View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:
Synthesis, assembly and reaction of a nanocatalyst in microfluidic systems: a general platform
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Nuclear deformation during breast cancer cell transmigration
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Optofluidic integrated cell sorter fabricated by femtosecond lasers
A variety of milli- and microfluidic devices printed in polypropylene using the 3D Touch printer. Image credit: Geoffrey J T Cooper/Lee Cronin/University of Glasgow
UK scientists have developed 3D printing technology for making miniaturised fluidic reactionware devices that can be used for chemical syntheses, in just a few hours.
Having recently built a 3D printer in his laboratory, Leroy Cronin and his colleagues from the University of Glasgow have now shown that intricate micro- and milli-scale reactionware can be printed. This technology offers scientists the freedom to design bespoke reactors using low cost materials, with a quick production turn-around. Initial design to a functional reactor is completed within a matter of hours and chemical reactions using the device can be completed in the same day.
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See the full article in Chemistry World
Or read the Lab on a Chip paper:
Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’ reactionware devices
Philip J. Kitson, Mali H. Rosnes, Victor Sans, Vincenza Dragone and Leroy Cronin
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40761B
Hywel Morgan and colleagues at Sharp Laboratories of Europe, the University of Southampton and Sharp Corporation, Japan, demonstrate a large area digital microfluidic array in this HOT article.
Using a thin film transistor (TFT) array rather than the traditional patterned electrodes usually used in electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) devices, the team developed active matrix electrowetting on dielectric (AM-EWOD) devices. The TFT array enables each of the many thousand electrodes to be individually addressable, and the array is ‘fully reconfigurable and can be programmed to support multiple simultaneous operations’.
Read how the device can be used for measuring glucose in human blood serum in the full article (it’s free to access for four weeks*!):
Programmable large area digital microfluidic array with integrated droplet sensing for bioassays
B. Hadwen, G. R. Broder, D. Morganti, A. Jacobs, C. Brown, J. R. Hector, Y. Kubota and H. Morgan
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40273D
*Following a simple registration.
Pietro Ferraro and colleagues from three Italian research institutes have used digital holography to image objects in turbid flowing media in microfluidic devices. Although many current techniques are able to provide in situ images of liquids flowing in microfluidic devices, they are limited to cases of clear liquids with relatively stable flows. Due to the Doppler effect of flowing colloidal particles the researchers were able to reconstruct digital holographic images, and demonstrated this with milk:
As with all our HOT articles, this one is free to access for 4 weeks following a simple registration:
Microscopy imaging and quantitative phase contrast mapping in turbid microfluidic channels by digital holography
Melania Paturzo, Andrea Finizio, Pasquale Memmolo, Roberto Puglisi, Donatella Balduzzi, Andrea Galli and Pietro Ferraro
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40114B
We’ve got another jam-packed issue for you this week, with some colourful articles on the cover from Lee Hubble, Jochen Hoffman and Helena Zec.
On the outside front cover Lee Hubble from CSIRO and colleagues have used functionalised gold nanoparticle chemiresistor sensors to simultaneously perform on-chip protein separation and metabolite detection in biofluids. They were able to avoid problems of protein and lipid-fouling by using ultrafiltration membranes to prevent large molecules interacting with the golf nanoparticle chemiresitor sensors:
Gold nanoparticle chemiresistors operating in biological fluids
Lee J. Hubble, Edith Chow, James S. Cooper, Melissa Webster, Karl-Heinz Müller, Lech Wieczorek and Burkhard Raguse
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40575J
The inside front cover from Jochen Hoffman and colleagues at University of Freiburg demonstrates an method that combines large scale picowell array-based liquid phase PCR amplification with solid phase PCR. The authors have immobilised the PCR products on a microscope slide to enable recovery and achieved single DNA molecule amplification:
Solid-phase PCR in a picowell array for immobilizing and arraying 100 000 PCR products to a microscope slide
Jochen Hoffmann, Martin Trotter, Felix von Stetten, Roland Zengerle and Günter Roth
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40534B
And on the back cover Helena Zec and colleagues present a droplet platform for generating nanolitre droplets of combinational mixtures. Sample plugs from a multiwell are split into nanolitre droplets which can be injected with four different reagents – in this paper, food colouring, to prove their concept. Due to the automatic spatial indexing of the droplets, droplet barcoding is not necessary.
Microfluidic platform for on-demand generation of spatially indexed combinatorial droplets
Helena Zec, Tushar D. Rane and Tza-Huei Wang
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40399D
Also in this issue we have the latest Research Highlights from Ali Khademhosseini to keep you up to date with the most important miniaturisation research, Acoustofluidics number 17 from Michael Gedge and Martyn Hill and an interesting Focus article from Samuel Stavis on testing standards for lab on a chip devices, as well as plenty of HOT articles.
Ps. Don’t forget all our cover articles are free to access for 6 weeks following a simple registration!
Yanyi Huang and colleagues at Peking University have developed a microfluidic-based assay to allow them to quantitatively measure single cell migration speeds. Existing methods for determining cell migration are abundant, as the process is important for processes such as cancer metastasis, embryonic development and wound healing, but it is very difficult to distinguish between migrating and proliferating cells in current assays.
Using their migration assay, Huang and colleagues were able to show that HUVEC migration is epigenetically regulated:
Live cell imaging analysis of the epigenetic regulation of the human endothelial cell migration at single-cell resolution
Chunhong Zheng, Zhilong Yu, Ying Zhou, Louis Tao, Yuhong Pang, Tao Chen, Xiannian Zhang, Haiwei Qiu, Hongwei Zhou, Zitian Chen and Yanyi Huang
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40192D
As with all our HOT articles, this one is free to access for 4 weeks following a simple registration.
