September 2013 – Lab on a Chip Blog

Archive for September, 2013

Reprogrammable microfluidic chips

18 Sep 2013

A microfluidic chip with channels that can be programmed then reset and reconfigured has been developed by scientists from France and Japan.

Water is dispensed into chip reservoirs. By selectively switching on electrodes, water is manipulated to carve out the channels

In recent years, scientists from across of the globe have developed a plethora of microfluidic chips to perform a variety of tasks, from PCR to cell sorting. However, a serious drawback of microfluidic technologies is that each application requires a unique arrangement of inlets, outlets and microchannels, so microfluidic chips are usually specific to one particular purpose. This, combined with the time-consuming and costly manufacturing processes required to construct microfluidic devices, makes the idea of a reprogrammable chip very attractive.

Read the full article here at Chemistry World.

Programmable and reconfigurable microfluidic chip
Raphaël Renaudot, et al.
Lab Chip, 2013, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50850A, Paper

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Lab on a Chip Co-hosts EU-Korea Microfluidics Workshop

16 Sep 2013

We are very pleased to announce that Lab on a Chip will once again Co-host the third EU-Korea Workshop on microfluidics, focusing on “Emerging Microfluidic Platform Technologies: From Biosciences to Applications”.

Please come along and see us at the meeting, which will be held in Postech International Centre, Pohang, Korea. The workshop takes place on October 3rd to 5th, 2013.

Meet the Editor and International speakers:

Jean-Louis Viovy, Institute Curie, France
Andreas Manz, KIST, Europe
Dongpyo Kim, Pohang, Koreas
Chris Abell, Cambridge, UK
Noo Li Jeon, Seoul, Korea
Sabeth Verpoorte, Groningen, Netherlands
Hywel Morgan, Southampton, UK
Petra Dittrich, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Sanghyun Lee, FEMTOLAB, Korea
Samuel Sanchez, Max-Planck, Germany
Yoon Kyoung Cho, UNIST, Korea
Francois Leblanc, CEO Fluigent

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Free to access HOT articles!

12 Sep 2013

These HOT articles have been recommended by our referees and are free to access for 4 weeks*

Multiplexed single molecule immunoassays
David M. Rissin, Cheuk W. Kan, Linan Song, Andrew J. Rivnak, Matthew W. Fishburn, Qichao Shao, Tomasz Piech, Evan P. Ferrell, Raymond E. Meyer, Todd G. Campbell, David R. Fournier and David C. Duffy
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50416F

Rapid fabrication of pressure-driven open-channel microfluidic devices in omniphobic R^F paper
Ana C. Glavan, Ramses V. Martinez, E. Jane Maxwell, Anand Bala Subramaniam, Rui M. D. Nunes, Siowling Soh and George M. Whitesides
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50371B

A simple three-dimensional-focusing, continuous-flow mixer for the study of fast protein dynamics
Kelly S. Burke, Dzmitry Parul, Michael J. Reddish and R. Brian Dyer
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50497B

Assessment of pathogenic bacteria using periodic actuation
Sorin David, Cristina Polonschii, Mihaela Gheorghiu, Dumitru Bratu, Alin Dobre and Eugen Gheorghiu
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50411E

Microfluidic heart on a chip for higher throughput pharmacological studies
Ashutosh Agarwal, Josue Adrian Goss, Alexander Cho, Megan Laura McCain and Kevin Kit Parker
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50350J

Low-cost fabrication of centimetre-scale periodic arrays of single plasmid DNA molecules
Brett Kirkland, Zhibin Wang, Peipei Zhang, Shin-ichiro Takebayashi, Steven Lenhert, David M. Gilbert and Jingjiao Guan
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50562F

A novel microfluidic technology for the preparation of gas-in-oil-in-water emulsions
Lu Yang, Kai Wang, Sy Mak, Yankai Li and Guangsheng Luo
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50652E

A microfluidic approach for protein structure determination at room temperature via on-chip anomalous diffraction
Sarah L. Perry, Sudipto Guha, Ashtamurthy S. Pawate, Amrit Bhaskarla, Vinayak Agarwal, Satish K. Nair and Paul J. A. Kenis
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50276G

Steam-on-a-chip for oil recovery: the role of alkaline additives in steam assisted gravity drainage
Thomas W. de Haas, Hossein Fadaei, Uriel Guerrero and David Sinton
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50612F

Out of the cleanroom, self-assembled magnetic artificial cilia
Ye Wang, Yang Gao, Hans Wyss, Patrick Anderson and Jaap den Toonder
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50458A

Flow switching in microfluidic networks using passive features and frequency tuning
Rachel R. Collino, Neil Reilly-Shapiro, Bryant Foresman, Kerui Xu, Marcel Utz, James P. Landers and Matthew R. Begley
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50481F

Single vesicle biochips for ultra-miniaturized nanoscale fluidics and single molecule bioscience
Andreas L. Christensen, Christina Lohr, Sune M. Christensen and Dimitrios Stamou
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50492A

