Nicolas Castano

All Publications

• Can artificial intelligence (AI) replace oral food challenge? The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology Tang, S. K., Castaño, N., Nadeau, K. C., Galli, S. J. 2024

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jaci.2024.01.008

  View details for PubMedID 38262500

• Parallelized Immunomagnetic Isolation of Basophils Directly from Whole Blood ADVANCED NANOBIOMED RESEARCH Myles, J., Castano, N., Kim, S., Zhu, Z., Tang, S. Y. 2023

  View details for DOI 10.1002/anbr.202300122

  View details for Web of Science ID 001118861300001

• Combining avidin with CD63 improves basophil activation test accuracy in classifying peanut allergy. Allergy Castaño, N., Chua, K., Kaushik, A., Kim, S., Cordts, S. C., Nafarzadegan, C. D., Hofmann, G. H., Seastedt, H., Schuetz, J. P., Dunham, D., Parsons, E. S., Tsai, M., Cao, S., Desai, M., Sindher, S. B., Chinthrajah, R. S., Galli, S. J., Nadeau, K. C., Tang, S. K. 2023

  Abstract

  Conventional basophil activation tests (BATs) measure basophil activation by the increased expression of CD63. Previously, fluorophore-labeled avidin, a positively-charged molecule, was found to bind to activated basophils, which tend to expose negatively charged granule constituents during degranulation. This study further compares avidin versus CD63 as basophil activation biomarkers in classifying peanut allergy.Seventy subjects with either a peanut allergy (N = 47), a food allergy other than peanut (N = 6), or no food allergy (N = 17) were evaluated. We conducted BATs in response to seven peanut extract (PE) concentrations (0.01-10,000 ng/mL) and four control conditions (no stimulant, anti-IgE, fMLP (N-formylmethionine-leucyl-phenylalanine), and anti-FcεRI). We measured avidin binding and CD63 expression on basophils with flow cytometry. We evaluated logistic regression and XGBoost models for peanut allergy classification and feature identification.Avidin binding was correlated with CD63 expression. Both markers discriminated between subjects with and without a peanut allergy. Although small by percentage, an avidin+ /CD63- cell subset was found in all allergic subjects tested, indicating that the combination of avidin and CD63 could allow a more comprehensive identification of activated basophils. Indeed, we obtained the best classification accuracy (97.8% sensitivity, 96.7% specificity) by combining avidin and CD63 across seven PE doses. Similar accuracy was obtained by combining PE dose of 10,000 ng/mL for avidin and PE doses of 10 and 100 ng/mL for CD63.Avidin and CD63 are reliable BAT activation markers associated with degranulation. Their combination enhances the identification of activated basophils and improves the classification accuracy of peanut allergy.

  View details for DOI 10.1111/all.15930

  View details for PubMedID 37916710

• Hydrodynamic dissection of Stentor coeruleus in a microfluidic cross junction. Lab on a chip Paul, R., Zhang, K. S., Kurosu Jalil, M., Castano, N., Kim, S., Tang, S. K. 2022

  Abstract

  Stentor coeruleus, a single-cell ciliated protozoan, is a model organism for wound healing and regeneration studies. Despite Stentor's large size (up to 2 mm in extended state), microdissection of Stentor remains challenging. In this work, we describe a hydrodynamic cell splitter, consisting of a microfluidic cross junction, capable of splitting Stentor cells in a non-contact manner at a high throughput of 500 cells per minute under continuous operation. Introduction of asymmetry in the flow field at the cross junction leads to asymmetric splitting of the cells to generate cell fragments as small as 8.5 times the original cell size. Characterization of cell fragment viability shows reduced 5-day survival as fragment size decreases and as the extent of hydrodynamic stress imposed on the fragments increases. Our results suggest that cell fragment size and composition, as well as mechanical stress, play important roles in the long-term repair of Stentor cells and warrant further investigations. Nevertheless, the hydrodynamic splitter can be useful for studying phenomena immediately after cell splitting, such as the closure of wounds in the plasma membrane which occurs on the order of 100-1000 seconds in Stentor.

