Abbreviations: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), dense phase (DP), fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), fusion oncoprotein (FO), Gibbs free energy of transfer (ΔG Tr ), Gle2binding-sequence (GLEBS), human CD34-positive hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (hCD34+ cells), immunofluorescence (IF), intrinsically disordered region (IDR), light phase (LP), lineage-negative hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (lin-HSPCs), liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), mEGFP-tagged NHA9 (G-NHA9), mobile fraction (M f ), monomeric enhanced green fluorescent protein (mEGFP), nuclear pore complex (NPC), NUP98-HOXA9 (NHA9), partition coefficient (K p ), patient-derived xenograft (PDX), Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), Principal component analysis (PCA), RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), and saturation concentration (C sat ).

Structural manipulation of the two dimensional graphene surface has been of significant interest as a means of tuning the properties of the nanosheets for enhanced performance in various applications. In this report, a straightforward and highly scalable method is presented to prepare bulk quantities of "holey graphenes", which are graphene sheets with holes ranging from a few to tens of nm in average diameter. The approach to their preparation takes advantage of the catalytic properties of silver (Ag) nanoparticles toward the air oxidation of graphitic carbon. In the procedure, Ag nanoparticles were first deposited onto the graphene sheet surface in a facile, controllable, and solvent-free process. The catalyst-loaded graphene samples were then subjected to thermal treatment in air. The graphitic carbons in contact with the Ag nanoparticles were selectively oxidized into gaseous byproducts, such as CO or CO2, leaving holes in the graphene surface. The Ag was then removed by refluxing in diluted nitric acid to obtain the final holey graphene products. The average size of the holes on the graphene was found to correlate with the size of the Ag nanoparticles, which could be controlled by adjusting the silver precursor concentration. In addition, the temperature and time of the air oxidation step, and the catalyst removal treatment conditions were found to strongly affect the morphology of the holes. Characterization results of the holey graphene products suggested that the hole generation might have started from defect-rich regions present on the starting graphene sheets. As a result, the remaining graphitic carbon structures on the holey graphene sheets were highly crystalline, with no significant increase of the overall defect density despite the presence of structural holes. Preliminary experiments are also presented on the use of holey graphene sheets as fillers for polymeric composites. The results indicated that these sheets might be better reinforcing fillers than the starting graphene sheets due to their perforated structure. Other unique potentials of these materials, such as for energy storage applications, are also discussed.

Microwave irradiation was shown to be an effective energy source for the rapid decomposition of organic metal salts (such as silver acetate) in a solid mixture with various carbon and noncarbon substrates under completely solvent-free conditions. The rapid and local Joule heating of microwave absorbing substrates (i.e., carbon-based) resulted in the instantaneous formation of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles on the substrate surfaces within seconds of microwave exposure. Other less absorbing substrates (such as hexagonal boron nitride) required longer exposure times for the salt decomposition to occur. Details of the effects of microwave reaction time, temperature, power, and other experimental parameters were investigated and discussed. The solvent-free microwave method was shown to be widely applicable to various organic metal salts with different substrates including single- and multiwalled carbon nanotubes, graphene, expanded graphite, hexagonal boron nitride and silica-alumina particles, forming substrate-supported metal (e.g., Ag, Au, Co, Ni, Pd, Pt) or metal oxide (e.g., Fe₃O₄, MnO, TiO₂) nanoparticles in high yields within short duration of microwave irradiation. The method was also successfully applied to large structural substrates such as nanotube yarns, further suggesting its application potential and versatility. To demonstrate one potential application, we successfully used both carbon nanotube powder and yarn samples decorated with Ag nanoparticles prepared via the above method to improve data acquisition in surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

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These results indicate that an HCV antigen ELISA can identify almost all (94%) of viraemic donations given during the seronegative window phase of infection. The performance of the HCV antigen ELISA appears to be suitable for large-scale screening of blood donations.