Nam-Trung Nguyen

Griffith University · Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre

Citation: Strachan, S.; Chakraborty, M.; Sallam, M.; Bhuiyan, S.A.; Ford, R.; Nguyen, N.-T. Maximising Affordability of Real-Time Colorimetric LAMP Assays. Abstract: Molecular diagnostics have become indispensable in healthcare, agriculture, and environmental monitoring. This diagnostic form can offer rapid and precise identification of pathogens a...

The rapid advancement of wearable biosensors has revolutionized healthcare monitoring by screening in a non-invasive and continuous manner. Among various sensing techniques, field-effect transistor (FET)-based wearable biosensors attract increasing attention due to their advantages such as label-free detection, fast response, easy operation, and ca...

A multiple-capillary Ar plasma jet was successfully generated by an advanced dielectric barrier discharge reactor. The reactor consisted of four quartz capillaries arranged separately and covered by two ring-shaped electrodes, which were isolated by a liquid dielectric. The advantages of the reactor included less Ar consumption (ranging from 1 to 3...

Currently, the treatment for acute disease encompasses the use of various biological drugs (BDs). However, the utilisation of BDs is limited due to its rapid clearance and non-specific accumulation in unwanted sites which results in a lack of therapeutic efficacy accompanied with adverse effects. While nanoparticles were considered a good candidate...

A significant growth of research on digital microfluidics has been achieved over the past several decades, and the field is still attracting increasing attention for fulfilling relevant mechanisms and potential applications. Numerous studies have been devoted to actively manipulating droplets in a variety of fundamental and applicational scenarios....

Analyzing the wettability of stretchable microstructured surfaces is crucial in applications like soft robotics, wearable biosensors, stretchable electronics, and electronic skin (e‐skin). However, it remains unclear how stretching affects the surface free energy (SFE) of these stretchable surfaces. In this article, stretchable microstructured surf...

Australia, as the world's second-largest exporter of bulk raw sugar, significantly produces 4-4.5 million tonnes of sugar annually from 30-35 million tonnes of sugarcane [1]. Nevertheless, the sugarcane industry faces challenges due to major diseases such as leaf scald, ratoon stunting, chlorotic streak, smut, and red rot, which can substantially d...

The use of biomaterials in implanted medical devices remains hampered by platelet adhesion and blood coagulation. Thrombus formation is a prevalent cause of failure of these blood‐contacting devices. Although systemic anticoagulant can be used to support materials and devices with poor blood compatibility, its negative effects such as an increased...

Effective immunotherapies activate natural antitumor immune responses in patients undergoing treatment. The ability to monitor immune activation in response to immunotherapy is critical in measuring treatment efficacy over time and across patient cohorts. Protein arrays are systematically arranged, large collections of annotated proteins on planar...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is a class of persistent organic pollutants that presents health and environmental risks. PFAS are ubiquitously present in the environment, but current remediation technologies are ineffective in degrading them into innocuous chemicals, especially high energy degradation processes often generate toxic shor...

Atherosclerosis is the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries, which is the main underlying cause of cardiovascular diseases and the leading cause of global morbidity and mortality. Current pharmaceutical treatment options are unable to effectively treat the plaque in the later stages of the disease. Instead, they are aimed at resolving the ris...

The development of fifth-generation (5G) communications and the Internet of Things (IoT) has created a need for high-performance sensing networks and sensors. Improving the sensitivity and reducing the energy consumption of these sensors can improve the performance of the sensing network and conserve energy. This paper reports a large enhancement o...

Cellular response to mechanical stimuli is a crucial factor for maintaining cell homeostasis. The interaction between the extracellular matrix and mechanical stress plays a significant role in organizing the cytoskeleton and aligning cells. Tools that apply mechanical forces to cells and tissues, as well as those capable of measuring the mechanical...

Pests and disease-causing pathogens frequently impede agricultural production. An early and efficient diagnostic tool is crucial for effective disease management. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and the CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) have recently been harnessed to develop diagnostic tools. The CRISPR/Cas system,...

Droplet-based microfluidics and digital polymerase chain reaction (PCR) hold significant promise for accurately detecting and quantifying pathogens. However, existing droplet-based digital PCR (ddPCR) applications have been relying exclusively on single emulsion droplets. Single emulsion droplets may not be suitable for applications such as identif...

Inertial microfluidics manipulates and separates microparticles based on the finite inertia of the fluid at high flow speed. In inertial microfluidics, modifying the geometry by embedding periodic micro-obstacles into curvilinear channels is emerging as a promising strategy to improve inertial focusing and separation. This work systematically inves...

