Archive for 2012

Hot articles from our Emerging Investigators

We’re delighted to announce the publication of our 2012 Emerging Investigators issue, which contains a massive 6 HOT articles!  Read the editorial from Amy Herr and Aaron Wheeler to find out why this group of researchers is affectionately known as control freaks..

Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigators

Controllable microfluidic production of gas-in-oil-in-water emulsions for hollow microspheres with thin polymer shells
Ran Chen, Peng-Fei Dong, Jian-Hong Xu, Yun-Dong Wang and Guang-Sheng Luo
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40387K

A rotary microsystem for simple, rapid and automatic RNA purification
Byung Hyun Park, Jae Hwan Jung, Hainan Zhang, Nae Yoon Lee and Tae Seok Seo
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40487G

Cytotoxicity analysis of water disinfection byproducts with a micro-pillar microfluidic device
Austin Hsiao, Yukako Komaki, Syed M. Imaad, Benito J. Mariñas, Michael J. Plewa and G. Logan Liu
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40374A

Lab on a Chip Emerging Invesitgators

Highly sensitive and quantitative detection of rare pathogens through agarose droplet microfluidic emulsion PCR at the single-cell level
Zhi Zhu, Wenhua Zhang, Xuefei Leng, Mingxia Zhang, Zhichao Guan, Jiangquan Lu and Chaoyong James Yang
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40461C

Enantioselective analysis of melagatran via an LSPR biosensor integrated with a microfluidic chip
Longhua Guo, Yuechun Yin, Rong Huang, Bin Qiu, Zhenyu Lin, Huang-Hao Yang, Jianrong Li and Guonan Chen
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40388A

Real-time full-spectral imaging and affinity measurements from 50 microfluidic channels using nanohole surface plasmon resonance
Si Hoon Lee, Nathan C. Lindquist, Nathan J. Wittenberg, Luke R. Jordan and Sang-Hyun Oh
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40455A

These articles will be free to access for the next 4 weeks. (Free access to individuals is provided through an RSC Publishing personal account. Registration is quick, free and simple.)

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Free organs on chips articles

To coincide with the Organs on Chips: Human Disease Models meeting being held at the Lorentz Center, The Netherlands, 24th – 28th September, Lab on a Chip and Integrative Biology are delighted to bring you a free* collection of articles on organ-on-chip research.

http://rsc.li/lorentz

These articles will only be available until October 8th so hurry, don’t miss out!

*Free access is provided to subscribing institutions or to individuals through an RSC Publishing Personal Account. Registration is quick and easy at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/account/register.

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Body heat could drive drug delivery

Micropump yeast body heatAnother Lab on a Chip article has been picked up by the press, describing a nifty micropump which is powered by fermentation of yeast.  Manuel Ochoa and Babak Ziaie, Purdue University, created the “microorganism-powered thermopneumatic pump” by stacking PDMS layers with a silicon substrate drug reservoir and a chamber for the yeast.  They showed that when the yeast ferments under body temperatures, the micropump could displace the drug in the reservoir.  The technology has caused excitement due to its potential for use in transdermal drug delivery patches, by driving tiny microneedle arrays.

A fermentation-powered thermopneumatic pump for biomedical applications
Manuel Ochoa and Babak Ziaie
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40620A

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Off to Optofluidics 2012? Meet Editor Harp Minhas there

Lab on a Chip Editor Harp Minhas will be attending Optofluidics 2012 which starts this Thursday at Dushu Lake Hotel, Suzhou, China.  If you are planning on attending the meeting do introduce yourself to Harp as he would be delighted to meet you.

Also, if you’re off to the conference don’t forget to take a look at our themed issue on optofluidics before you go!

