Journal Front Cover for Soft Matter Volume 17, Issue 4

The Wettig Research Group in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo specializes in the design, synthesis and characterization of novel surfactants with applications in drug delivery. They had recently published a paper in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Soft Matter journal that utilized Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) to study the electrostatic interactions of DNA with lipid-gemini surfactant monolayers for gene delivery purposes. Their article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0SM01926G

CryoDragon was asked to draw three-dimensional render of KPFM in action: a top scanning across a sample surface, with their 3D images of AFM and KPFM superimposed on top of the artificial surface. We were able to create such a scene, with DNA complexes outside the surfactant.