  View details for DOI 10.1039/d2lc00527a

  View details for PubMedID 35971861

• Exponential magnetophoretic gradient for the direct isolation of basophils from whole blood in a microfluidic system. Lab on a chip Castano, N., Kim, S., Martin, A. M., Galli, S. J., Nadeau, K. C., Tang, S. K. 2022

  Abstract

  Despite their rarity in peripheral blood, basophils play important roles in allergic disorders and other diseases including sepsis and COVID-19. Existing basophil isolation methods require many manual steps and suffer from significant variability in purity and recovery. We report an integrated basophil isolation device (i-BID) in microfluidics for negative immunomagnetic selection of basophils directly from 100 muL of whole blood within 10 minutes. We use a simulation-driven pipeline to design a magnetic separation module to apply an exponentially increasing magnetic force to capture magnetically tagged non-basophils flowing through a microtubing sandwiched between magnetic flux concentrators sweeping across a Halbach array. The exponential profile captures non-basophils effectively while preventing their excessive initial buildup causing clogging. The i-BID isolates basophils with a mean purity of 93.9% ± 3.6% and recovery of 95.6% ± 3.4% without causing basophil degradation or unintentional activation. Our i-BID has the potential to enable basophil-based point-of-care diagnostics such as rapid allergy assessment.

  View details for DOI 10.1039/d2lc00154c

  View details for PubMedID 35438713

• Fabrication of a silicon mu Dicer for uniform microdissection of tissue samples APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS Cordts, S. C., Castano, N., Koppaka, S., Tang, S. Y. 2021; 119 (1)

  View details for DOI 10.1063/5.0053792

  View details for Web of Science ID 000691551300002

• Fomite Transmission, Physicochemical Origin of Virus-Surface Interactions, and Disinfection Strategies for Enveloped Viruses with Applications to SARS-CoV-2. ACS omega Castano, N., Cordts, S. C., Kurosu Jalil, M., Zhang, K. S., Koppaka, S., Bick, A. D., Paul, R., Tang, S. K. 2021; 6 (10): 6509–27

  Abstract

  Inanimate objects or surfaces contaminated with infectious agents, referred to as fomites, play an important role in the spread of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The long persistence of viruses (hours to days) on surfaces calls for an urgent need for effective surface disinfection strategies to intercept virus transmission and the spread of diseases. Elucidating the physicochemical processes and surface science underlying the adsorption and transfer of virus between surfaces, as well as their inactivation, is important for understanding how diseases are transmitted and for developing effective intervention strategies. This review summarizes the current knowledge and underlying physicochemical processes of virus transmission, in particular via fomites, and common disinfection approaches. Gaps in knowledge and the areas in need of further research are also identified. The review focuses on SARS-CoV-2, but discussion of related viruses is included to provide a more comprehensive review given that much remains unknown about SARS-CoV-2. Our aim is that this review will provide a broad survey of the issues involved in fomite transmission and intervention to a wide range of readers to better enable them to take on the open research challenges.

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsomega.0c06335

  View details for PubMedID 33748563

• Microfluidic methods for precision diagnostics in food allergy. Biomicrofluidics Castaño, N. n., Cordts, S. C., Nadeau, K. C., Tsai, M. n., Galli, S. J., Tang, S. K. 2020; 14 (2): 021503

  Abstract

  Food allergy has reached epidemic proportions and has become a significant source of healthcare burden. Oral food challenge, the gold standard for food allergy assessment, often is not performed because it places the patient at risk of developing anaphylaxis. However, conventional alternative food allergy tests lack a sufficient predictive value. Therefore, there is a critical need for better diagnostic tests that are both accurate and safe. Microfluidic methods have the potential of helping one to address such needs and to personalize the diagnostics. This article first reviews conventional diagnostic approaches used in food allergy. Second, it reviews recent efforts to develop novel biomarkers and in vitro diagnostics. Third, it summarizes the microfluidic methods developed thus far for food allergy diagnosis. The article concludes with a discussion of future opportunities for using microfluidic methods for achieving precision diagnostics in food allergy, including multiplexing the detection of multiple biomarkers, sampling of tissue-resident cytokines and immune cells, and multi-organ-on-a-chip technology.

  View details for DOI 10.1063/1.5144135

  View details for PubMedID 32266046

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC7127910

• Fracto-mechanoluminescent light emission of EuD(4)TEA-PDMS composites subjected to high strain-rate compressive loading SMART MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES Ryu, D., Castano, N., Bhakta, R., Kimberley, J. 2017; 26 (8)

  View details for DOI 10.1088/1361-665X/aa6fde

  View details for Web of Science ID 000405086500004