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Article on light-activated muscle has people twitching

A collaborative study by Harry Asada (MIT) and Roger Kamm (Penn State) and colleagues just published in Lab on a Chip has been causing a bit of a stir on the blogosphere recently.  The article describes the stimulation of muscle, not by electrical signals as used in the body, but by light.  The team engineered skeletal muscle tissue to contain a light-responsive protein, which allowed it to contract when blue light was shone on it, as shown in the video below from the MIT press release:

Jumping straight from this amazing achievement to the future, several blogs have already discussed the potential of this technology for advanced biorobotics  (this article was our favourite).  Professor Asada is a little more modest and discusses the potential of the engineered muscle to control endoscopes or be used in drug screening programmes.

Read the paper here or take a look at some of the posts on the topic:

siliconANGLE
Judgement Day Beckons: Scientists Grow ‘Light-Activated’ Muscle Tissue For Robots

Wired
Light-activated skeletal muscle could be used to make realistic robots

The Verge
Laser-stimulated muscle tissue could be used to build ‘bio-integrated’ robots

Machines like us
Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscle

Formation and optogenetic control of engineered 3D skeletal muscle bioactuators
Mahmut Selman Sakar,  Devin M Neal,  Thomas Boudou,  Michael A Borochin,  Yinqing Li,  Ron Weiss,  Roger Kamm,  Christopher S. Chen and H Harry Asada
Lab Chip, 2012, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40338B

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Moving microrobots with bubbles

Microrobots smaller than the width of a human hair have been directed to assemble patterns made of single yeast cells and cell-laden agarose microgels using cavitation bubbles by a team from Hawaii. The robots could be used to push cells together to grow artificial tissue.

The microbot manipulating agarose gel blocks, some containing cells, into a 3x4 array

The microbot manipulating agarose gel blocks, some containing cells, into a 3x4 array

There have been a number of different methods used to manipulate single cells into patterns; including micromanipulators, which physically trap and hold cells but need skilled technicians to use them; and optical tweezers, which can be automated but usually need strong lasers or electrical fields that can affect the cells.

Read the full article in Chemistry World.

Or read the Lab on a Chip paper:
Hydrogel microrobots actuated by optically generated vapour bubbles
Wenqi Hu, Kelly S. Ishii, Qihui Fan and Aaron T. Ohta
Lab Chip, 2012,12, 3821-3826
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40483D

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Hot articles in optofluidics

You might have already seen our themed issue on optofluidics but in case you haven’t, here are the HOT articles from this issue:


Yi-Chung Tung et al. review the recent advances in optofluidic technologies that will open up new possibilities for on-chip phenotyping

Optofluidic detection for cellular phenotyping
Yi-Chung Tung, Nien-Tsu Huang, Bo-Ram Oh, Bishnubrata Patra, Chi-Chun Pan, Teng Qiu, Paul K. Chu, Wenjun Zhang and Katsuo Kurabayashi
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40509A


Optofluidic nose
Kevin Raymond et al. have developed an ‘optofluidic nose’ for sensing organic liquids based on wetting in photonic-crystal arrays.

Combinatorial wetting in colour: an optofluidic nose
Kevin P. Raymond, Ian B. Burgess, Mackenzie H. Kinney, Marko Lončar and Joanna Aizenberg
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40489C


An electrokinetically tunable optofluidic bi-concave lens
Haiwang Li and colleagues demonstrate the design of a bi-concave lens to perform both light focusing and diverging in-plane.

An electrokinetically tunable optofluidic bi-concave lens
Haiwang Li, Chaolong Song, Trung Dung Luong, Nam-Trung Nguyen and Teck Neng Wong
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40406K


Highly sensitive optofluidic chips for biochemical liquid assay
Yasutaka Hanada and coworkers show how to create a highly sensitive optofluidic chip for biochemical liquid assays by coating microfluidic channels with a low refractive index polymer and use of an optical waveguide.

Highly sensitive optofluidic chips for biochemical liquid assay fabricated by 3D femtosecond laser micromachining followed by polymer coating
Yasutaka Hanada, Koji Sugioka and Katsumi Midorikawa
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40377C


Optical imaging techniques in microfluidics

Jigang Wu,  Guoan Zheng and Lap Man Lee focus on compact systems in their review of optical imaging techniques that can be integrated with microfluidics.

