View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:
On-chip magnetically actuated robot with ultrasonic vibration for single cell manipulations
Encapsulated droplets with metered and removable oil shells by electrowetting and dielectrophoresis
Magnetic micropillars as a tool to govern substrate deformations
Joseph Potkay‘s recently published Lab on a Chip paper on an artificial lung capable of using air rather than pure oxygen has been causing quite a stir! The article which describes the efficient lung mimic has been picked up by media outlets around the world:
New artificial lung breathes like a real one
New bioinspired artificial lung is efficient enough to operate on air
Researchers create artificial lung that works with air rather than pure oxygen
A New Artificial Lung Can Breathe Regular Air Rather Than Purified Oxygen
Artificial lungs to work sans oxygen
For the full details of this exciting new technology why not take a look at the paper:
Bio-inspired, efficient, artificial lung employing air as the ventilating gas
Joseph A. Potkay, Michael Magnetta, Abigail Vinson and Brian Cmolik
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20020H
The image on the outside front cover of Issue 16 shows the method developed by Damien Baigl, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, and colleagues to reversibly switch from a continuous two-phase laminar flow to a droplet generating regime in microfluidic chips. They have achieved this by incorporating a photosensitive surfactant into the aqueous phase.
Photoreversible fragmentation of a liquid interface for micro-droplet generation by light actuation
Antoine Diguet, Hao Li, Nicolas Queyriaux, Yong Chen and Damien Baigl
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2666-2669
On the inside front cover we have μFlowFISH – an integrated microfluidic device capable of performing 16S rRNA fluorescence in situ hybridization with flow cytometric detection for identifying bacteria. The device developed by Anup K. Singh, Sandia National Laboratories and colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories was tested in a highly contaminated site using species involved in Cr(VI) remediation and was proved capable of quantitative detection of low numbers of microbial cells from complex samples.
Microfluidic fluorescence in situ hybridization and flow cytometry (μFlowFISH)
Peng Liu, Robert J. Meagher, Yooli K. Light, Suzan Yilmaz, Romy Chakraborty, Adam P. Arkin, Terry C. Hazen and Anup K. Singh
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2673-2679
View the rest of the issue, which includes the first in the series of Research Highlight articles from Ali Khademhosseini, reviewing the current literature in miniaturisation and related technologies, a Critical Review from Daniel T. Chiu on transitioning disposable microfluidic substrates from the lab into the clinic and a Focus article from Helene Andersson Svahn on massively parallel sequencing platforms.
A disposable, water-activated, self-heating, easy-to-use, device for nucleic acid amplification and fluorescent detection has been developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
The device, which is the work of Haim H. Bau and colleagues, is self-contained, does not require any special instruments to operate and integrates chemical, water-triggered, exothermic heating with temperature regulation using a phase-change material (PCM) and isothermal nucleic acid amplification. The water flows into the exothermic reactor by wicking through a porous paper.
The device was shown to amplify and detect E. coli DNA and could detect as few as 10 target molecules in a sample. Future applications of this technology could include pathogen detection in blood, saliva, urine, food and water, and in settings far removed from the laboratory.
To find out more read the full article here
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20345B
US scientists have mimicked the structure of a lung to make a device that can use air as a ventilating gas instead of pure oxygen. The invention could mean that oxygen cylinders to accompany artificial lung devices for lung disease patients are a thing of the past and implantable devices could be a step closer.
Joseph Potkay from Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Centre and co-workers fashioned microfluidic channels from the polymer polydimethylsiloxane and made them branch into smaller channels and then into artificial capillaries, similar to the arteries and capillaries in a real lung. The oxygen exchange efficiency is three to five times better than current artificial lung devices owing to the small, micron-scale, blood and air channels.
At the moment, lung disease patients in need of respiratory support rely on mechanical ventilators in which blood from the patient is circulated through a machine to oxygenate it. As Jeffrey Borenstein, an expert in microsystems technology and biomedical devices at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, US, points out: ‘Current technology involves complex systems that are limited to intensive care units, so Potkay’s device has the potential to provide clinically relevant oxygenation levels using ambient air, opening the door to portable systems.’
The team aims to improve their device’s blood compatibility and scale it up so it can deliver enough oxygen to be suitable for humans.
Interested? Read Holly Sheahan‘s full Chemistry World article here or download the Lab on a Chip paper:
Bio-inspired, efficient, artificial lung employing air as the ventilating gas
Joseph A. Potkay, Michael Magnetta, Abigail Vinson and Brian Cmolik
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20020H
On the front cover of Issue 15 we have a HOT article from Klavs Jensen and colleagues at MIT on a Teflon stack microreactor with a piezoelectric actuator. The microreactor has been developed to handle syntheses that are prone to clogging – such as palladium-catalyzed C–N cross-coupling reactions which form insoluble salts as by-products.
A Teflon microreactor with integrated piezoelectric actuator to handle solid forming reactions
Simon Kuhn, Timothy Noël, Lei Gu, Patrick L. Heider and Klavs F. Jensen
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2488-2492
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20337A 
On the inside front cover is another HOT article from Dhananjaya Dendukuri and colleagues at Achira Labs Pvt. Ltd., India who have constructed a scalable microfluidic device by weaving silk to form a fabric chip.
‘Fab-Chips’: a versatile, fabric-based platform for low-cost, rapid and multiplexed diagnostics
Paridhi Bhandari, Tanya Narahari and Dhananjaya Dendukuri
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2493-2499
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20373H
And finally the back cover features an article from Shih-Kang Fan and Chiun-Hsun Chen demonstrating a parallel-plate device capable of generating water-core and oil-shell encapsulated droplets and subsequent removal of the oil shells.
Encapsulated droplets with metered and removable oil shells by electrowetting and dielectrophoresis
Shih-Kang Fan, Yao-Wen Hsu and Chiun-Hsun Chen
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2500-2508
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20142E
View the rest of the issue online here
The latest innovation in microfluidic cell assay platforms is here! Capable of triple analysis with low cell numbers, the iMAP is the answer to your cellular and molecular analysis quandaries.
Key features of iMAP v1.0:
The integrated microfluidic array plate has been developed by Luke Lee, University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues at Dublin City University, Sogang University and Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Download the article for the full details, it’s free to access for four weeks.
Integrated microfluidic array plate (iMAP) for cellular and molecular analysis
Ivan K. Dimov, Gregor Kijanka, Younggeun Park, Jens Ducrée, Taewook Kang and Luke P. Lee
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20105K
