in terms of process complexity, and achieving excellent structure fidelity compared to 3D printing and micro‐milling. This paper explores subtractive manufactur...

NRP 64 Opportunities and Risks of Nanomaterials – White Paper Engineered Nanomaterials: Impact & Safety Aspects http://www.nfp64.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/White-Paper-NFP64-E.pdf

Polymeric microfluidic systems are well suited for miniaturized devices with complex functionality, and rapid prototyping methods for 3D microfluidic structures are increasingly used. Mixing at the microscale and performing chemical reactions at the microscale are important applications of such systems and we therefore explored feasibility, mixing...

The diagnosis and management of pneumococcal disease remains challenging, in particular in children who often are asymptomatic carriers, and in low-income countries with a high morbidity and mortality from febrile illnesses where the broad range of bacterial, viral and parasitic cases are in contrast to limited, diagnostic resources. Integration of...

Sensitive, specific and rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases is essential for effective and economic medical care. Focused medical treatment of the patient enabled by pathogen-specific diagnosis may benefit the patient, may reduce cost, and may minimize the risk of drug resistance development. The rapid progress in micro and nanotechnologies cont...

Microfluidic systems represent a key-enabling platform for novel diagnostic tools for use at the point-of-care in clinical contexts as well as for evolving single cell diagnostics. The design of 3D microfluidic systems is an active field of development, but construction of true interconnected 3D microfluidic networks is still a challenge, in partic...

The publications discussed here are selected exemplarily among many other excellent publications. This also applies to the mentioned conferences or events. We very much appreciate your feedback on the column, suggestions for topics to be argued about, or other related information. As was already stated the purpose of this column is to present novel...

The publications, discussed here are selected exemplarily among many other excellent publications, this time focussing on cardio-vascular nanomedicine. This also applies for the mentioned conferences or events. We very much appreciate your feedback on this column, suggestions for topics to be argued about, or other related information. As was alrea...

Rapid, specific and sensitive diagnosis of infectious diseases is important for the rational, effective and economic treatment of the infection. Focused treatment of the patient with an accurate diagnosis may also contribute to the minimization of drug resistance development. Rapidly evolving micro and nanotechnologies contribute to the development...

This paper reports a novel approach for the formation of anti-inflammatory surface coating on a neural electrode. The surface coating is realized using a recombinant f88 filamentous bacteriophage, which displays a short platinum binding motif and a tumor necrosis factor alpha antagonist (TNF-α antagonist) on p3 and p8 proteins, respectively. The re...

The electrokinetic transport behavior of λ-DNA (48 kbp) in 20 nm-high fused-silica nanoslits in the presence of short-chain PVP is investigated. Mobility and video data show a number of phenomena that are typical of DNA transport through gels or polymer solutions, thus indicative of rigid migration obstacles in the DNA pathway. Calculations show th...

The electrokinetic transport behavior of lambda-DNA (48 kbp) in 20 nm-high fused-silica nanoslits in the presence of short-chain PVP is investigated. Mobility and video data show a number of phenomena that are typical of DNA transport through gels or polymer solutions, thus indicative of rigid migration obstacles in the DNA pathway. Calculations sh...

The development of nanostructure devices has opened the door to new DNA separation techniques and fundamental investigations. With advanced nanotechnologies, artificial gels (e.g. nanopillar arrays, nanofilters) can be manufactured with controlled and ordered geometries. This contrast with gels, where the pores are disordered and the range of avail...

The paper gives a brief overview of nanofluidic theory, with an emphasis on transport processes in nanochannels. It subsequently reports on recent progress in nanofluidic research in the BIOS/Lab-on-a-Chip group, especially DNA electrophoresis in 20-nm high nanoslits, AC electroosmotic flow in nanochannels, and two-phase flow in nano/microfluidic d...

We investigated the transport of λ-DNA in 20 nm nanoslits under the influence of applied AC and DC fields. At DC fields below 15 kV/m it was found that the addition of 1 kHz AC fields with maximum strengths between 10 and 200 kV/m significantly increased the mobility. At DC fields above 15 kV/m no influence of the AC fields was observed. The observ...

The transport behavior of lambda-DNA (48 kbp) in fused silica nanoslits is investigated upon application of electrical fields of different strengths. The slit dimensions are 20 nm in height, 3 microm in width, and 500 microm in length. With fields of 30 kV/m or below, the molecules move fluently through the slits, while at higher electrical fields,...

The aim is to study the mobility of extremely confined DNA as a function of the applied electrical field. Previous investigations on DNA behaviour in nanoconfinement can be found in references 1-4.

The movement of XbaI digested -DNA in 20 nanomometer and .. -DNA in 12 nanometer high slits was investigated. We found that DNA moved intermittently and following preferential pathways, indicating an important influence of surface roughness. From these mobilities and averaged mobilities between the intermittent sticking events. The friction coeffic...

The H19 differentially methylated region (DMR) controls the allele-specific expression of both the imprinted H19 tumor-suppressor gene and the IGF2 growth factor. Hypermethylation of this DMR--and subsequently of the H19 promoter region--is a major cause of the clinical features of gigantism and/or asymmetry seen in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome or i...

Capillary malformations (port-wine stains) are the most common vascular malformations occurring in 0.3% of live births. Most capillary malformations occur sporadically and present as a solitary lesion. Capillary malformations can also occur as a component of well-described syndromes. Familial occurrence of multiple capillary malformations has been...

Clinical, biochemical and molecular findings in a patient with methemoglobinemia type II are described. Furthermore, a comparison between methemoglobinemia type I and type II, both caused by a deficiency of NADH-cytochrome b5 reductase (b5R), is made. Although the clinical pictures of type I and II are strikingly different, mutations in the diaphor...

This thesis presents the results of fundamental investigations of the electrokinetic transport of -DNA and Litmus DNA (XbaI digested) in nanoslits of 20, 60 and 120 nm in height. In order to understand the DNA separation using nanostructures, we start with the main theories developed in gel electrophoresis. The transport of the -DNA molecules was f...