Optical imaging techniques in microfluidics and their applications
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40517B


Optofluidics and synthetic biologyChao-Min Cheng and colleagues provide thoughtful insight into the application of optofluidics to synthetic biology in this forward-looking Frontier article.

Frontiers of optofluidics in synthetic biology
Cheemeng Tan, Shih-Jie Lo, Philip R. LeDuc and Chao-Min Cheng
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40828G


Microplasma in dielectrophoresis-driven bubbles
Shih-Kang Fan’s team manipulate 200 nL bubbles with DEP and ignite microplasma within them, with potential for future applications in the biomedical field.

Atmospheric-pressure microplasma in dielectrophoresis-driven bubbles for optical emission spectroscopy
Shih-Kang Fan, Yan-Ting Shen, Ling-Pin Tsai, Cheng-Che Hsu, Fu-Hsiang Ko and Yu-Ting Cheng
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40499K


Optofluidic hydrogel microrobotsWenqi Hu, Kelly S. Ishii, Qihui Fan and Aaron T. Ohta report a hydrogel microrobot which can be manipulated by laser-induced bubbles.  Single or pairs of robots are able to assemble polystyrene beads and yeast cells into patterns.


Hydrogel microrobots actuated by optically generated vapour bubbles

Wenqi Hu, Kelly S. Ishii, Qihui Fan and Aaron T. Ohta
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC40483D


Remember, all our cover articles are free to access for 6 weeks, and our HOT articles for 4 weeks.  All you need to access them is an RSC Publishing Personal Account – signing up is quick and easy.

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Themed issue on optofluidics out now

Lab on a Chip is delighted to publish what we believe is the first issue dedicated to research in the exciting new field of optofluidics, guest edited by Professors Ai-Qun Liu (Nanyang Technological University) and Changhuei Yang (Caltech).

Read their editorial introduction to the issue, where they discuss some of the most innovative new developments in this rapidly blossoming field.

We’ve got some great artwork on the covers of this issue, highlighting the range of articles in this issue:

Lab on a Chip Cover Optofluidics Lab on a Chip cover optofluidics Lab on a Chip cover optofluidics Lab on a Chip cover optofluidics

Katsuo Kurabayashi et al. have discussed the promise of optofluidic technologies to enable on-chip cellular phenotyping in their critical review which features on the outside front cover. On the inside front cover Joanna Aizenberg and colleagues have developed an ‘optofluidic nose’ – a litmus test which can differentiate organics liquids based on wetting, while on the back cover Teck Neng Wong et al. have created an optofluidic bi-concave lens to both focus and diverge a light source by applying an external electric field to a constant flow.  On the other back cover Katsumi Midorikawa and coworkers fabricated highly sensitive optofluidic chips for biochemical liquid assays.

Don’t forget – all articles on our covers are free to access for 6 weeks! You just need to sign in with your RSC Publishing Personal Account.

View the rest of the issue

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New YouTube videos

View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:

Programmable large area digital microfluidic array with integrated droplet sensing for bioassays

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Microcapillary-assisted dielectrophoresis for single-particle positioning

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Characterization of a novel impedance cytometer design and its integration with lateral focusing by dielectrophoresis

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Vascular lumen simulation and highly-sensitive nitric oxide detection using three-dimensional gelatin chip coupled to TiC/C nanowire arrays microelectrode

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Tailoring the wetting properties of thiolene microfluidic materials

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A mini-microscope for in situ monitoring of cells

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IEEE-EMBS Micro- and Nanoengineering in Medicine Conference (MNMC 2012) – Abstract Deadline 31 August 2012

IEEE-EMBS Micro-and Nanoengineering in Medicine Conference (MNMC 2012). Hawaii, December 3-7, 2012. http://mnm.embs.org/2012/

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