Archive for 2011

Lab on a Chip author and Pioneer Lectureship winner Ali Khademhosseini to receive US Presidential Early Career Award

Congratulations are in order for Lab on a Chip author Ali Khademhosseini, who is to receive the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers it was announced by The White House last month.  This is the highest honour bestowed by the US government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Professor Khademhosseini writes a regular Research Highlights feature for Lab on a Chip, covering exemplary research in recent literature and also received the 2011 Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lecture at the 2011 MicroTAS meeting in Seattle earlier this month.  The Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lectureship is awarded by Lab on a Chip and Corning Inc. to early to mid-career scientists for extraordinary or outstanding contributions to the understanding or development of miniaturised systems.

Why not take a look at some recent work in Lab on a Chip from Professor Khademhosseini:

An integrated microfluidic device for two-dimensional combinatorial dilution
Yun-Ho Jang, Matthew J. Hancock, Sang Bok Kim, Šeila Selimović, Woo Young Sim, Hojae Bae and Ali Khademhosseini

Microfabricated polyester conical microwells for cell culture applications
Šeila Selimović, Francesco Piraino, Hojae Bae, Marco Rasponi, Alberto Redaelli and Ali Khademhosseini

A cell-based biosensor for real-time detection of cardiotoxicity using lensfree imaging
Sang Bok Kim, Hojae Bae, Jae Min Cha, Sang Jun Moon, Mehmet R. Dokmeci, Donald M. Cropek and Ali Khademhosseini

We are now accepting nominations for the 2012 Lab on a Chip/Corning Inc. Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lectureship. Nominations should be sent to Harp Minhas, Editor, Lab on a Chip.

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Hot article: detecting damage to heart tissue with a cascade microchip and iostachophoresis

Cardiac troponin I (cTnI) occurs only in heart muscle, making it an excellent biomarker for diagnosing damage to heart tissue as a result of a heart attack, for example.  Recent work has indicated that the phosphorylation state of cTnI is a more accurate indicator of heart muscle health than the total cTnI concentration – which is used in current assays.

In this hot paper Cornelius F. Ivory and colleagues at Washington State University have used cationic isotachophoresis to preconcentrate samples of cTnI spiked blood samples at clinically relevant concentrations in a cascade microchip.  Preconcentration allows detection of concentrations as low as 46 ng mL-1, and the method is able to quantitatively differentiate between phosphorylated and unphosphorylated cTnI.

To read more on the design of the chip and its potential for use in clinical settings download the article – it’s free to access for 4 weeks following a simple registration:

Preconcentration and detection of the phosphorylated forms of cardiac troponin I in a cascade microchip by cationic isotachophoresis
Danny Bottenus, Mohammad Robiul Hossan, Yexin Ouyang, Wen-Ji Dong, Prashanta Dutta and Cornelius F. Ivory
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20469F

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Large-scale plasmonic microarrays, droplet speeds and droplet microfluidics in Raman and SERS on the cover of Issue 21

On the front cover of Issue 21 Hatice Altug et al. demonstrate the first example of a large-scale plasmonic microarray with over one million sensors on single microscope slide.

Large-scale plasmonic microarrays for label-free high-throughput screening
Tsung-Yao Chang, Min Huang, Ahmet Ali Yanik, Hsin-Yu Tsai, Peng Shi, Serap Aksu, Mehmet Fatih Yanik and Hatice Altug
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3596-3602
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20475K

The inside front cover highlights the review from Jurgen Popp on droplet-based microfluidic systems in Raman and SERS.

Droplet formation via flow-through microdevices in Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy—concepts and applications
Anne März, Thomas Henkel, Dana Cialla, Michael Schmitt and Jürgen Popp
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3584-3592
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20638A

And on the back cover is work from Piotr Garstecki et al.  showing their results on the speed of individual droplets in microfluidic channels – revealing quite a complex landscape of functional dependencies.

Speed of flow of individual droplets in microfluidic channels as a function of the capillary number, volume of droplets and contrast of viscosities
Slawomir Jakiela, Sylwia Makulska, Piotr M. Korczyk and Piotr Garstecki
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3603-3608
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20534J

As with all our cover article, these are free to access for the next 6 weeks.