Serving as the interface between fetal and maternal circulation, the placenta plays a critical role in fetal growth and development. Placental exosomes are small membrane-bound extracellular vesicles released by the placenta during pregnancy. They contain a variety of biomolecules, including lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids, which can potentiall...

The magnetic body force is critical for modelling of convection in ferrofluids. Despite a long history in the development of the theories for ferro-hydrodynamics, literature from the last five years shows that a universal consensus has not been reached concerning the formulation of this term for ferrofluids. We present an updated derivation of the...

Cellular response to mechanical stimuli is a crucial factor for maintaining cell homeostasis. The interaction between extracellular matrix and mechanical stress plays a significant role in organ-izing the cytoskeleton and aligning cells. Tools that apply mechanical forces to cells and tissues, as well as those capable of measuring the mechanical pr...

Electrohydrodynamic atomization (EHDA) provides unparalleled control over the size and production rate of particles from solution. However, conventional methods produce highly charged particles that are not appropriate for inhalation drug delivery. We present a self-propelled EHDA system to address this challenge, a promising one-step platform for...

Digital droplet reactors have become a valuable tool for the analysis of single cells, organisms, or molecules by discretising reagents into picolitre or nanolitre volumes. However, DNA-based assays typically require processing of samples on the scale of tens of microlitres, with the detection of as few as one or as many as a hundred thousand fragm...

Micro elastofluidics is an emerging research field that encompasses characteristics of conventional microfluidics and fluid-structure interactions. Micro elastofluidics is expected to enable practical applications, for instance, where direct contact between biological samples and fluid handling systems is required. Besides design optimization, choo...

Multiple Ar jet capillaries (4 jets) were successfully generated by an advanced dielectric barrier discharge reactor. The advanced reactor consisted of two ring-shaped electrodes (thickness of 0.5 mm) covering the 4-bore quartz tubing (bore diameters of 1 mm; outer diameter of 6 mm), and two electrodes had a gap of 6 mm and were isolated by immersi...

This paper presents a novel self-powered mechanical sensing based on the vertical piezo-optoelectronic coupling in a 3C-SiC/Si heterojunction. The vertical piezo-optoelectronic coupling refers to the change of photogenerated voltage across the 3C-SiC/Si heterojunction upon application of mechanical stress or strain. The effect is elucidated under d...

Inertial microfluidics uses the intrinsic fluid inertia in confined channels to manipulate the particles and cells in a simple, high-throughput, and precise manner. Inertial focusing in a straight channel results in several equilibrium positions within the cross sections. Introducing channel curvature and adjusting the cross-sectional aspect ratio...

Biomolecular imaging of intracellular structures of a single cell and subsequent screening of the cells are of high demand in metabolic engineering to develop strains with the desired phenotype. However, the capability of current methods is limited to population-scale identification of cell phenotyping. To address this challenge, we propose to util...

Wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors have attracted significant research interest for the development of a broad range of flexible electronic applications, including wearable sensors, soft logical circuits, and long‐term implanted neuromodulators. Conventionally, these materials are grown on standard silicon substrates, and then transferred onto soft...

In recent times, a self-complementary balanced characteristic feature with the combination of both covalent bonds (structural stability) and open metal sites (single-site catalysis) introduced an advanced emerging functional nanoarchitecture termed metalated porous organic polymers (M-POPs). However, the development of M-POPs in view of the current...

The Australian sugar industry is currently the world's third-largest supplier of raw sugar, producing 30-35 Mt of cane per year, equating to 4 to 4.5 Mt of raw sugar (Australian Sugar Milling Council 2023). However, major diseases, such as ratoon stunting, leaf scald, smut, chlorotic streak, mosaic, Fiji leaf gall, pachymetra root rot, pineapple se...

The Australian sugar industry is currently the world's third-largest supplier of raw sugar, producing 30-35 Mt of cane per year, equating to 4 to 4.5 Mt of raw sugar (Australian Sugar Milling Council 2023). However, major diseases, such as ratoon stunting, leaf scald, smut, chlorotic streak, mosaic, Fiji leaf gall, pachymetra root rot, pineapple se...

Sugar production contributes more than $2 billion annually to the Australian economy, mainly through export earnings (DAFF 2019; QEAS 2019). However, the associated costs of disease management and prevention are up to 40% of the economic production value (Magarey et al. 2003). Therefore, effective and informed disease management and biosecurity pla...

Broadacre cropping is plagued by a multitude of pathogenic organisms that require vigilant surveillance and monitoring to inform management practices and reduce the severity of impact on productivity and yield. Despite the tremendous efforts in developing elaborate systems towards on-farm biosecurity and best management practice, plant pathogens st...

