Molecular Manipulation on the Self-Spreading Lipid Bilayer

Molecular Manipulation on the Self-Spreading Lipid Bilayer 

The most intriguing aspect of the self-spreading lipid bilayer is that any molecule in the bilayer can be transported without any external bias. The unique characteristic of the spreading layer offers the chance to manipulate molecules without applying any external biases. This concept leads to a completely non-biased molecular manipulation system in a microfluidic device. For this purpose, the use of nano-space, which occasionally offers the possibility of controlling molecular diffusion dynamics, would be a promising approach. 

Lower panels show a enlarged three-dimensional images of the regions highlighted with the white squares with permission. 

This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Area Molecular Nano Dynamics (Area No. 432, No. 16205026) and for Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientist (B) (No. 18750001) from MEXT, Japan. We would like to thank Prof. H. Misawa and Prof. K. Ueno for the fabrication of the substrate with electron-beam litography. 

Schoch, R. B., Stevens, A. L, Tannenbaum, S. R. and Han, J. (2007) A patterned anisotropic nanofluidic sieving structure for continuous-flow separation of DNA and proteins. Nature Nanotechnol., 2, 121-128. 

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