Role of cooperativity in hydrophobic interactions revealed in real-time monitoring

In a breakthrough, scientists overcame designed an innovative microfluidic mixer that monitors the fluorescence induced by hydrophobic aggregation. This scientific advance not only allows the quantification of molecular hydrophobic interaction and its cooperativity in bulk solution, but also provides a clear and quantitative evidence for the critical role of cooperativity in hydrophobic aggregation that is being consolidated by their kinetic nucleation-growth theory.