Superamphiphobic Surfaces In article number 2201836, Nam‐Trung Nguyen, Navid Kashaninejad, and co‐workers describe the latest advances in the design and fabrication of re‐entrant microstructures for robust liquid‐repellent surfaces. These microstructures have significant applications in engineering superamphiphobic and omniphobic surfaces as they c...

Flexible Mesoporous Electronics In article number 2204946, Hoang‐Phuong Phan, Yusuke Yamauchi, Tuan‐Khoa Nguyen, Mostafa Kamal Masud, and co‐workers develop flexible mesoporous architectures using selective electrochemical deposition. Soft metallic nanopores formed on thin polyimide films offer excellent mechanical bendability, high sensitivity for...

Core–shell particles are micro- or nanoparticles with solid, liquid, or gas cores encapsulated by protective solid shells. The unique composition of core and shell materials imparts smart properties on the particles. Core–shell particles are gaining increasing attention as tuneable and versatile carriers for pharmaceutical and biomedical applicatio...

Around the world, lung cancer has long been the main factor in cancer-related deaths, with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) being the deadliest form of lung cancer. Cancer cell-derived exosomes and exosomal miRNAs are considered promising biomarkers for diagnosing and prognosis of various diseases, including SCLC. Due to the rapidity of SCLC metastasi...

Biological drugs (BDs) play an increasingly irreplaceable role in treating various diseases such as cancer, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. The market share of BDs is increasingly promising. However, the effectiveness of BDs is currently limited due to challenges in efficient administration and delivery, and issues with stability...

In recent years, the lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) with its unique working mechanism has been explored as an indispensable method for position detection applications. A promising platform for developing self-powered position-sensitive detectors (PSDs) is the 3C-SiC/Si heterojunction, taking advantage of its large built-in voltage and capabiliti...

Superhydrophobic surfaces have many interesting applications because of their self‐cleaning, waterproof, anti‐biofouling, anti‐corrosion, and low‐adhesion properties. Accordingly, numerous surfaces with hierarchical micro/nanostructures are designed and engineered to achieve superhydrophobicity. However, these surfaces have two major problems. Firs...

This paper demonstrates the development of an ion-wind powered boat (iBoat) that offers a simple propeller-less design, trivial noise, and relatively low energy consumption. The apparatus of the iBoat includes a conducting wire working as the ion emitter and the water surface as the ground electrode, eliminating the need to carry a counter electrod...

The human gut is responsible for food digestion and absorption. Recently, growing evidence has shown its vital role in the proper functioning of other organs. Advances in microfluidic technologies have made a significant impact on the biomedical field. Specifically, organ-on-a-chip technology (OoC), which has become a popular substitute for animal...

On-skin wearable systems for biofluid sampling and biomarker sensing can revolutionize the current practices in healthcare monitoring and personalized medicine. However, there is still a long path toward complete market adoption and acceptance of this fascinating technology. Accordingly, microfluidic science and technology can provide excellent sol...

Liquid biopsy for the analysis of circulating cancer biomarkers (CBs) is a major advancement toward the early detection of cancer. In comparison to tissue biopsy techniques, liquid biopsy is relatively painless, offering multiple sampling opportunities across easily accessible bodily fluids such as blood, urine, and saliva. Liquid biopsy is also re...

Liquid marbles are liquid droplets coated with micro/nano particles. Liquid marbles have been used as a micro reactor platform for various applications. This paper demonstrates the use of transparent liquid...

Gravity plays an important role in the development of life on earth. The effect of gravity on living organisms can be investigated by controlling the magnitude of gravity. Most reduced gravity experiments are conducted on the Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) in the International Space Station (ISS). However, running experiments in ISS face challenges such a...

Core-shell particles are heterogenous micro- or nanoparticles with solid, liquid or gas core encapsulated by a protective solid shell. The unique composition of core and shell materials imparts smart properties to the particles. Core-shell particles are gaining increasing attention as tuneable and versatile carriers for pharmaceutical and biomedica...

Gravity played an important role in the development of life on earth. The effect of gravity on a living organisms can be investigated by controlling the magnitude of gravity. Most reduced gravity experiments are conducted on the lower earth orbit (LEO) in the International Space Station (ISS). However, running experiments in ISS face challenges suc...

Flexible and implantable electronics hold tremendous promises for advanced healthcare applications, especially for physiological neural recording and modulations. Key requirements in neural interfaces include miniature dimensions for spatial physiological mapping and low impedance for recognizing small biopotential signals. Herein, a bottom‐up meso...

