himali Somaweera

Dr. himali Somaweera


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

7Years (2020-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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22 October 2020 in Micromachines
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
HShimali Somaweera
himali Somaweera
ZEZachary Estlack
Zachary Estlack
JDJasmine Pramila Devadhasan
Jasmine Pramila Devadhasan
JKJungtae Kim
Jungtae Kim
JKJungkyu (Jay) Kim
Jungkyu (Jay) Kim
Isotachophoresis (ITP) for Pacific Blue (PB) dye using a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chip is developed and characterized by determining the types and concentrations of electrolytes, the ITP duration, and the electric field density. Among candidate buffers for the trailing electrolyte (TE) and leading electrolyte (LE), 40 mM borate buffer (pH 9) and 200 mM trisaminomethane hydrochloride (Tris-HCl) (pH 8) were selected to obtain the maximum preconcentration and resolution of the PB bands, respectively. With the selected TE and LE buffers, further optimization was performed to determine the electric field (EF) density and the ITP duration. These ITP parameters showed a 20–170,000 preconcentration ratio from initial PB concentrations of 10 nM–100 fM. Further demonstration was implemented to preconcentrate PB-conjugated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) using the PDMS microfluidic chip. By utilizing the quenching nature of PB-LDH conjugation, we were able to identify concentrations of LDH as low as 10 ng/mL. This simple PDMS microfluidic chip-based ITP for PB preconcentration enables highly sensitive biological and chemical analyses by coupling with various downstream detection systems.