Université de Mons

2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Bioengineering

Preparation of Hydroxy-PAAm Hydrogels for Decoupling the Effects of Mechanotransduction Cues

Thomas Grevesse¹, Marie Versaevel¹, Sylvain Gabriele¹

¹Laboratoire Interfaces et Fluides Complexes, Université de Mons

We present a new polyacrylamide hydrogel, called hydroxy-PAAm, that allows a direct binding of ECM proteins with minimal cost or expertise. The combination of hydroxy-PAAm hydrogels with microcontact printing facilitates independent control of many cues of the natural cell microenvironment for studying cellular mechanostransduction.

Chemistry

Uncovering Hidden Dynamics of Natural Photonic Structures Using Holographic Imaging

Marina Simovic-Pavlovic^1,2, Maja C. Pagnacco³, Dusan Grujic¹, Bojana Bokic¹, Darko Vasiljevic¹, Sébastien Mouchet^4,5, Thierry Verbiest⁶, Branko Kolaric^1,7

¹Institute of Physics, Photonics Center, University of Belgrade, ²Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Belgrade, ³Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, ⁴School of Physics, University of Exeter, ⁵Department of Physics & Namur Institute of Structured Matter (NISM), University of Namur, ⁶Chemistry Department, Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Photonics, KULeuven, ⁷Université de Mons

The paper is primarily focused on the combined power of optical (linear and nonlinear) and holographic methods used to reveal phenomena at the nanoscale. The results obtained from the biophotonic and oscillatory chemical reactions' studies are given as representative examples, highlighting holography's ability to reveal dynamics at a nanoscale.