Nanobubbles are gaseous entities suspended in bulk liquids that have widespread beneficial usage in many industries. Nanobubbles are already proving to be versatile in furthering the effectiveness of disease treatment on cellular and molecular levels. They are functionalized with biocompatible and stealth surfaces to aid in the delivery of drugs. A...

Protein arrays are systematically arranged, large collections of annotated proteins on planar surfaces commonly used for the characterisation of protein binding events against a wide range of possible probes. These may include analyses of protein-protein, peptide-protein, enzyme-substrate or antibody-antigen interactions from simple reagents to com...

Core–shell microparticles containing an aqueous core have demonstrated their value for microencapsulation and drug delivery systems. The most important step in generating these uniquely structured microparticles is the formation of droplets and double emulsion. The droplet generator must meet the performance and reliability requirements, including...

The unique properties and morphology of liquid marbles (LMs) make them potentially useful for various applications. Non-edible hydrophobic organic polymer particles are widely used to prepare LMs. It is necessary to increase the variety of LM particles to extend their use into food and pharmaceuticals. Herein, we focus on hydrophobically modified g...

Microfluidic solutions for biofluids handling in on-skin wearable systems

Manipulation and separation of submicron and nanoparticles are indispensable in many chemical, biological, medical, and environmental applications. Conventional technologies such as ultracentrifugation, ultrafiltration, size exclusion chromatography, precipitation and immunoaffinity capture are limited by high cost, low resolution, low purity or th...

We investigated experimentally, analytically, and numerically the formation process of double emulsion formations under a dripping regime in a tri-axial co-flow capillary device. The results show that mismatches of core and shell droplets under a given flow condition can be captured both experimentally and numerically. We propose a semi-analytical...

The unique properties and morphology of liquid marbles (LMs) make them potentially useful for various applications. Non-edible hydrophobic organic polymer particles are widely used to prepare LMs. It is necessary to increase the variety of LM particles to extend their use into food and pharmaceuticals. Herein, we focus on hydrophobically modified g...

We investigated experimentally, analytically and numerically the formation process of double emulsion formations under dripping regime in a tri-axial co-flow capillary device. The results show that mismatches of core and shell droplets under a given flow condition can be captured both experimentally and numerically. We propose a semi-analytical mod...

Cropping industries are impacted by multiple biotic constraints that result in significant economic and productivity losses due to pests and diseases, and disease management costs both pre- and post-harvest. Bacterial, fungal, and viral pathogens are estimated to cause 16% of global crop losses pre-harvest, and thus accurate and informed disease ma...

We investigated experimentally, analytically and numerically the formation process of double emulsion formations under dripping regime in a tri-axial co-flow capillary device. The results show that mismatches of core and shell droplets under a given flow condition can be captured both experimentally and numerically. We propose a semi-analytical mod...

Healthy sleep is an important indicator of good physical and mental health. The current technology employed for monitoring sleep quality is typically expensive and invasive, which demands innovations in respiration monitoring. In addition, recent effort in developing wearable respiration sensors has faced great challenges in concurrently obtaining...

Electrical neuron stimulation holds promise for treating chronic neurological disorders, including spinal cord injury, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease. The implementation of ultrathin, flexible electrodes that can offer noninvasive attachment to soft neural tissues is a breakthrough for timely, continuous, programable, and spatial stimulations. W...

Exosomes are vesicles released by healthy and cancer cells into the extracellular matrix and bodily fluid. Cancer cell-derived exosomes have attracted much attention in early-stage detection and prognostication of treatment response. Thus, detecting exosomes is of great interest to biology and medicine. However, many conventional detection methods...

The integration of micro- and nanoelectronics into or onto biomedical devices can facilitate advanced diagnostics and treatments of digestive disorders, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers. Recent developments in gastrointestinal endoscopy and balloon catheter technologies introduce promising paths for minimally invasive surgeries to treat these d...

Separation and detection of cells and particles in a suspension are essential for various applications, including biomedical investigations and clinical diagnostics. Microfluidics realizes the miniaturization of analytical devices by controlling the motion of a small volume of fluids in microchannels and microchambers. Accordingly, microfluidic dev...

Atherothrombosis‐on‐Chip In article 2101316, Ta and co‐workers conducted a study to mimic the site‐specific atherothrombosis formation on the chip and design a unique microfluidic device with two interconnected microchannels. The device allows the site‐specific introduction of plaque components to develop localized thrombosis and provides a univers...

Separation and detection of cells and particles in a suspension are essential for various applications, including biomedical investigations and clinical diagnostics. Microfluidics realizes the miniaturization of analytical devices by controlling the motion of a small volume of fluids in microchannels and microchambers. Accordingly, microfluidic dev...