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Current research highlights from Ali Khademhosseini

Ali Khademhosseini and Šeila Selimović discuss their highlights in recent literature, including a Lab on a Chip article from Christopher Bowman:

  • High-throughput nanoparticle measurement
  • Microfluidic barcoding
  • Thiol-ene soft lithography

Research highlights
Šeila Selimović and Ali Khademhosseini
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3581-3583
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC90096J

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Forthcoming Lab on a Chip tutorial series on acoustofluidics

Read the editorial on our forthcoming tutorial series on acoustofluidics, reviewing the state of the art and to providing a point of entry for newcomers to this rapidly developing research field:

Acoustofluidics—exploiting ultrasonic standing wave forces and acoustic streaming in microfluidic systems for cell and particle manipulation
Henrik Bruus, Jurg Dual, Jeremy Hawkes, Martyn Hill, Thomas Laurell, Johan Nilsson, Stefan Radel, Satwindar Sadhal and Martin Wiklund

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Droplet-based microfluidic systems in Raman and SERS

Jurgen Popp, University of Jena, and colleagues review the applications of droplet formation with flow-through microdevices in Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).

They look at the advantages of the techniques for highly-specific analytic detection and forward to the novel possibilities offered by future developments.

Areas covered:

  • Droplet-based microfluidics
  • Advantages of integration of droplet-based flow through techniques
  • Applications
  • SERS in droplet-based microfluidics
  • Progress in synthesis of SERS active substrate
  • Further approaches

This hot review is free to access for 4 weeks – download today to learn more:

Droplet formation via flow-through microdevices in Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy—concepts and applications
Anne März, Thomas Henkel, Dana Cialla, Michael Schmitt and Jürgen Popp
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3584-3592
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20638A

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

On the cover: mobile phones to read ELISA results, microfluidic devices made from corn and voltage-expandable liquid crystal surfaces

On the cover of Issue 20 we have hot articles from Ye and Demirci et al., Liu and Kokini et al. and Ren and Wu et al.

The outside front cover depicts Bin Ye and Utkan Demirci‘s paper where they have demonstrated that a mobile phone can be used to image and process the results of an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test on a microchip, reducing previously bulky equipment to a size where it could be used at the bedside.

Integration of cell phone imaging with microchip ELISA to detect ovarian cancer HE4 biomarker in urine at the point-of-care
ShuQi. Wang, Xiaohu Zhao, Imran Khimji, Ragip Akbas, Weiliang Qiu, Dale Edwards, Daniel W. Cramer, Bin Ye and Utkan Demirci
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3411-3418

The inside front cover highlights green microfluidic research from Gang Logan Liu and Jozef L. Kokini, where they have used a by-product from corn – zein – instead of the traditional plastics to produce a microfluidic device.  This article was also highlighted in Chemistry World.

Green microfluidic devices made of corn proteins
Jarupat Luecha, Austin Hsiao, Serena Brodsky, Gang Logan Liu and Jozef L. Kokini
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3419-3425

And on the back cover is work from Hongwen Ren and Shin-Tson Wu where they report a novel approach which can extensively spread a liquid crystal interface, which opens a route to new voltage controllable, polarization-insensitive, and broadband liquid photonic devices.

Voltage-expandable liquid crystal surface
Hongwen Ren, Su Xu and Shin-Tson Wu
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3426-3430

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Top ten most accessed articles in August

This month sees the following articles in Lab on a Chip that are in the top ten most accessed:

Automated cellular sample preparation using a Centrifuge-on-a-Chip
Albert J. Mach, Jae Hyun Kim, Armin Arshi, Soojung Claire Hur and Dino Di Carlo
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2827-2834
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20330D

Benchtop micromolding of polystyrene by soft lithography
Yuli Wang, Joseph Balowski, Colleen Phillips, Ryan Phillips, Christopher E. Sims and Nancy L. Allbritton
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3089-3097
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20281B

