Bio-inspired molecular communications (MC), where molecules are used to transfer information, is the most promising technique to realise the Internet of Nano Things (IoNT), thanks to its inherent biocompatibility, energy-efficiency, and reliability in physiologically-relevant environments. Despite a substantial body of theoretical work concerning MC, the lack of practical micro/nanoscale MC devices and MC testbeds has led researchers to make overly simplifying assumptions about the implications of the channel conditions and the physical architectures of the practical transceivers in developing theoretical models and devising communication methods for MC. On the other hand, MC imposes unique challenges resulting from the highly complex, nonlinear, time-varying channel properties that cannot be always tackled by conventional information and communication tools and technologies (ICT). As a result, the reliability of the existing MC methods, which are mostly adopted from electromagnetic communications and not validated with practical testbeds, is highly questionable. As the first step to remove this discrepancy, in this study, we report on the fabrication of a nanoscale MC receiver based on graphene field-effect transistor biosensors. We perform its ICT characterisation in a custom-designed microfluidic MC system with the information encoded into the concentration of single-stranded DNA molecules. This experimental platform is the first practical implementation of a micro/nanoscale MC system with nanoscale MC receivers, and can serve as a testbed for developing realistic MC methods and IoNT applications.

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Fabrication and microfluidic analysis of graphene-based molecular communication receiver for Internet of Nano Things (IoNT).

Magnetic Drug Targeting is a promising alternative for cancer treatment that offers the possibility to increase the efficiency of the therapy, while side-effects for patients get reduced. Thereby, the cancer-drug is bounded to magnetic nanoparticles. These particles are injected into a vessel and guided into the tumorous tissue by an external magnetic field outside the body. However, the efficiency of the therapy strongly depends on the performance of this navigation process, which is influenced by several multiphysical parameters including the properties of the nanoparticles, the volume flux, and especially the external applied magnetic field. To investigate these effects, the propagation of particle packets in a vessel with a 45° intersection is modeled in COMSOL Multiphysics®. The particles were distributed according to the density of a parabolic velocity profile. To systematically analyze the influence of the external magnetic field, the magnetic field of a cylindrical rare earth magnet with different ratios of diameter to length and axial plus radial magnetization was evaluated. The magnets were placed shortly before the intersection and for every magnet, the transmission probability for the two paths (direct and deflection) was evaluated. Furthermore, the probability for a particle gets trapped by the magnet and stop at the wall of the vessel, was investigated. The results for the particle steering show that both, the diameter to length ratio and the magnetization, strongly influence the steering of the particles. Overall, the magnets with an axial magnetization have a higher impact on the propagation path than the radial magnetized ones. However, when a single permanent magnet is used, the results depict that it is a narrow ridge between deflecting a particle or trap it at the vessel wall.

Investigation of Particle Steering for Different Cylindrical Permanent Magnets in Magnetic Drug Targeting

In this second part of our survey on experimental research in Synthetic Molecular Communication (SMC), we review works on long-range SMC systems, i.e., systems with communication ranges of more than a few millimeters. Despite the importance of experimental research for the evolution of SMC towards a mature communication paradigm that will eventually support revolutionary applications beyond the reach of today’s prevalent communication paradigms, the existing body of literature is still comparatively sparse. Long-range SMC systems have been proposed in the literature for information transmission in two types of fluid media, liquid and air. While both types of SMC systems, i.e., liquid-based and air-based systems, rely on encoding and transmitting information using molecules, they differ substantially in terms of the physical system designs and in the type of applications they are intended for. In this article, we present a systematic characterization of experimental works on long-range SMC that reveals the major drivers of these works in terms of the respective target applications. Furthermore, the physical designs for long-range SMC proposed in the literature are comprehensively reviewed. In this way, our survey will contribute to making experimental research in this field more accessible and identifying novel directions for future research.

Experimental Research in Synthetic Molecular Communications – Part II

In this paper, we propose a novel, flexible, easy to use and low cost salinity-based micro-scale molecular communication testbed, that allows reliable multi-level information transmission.

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Salinity-based information transmission in microfluidic channels

A survey on estimation schemes in molecular communications

Molecular communication has recently gained a lot of interest due to its potential to enable micro-implants to communicate by releasing molecules into the bloodstream. In this paper, we aim to explore the molecular communication channel through theoretical and empirical modeling in order to achieve a better understanding of its characteristics, which tend to be more complex in practice than traditional wireless and wired channels. Our study reveals two key new characteristics that have been overlooked by past work. Specifically, the molecular communication channel exhibits non-causal inter-symbol-interference and a long delay spread, that extends beyond the channel coherence time, which limit decoding performance. To address this, we design, μ-Link a molecular communication protocol and decoder that accounts for these new insights. We build a testbed to experimentally validate our findings and show that μ-Link can improve the achievable data rates with significantly lower bit error rates.

Understanding and embracing the complexities of the molecular communication channel in liquids

Abstract Summary Rapid progress in genome science requires equally rapid visualization software development so that researchers can better explore and understand novel datasets. To make developing new visualizations faster and easier, we previously re-factored the Integrated Genome Browser (IGB), a desktop Java application with dozens of features, into a pluggable application framework that can accept new functionality as plug-ins, called IGB Apps. However, developers lacked a centralized location for sharing Apps, making it hard to connect with potential users. To fill this gap, we created an App Store for IGB, a user-friendly Web site for developers to release and document Apps, and for users to find them. Availability and implementation The IGB App Store is available from https://bioviz.org.

https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-article-pdf/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btac109/42628947/btac109.pdf

Chirag Shetty

Papers

Understanding and embracing the complexities of the molecular communication channel in liquids

Integrated Genome Browser App Store