Also check out the video showing their device in operation:
We at Lab on a Chip are very pleased to announce our newest Associate Editor – Dr Jianhua Qin. Dr Qin is a Professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is the director of the Microfluidics Research Center at DICP. She joined the team at Lab on a Chip in July.
Dr Jianhua Qin received her M.D. in Medical Science from the China Medical University and her Ph.D in Chemistry from CAS, respectively. She was a Postdoc fellow at the University of Toronto. Dr Qin’s research interests are focused on the combination of microfluidics and nanotechnologies to understand natural and dysfunctional biomed-systems that lead to the design of novel diagnostic schemes and therapeutic strategies. Dr Qin is a professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is the director of the Microfluidics Research Center at DICP.
Below, Dr Qin shares her views on the growth of microfluidics in China:
Microfluidics has emerged as a distinct new field to greatly influence the multidisciplinary research involved in chemistry, engineering, biology, and physics, as well as medicine. During the last two decades, it has been advancing at a rapid pace, and has found a variety of innovative applications worldwide. In China, only in the past decade, an increased number of scientists from different areas have been getting into this active field, leading to the rapid growth of microfluidics (or lab-on-a-chip) in China. During this period, more than 1900 scientific papers have been published in the international journals indexed in Web of Science, where the term “microfluidic” is used as a searching key word. Since 2002, a series of national and international conferences regarding the topics of micro/nanofluidics (or lab-on-a-chip) have been successfully held in China. These research activities cover subject areas including micro-scale fluidic control/principles, microfabrication technologies/methods, chemical synthesis/analysis, and biological/medical systems et al. It is of note that efforts in recent years have moved from simple technological demonstrations to the exploration of practical applications.
The rapidly proliferating status of this research field in China is mainly attributed to the increasing recognization of microfluidic technologies dedicated to healthcare, and the large amount of funding support from the Chinese government and other resources, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and industries, etc. This input has greatly facilitated the improvement of research facilities, activities and the cultivation of related academic researchers over many universities and research institutes. Certainly, with the rapid progress in fundamental investigations and the technological development of microfluidics in China, more challenges will be faced and addressed in the near future, such as effective strategies to apply existing microfluidics/LOC methodologies to realistic applications and achieve commercialization.
We are delighted to welcome Dr Qin to the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board as Associate Editor and feel that her expertise will help us to further meet the needs of our authors and readers.
If your research falls under Dr Qin’s area of expertise, why not submit your next article to her?
This month sees the following articles in Lab on a Chip that are in the top ten most accessed:
A paper and plastic device for performing recombinase polymerase amplification of HIV DNA
Brittany A. Rohrman and Rebecca R. Richards-Kortum
Lab Chip, 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40423K
Commercialization of microfluidic point-of-care diagnostic devices
Curtis D. Chin, Vincent Linder and Samuel K. Sia
Lab Chip, 2012,12, 2118-2134
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC21204H
Digital microfluidics: a versatile tool for applications in chemistry, biology and medicine
Mais J. Jebrail, Michael S. Bartsch and Kamlesh D. Patel
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2452-2463
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40318H
Microfluidic electronics
Shi Cheng and Zhigang Wu
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2782-2791
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC21176A
Automated analysis of single stem cells in microfluidic traps
Stefan A. Kobel, Olivier Burri, Alexandra Griffa, Mukul Girotra, Arne Seitz and Matthias P. Lutolf
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2843-2849
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40317J
Microengineered physiological biomimicry: Organs-on-Chips
Dongeun Huh, Yu-suke Torisawa, Geraldine A. Hamilton, Hyun Jung Kim and Donald E. Ingber
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2156-2164
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40089H
High-yield cell ordering and deterministic cell-in-droplet encapsulation using Dean flow in a curved microchannel
Evelien W. M. Kemna, Rogier M. Schoeman, Floor Wolbers, Istvan Vermes, David A. Weitz and Albert van den Berg
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2881-2887
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC00013J
A fluidic diode, valves, and a sequential-loading circuit fabricated on layered paper
Hong Chen, Jeremy Cogswell, Constantine Anagnostopoulos and Mohammad Faghri
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2909-2913
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC20970E
High throughput method for prototyping three-dimensional, paper-based microfluidic devices
Gregory G. Lewis, Matthew J. DiTucci, Matthew S. Baker and Scott T. Phillips
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2630-2633
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40331E
SSA-MOA: a novel CTC isolation platform using selective size amplification (SSA) and a multi-obstacle architecture (MOA) filter
Minseok S. Kim, Tae Seok Sim, Yeon Jeong Kim, Sun Soo Kim, Hyoyoung Jeong, Jong-Myeon Park, Hui-Sung Moon, Seung Il Kim, Ogan Gurel, Soo Suk Lee, Jeong-Gun Lee and Jae Chan Park
Lab Chip, 2012, 12, 2874-2880
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40065K
Why not take a look at the articles today and blog your thoughts and comments below.
Fancy submitting an article to Lab on a Chip? Then why not submit to us today or alternatively email us your suggestions.
View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:
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Dissolution-guided wetting for microarray and microfluidic devices
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Blood separation on microfluidic paper-based analytical devices
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Microfluidic cell volume sensor with tunable sensitivity
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To celebrate last month’s release of the 2011 Impact Factors, we are making some of our best content free to access.
The collection brings together the 20 top cited Lab on a Chip papers from 2009 and 2010.
View the collection here.
All the articles are free to access for a limited time, following a simple registration for individual users.