Next-generation integrated microfluidic circuits
Bobak Mosadegh, Tommaso Bersano-Begey, Joong Yull Park, Mark A. Burns and Shuichi Takayama
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2813-2818
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20387H

Beyond PDMS: off-stoichiometry thiol–ene (OSTE) based soft lithography for rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices
Carl Fredrik Carlborg, Tommy Haraldsson, Kim Öberg, Michael Malkoch and Wouter van der Wijngaart
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3136-3147
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20388F

A high-performance microsystem for isolating circulating tumor cells
Xiangjun Zheng, Luthur Siu-Lun Cheung, Joyce A. Schroeder, Linan Jiang and Yitshak Zohar
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3269-3276
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20331B

Paper on a disc: balancing the capillary-driven flow with a centrifugal force
Hyundoo Hwang, Seung-Hoon Kim, Tae-Hyeong Kim, Je-Kyun Park and Yoon-Kyoung Cho
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20445A

Double-emulsion drops with ultra-thin shells for capsule templates
Shin-Hyun Kim, Jin Woong Kim, Jun-Cheol Cho and David A. Weitz
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3162-3166
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20434C

Rapid spatial and temporal controlled signal delivery over large cell culture areas
Jules J. VanDersarl, Alexander M. Xu and Nicholas A. Melosh
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3057-3063
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20311H

Flexible microfluidic devices with three-dimensional interconnected microporous walls for gas and liquid applications
Po Ki Yuen and Michael E. DeRosa
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3249-3255
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20157C

Microchip-based immunomagnetic detection of circulating tumor cells
Kazunori Hoshino, Yu-Yen Huang, Nancy Lane, Michael Huebschman, Jonathan W. Uhr, Eugene P. Frenkel and Xiaojing Zhang
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20270G

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.

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

HOT: label-free plasmonic microarray for high-throughput protein screening

Microarrays offer the opportunity for the high-throughput study of protein-protein interactions that may uncover drug targets and provide early detection of various diseases. Most current technologies rely on fluorescent labelling of proteins, but this is costly, time-consuming and can be inaccurate due to steric interference, quenching and photo-bleaching.

Hatice Altug, Boston University, and colleagues from MIT have now found a way to accomplish label free detection by using a dual-colour filter method to image large scale plasmonic nanohole arrays.  Their high-density detection platform has over 1 million sensors and has reliably demonstrated massively multiplexed detection of antibody bindings with reduced image acquisition time.

Download the paper to read how they did it, it’s free to access for the next 4 weeks:

Large-scale plasmonic microarrays for label-free high-throughput screening
Tsung-Yao Chang, Min Huang, Ahmet Ali Yanik, Hsin-Yu Tsai, Peng Shi, Serap Aksu, Mehmet Fatih Yanik and Hatice Altug
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20475K

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)

Corn microchips

Left: macro images of zein-glass and zein-zein microfluidic devices. The inset shows a colourant-filled zein-glass microfluidic device with tubings. Right: serpentine channels for mixing two different chemical fluids

Gang Logan Liu and colleagues at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have demonstrated that by using lithography and solvent or vapour deposition bonding, thin films of zein (a protein extracted from corn by-products) can be used to construct microfluidic channels, grids and wells as a green alternative to the plastic materials currently in use.

The group tested their zein microfluidic devices using several types of fluid, including fluorescent dyes and solutions of microbeads. They found that the devices did not leak and the channels could easily be viewed through a microscope. They also extended their work to produce a concentration gradient generator, mixing dye and solvent within serpentine channels to create several different concentration mixtures.

Liu anticipates being able to use the simple bonding of the zein films to make multilayer microfluidic devices in the future.

Interested? Read Tamsin Phillips’ full Chemistry World article here or download the Lab on a Chip paper:

Green microfluidic devices made of corn proteins
Jarupat Luecha, Austin Hsiao, Serena Brodsky, Gang Logan Liu and Jozef L. Kokini
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20726A

Digg This
Reddit This
Stumble Now!
Share on Facebook
Bookmark this on Delicious
Share on LinkedIn
Bookmark this on Technorati
Post on Twitter
Google Buzz (aka. Google Reader)