Graphene has made significant contributions to neural tissue engineering due to its electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, mechanical strength, and high surface area. However, it demonstrates a lack of biological and chemical cues. Also, it may cause potential damage to the host body, limiting its achievement of efficient construction of neural tissues. Recently, there has been an increasing number of studies showing that combining graphene with other materials to form nano-composites can provide exceptional platforms for both stimulating neural stem cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation and neural regeneration. This suggests that graphene nanocomposites are greatly beneficial in neural regenerative medicine. In this mini review, we will discuss the application of graphene nanocomposites in neural tissue engineering and their limitations, through their effect on neural stem cell differentiation and constructs for neural regeneration.

Over the years fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) has proven to be a useful technique that has been utilized in several fields of study. Although FCS initially suffered from poor signal to noise ratios, the incorporation of confocal microscopy has overcome this drawback and transformed FCS into a sensitive technique with high figures of merit. In addition, tandem methods have evolved to include dual-color cross-correlation, total internal reflection fluorescence correlation, and fluorescence lifetime correlation spectroscopy combined with time-correlated single photon counting. In this review, we discuss several applications of FSC for biochemical, microfluidic, and cellular investigations.

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Efficient spectral conversion of 325–550 nm light to 570–710 nm light has been demonstrated in LaOF:Eu3+ nanocrystals. When levels above the D50 level of Eu3+ are optically excited, strong emission arising from the D50 level is obtained in the range of 570–710 nm, a highly efficient working range for organic solar cells. The influences of ambient temperature, particle size, dopant concentration, and codoped ions on the fluorescence intensity of Eu3+ are discussed in detail. The photon conversion efficiency can reach 3.91% in LaOF:Eu3+ codoped with Tm3+, if light reflection and scattering effects are ignored

Cell separation based on microfluidic affinity chromatography is a widely used methodology in cell analysis research when rapid separations with high purity are needed. Several successful examples have been reported with high separation efficiency and purity; however, cell capture at the inlet area and inlet design has not been extensively described or studied. The most common inlets-used to connect the microfluidic chip to pumps, tubing, etc-are vertical (top-loading) inlets and parallel (in-line) inlets. In this work, we investigated the cell capture behavior near the affinity chip inlet area and compared the different performance of vertical inlet devices and parallel inlet devices. Vertical inlet devices showed significant cell capture capability near the inlet area, which led to the formation of cell blockages as the separation progressed. Cell density near the inlet area was much higher than the remaining channel, while for parallel inlet chips cell density at the inlet area was similar to the rest of the channel. In this paper, we discuss the effects of inlet type on chip fabrication, nonspecific binding, cell capture efficiency, and separation purity. We also discuss the possibility of using vertical inlets in negative selection separations. Our findings show that inlet design is critical and must be considered when fabricating cell affinity microfluidic devices.