Pinched-flow hydrodynamic stretching of single-cells
Jaideep S. Dudani, Daniel R. Gossett, Henry T. K. Tse and Dino Di Carlo
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50649E

An acoustofluidic micromixer based on oscillating sidewall sharp-edges
Po-Hsun Huang, Yuliang Xie, Daniel Ahmed, Joseph Rufo, Nitesh Nama, Yuchao Chen, Chung Yu Chan and Tony Jun Huang
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50568E

Thermal migration of molecular lipid films as a contactless fabrication strategy for lipid nanotube networks
Irep Gözen, Mehrnaz Shaali, Alar Ainla, Bahanur Örtmen, Inga Põldsalu, Kiryl Kustanovich, Gavin D. M. Jeffries, Zoran Konkoli, Paul Dommersnes and Aldo Jesorka
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50391G

On-chip microbial culture for the specific detection of very low levels of bacteria
Sihem Bouguelia, Yoann Roupioz, Sami Slimani, Laure Mondani, Maria G. Casabona, Claire Durmort, Thierry Vernet, Roberto Calemczuk and Thierry Livache
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50473E

Gas/liquid sensing via chemotaxis of Euglena cells confined in an isolated micro-aquarium
Kazunari Ozasa, Jeesoo Lee, Simon Song, Masahiko Hara and Mizuo Maeda
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50696G

Smart-phone based computational microscopy using multi-frame contact imaging on a fiber-optic array
Isa Navruz, Ahmet F. Coskun, Justin Wong, Saqib Mohammad, Derek Tseng, Richie Nagi, Stephen Phillips and Aydogan Ozcan
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50589H

Protein–DNA force assay in a microfluidic format
Marcus Otten, Philip Wolf and Hermann E. Gaub
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50830G

Ultrasensitive microfluidic solid-phase ELISA using an actuatable microwell-patterned PDMS chip
Tanyu Wang, Mohan Zhang, Dakota D. Dreher and Yong Zeng
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50783A

Detection of real-time dynamics of drug–target interactions by ultralong nanowalls
Andreas Menzel, Raphael J. Gübeli, Firat Güder, Wilfried Weber and Margit Zacharias
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50694K

Capillarics: pre-programmed, self-powered microfluidic circuits built from capillary elements
Roozbeh Safavieh and David Juncker
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50691F

A portable explosive detector based on fluorescence quenching of pyrene deposited on coloured wax-printed μPADs
Regina Verena Taudte, Alison Beavis, Linzi Wilson-Wilde, Claude Roux, Philip Doble and Lucas Blanes
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50609F

Electrokinetic tweezing: three-dimensional manipulation of microparticles by real-time imaging and flow control
Zachary Cummins, Roland Probst and Benjamin Shapiro
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50674F

Albumin testing in urine using a smart-phone
Ahmet F. Coskun, Richie Nagi, Kayvon Sadeghi, Stephen Phillips and Aydogan Ozcan
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50785H

*Free access to individuals is provided through an RSC Publishing personal account. It’s quick, simple and more importantly – free – to register!

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Personal kidney disease monitoring on your phone

04 Sep 2013

Angharad Rosser-James, Publishing Editor in the Lab on a Chip editorial production team, recently wrote this fantastic article for Chemistry World. It focuses on a recent Lab on a Chip paper, and shows how the miniaturisation field can have a huge impact on our daily lives:

A smart phone attachment and accompanying app that could be used by people in their own home to monitor the health of their kidneys have been developed by scientists in the US. The lightweight and cost-effective device contains a fluorescent assay which works with the phone’s existing camera to provide results within minutes.

The lightweight and compact attachment is installed on the existing camera unit of a smart-phone

Millions of people die each year from chronic kidney disease with 11% of US adults thought to have some form of kidney-related problem. Early detection and treatment is the key to prevent or control kidney damage. Routine screening for kidney damage checks albumin levels in urine with high levels of the protein indicating a potential problem. These tests are currently carried out using bench-top urine analysers and require patients to make regular trips to a clinic or hospital.

The Albumin Tester, a digital fluorescent tube reader accompanied by an android smart phone app devised by Aydogan Ozcan and colleagues at the University of California in Los Angeles could save patients from having to make so many of these trips. Weighing only 148 g, a similar weight to the smart phone itself, the whole device can be attached to the back of a smart phone. Urine is added to fluorescent assays confined within disposable test tubes and the smart phone’s camera collects images of the assays via an external plastic lens. The app converts the fluorescence signals into an albumin concentration value within 1 second. Its detection limit of 5–10 µg ml^-1 is more than 3 times lower that the clinically accepted healthy threshold.

The user-friendly app converts fluorescence signals into albumin concentrations within 1 s and can give daily or weekly reports

Ozcan envisions the device’s application in ‘the early diagnosis of kidney disease or for routine monitoring of high-risk patients, especially those suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and/or cardiovascular diseases.’ Govind Kaigala, who develops microsystems for biomolecule analysis at IBM Research in Switzerland agrees and says ‘the albumin tester is a gadget which holds the promise of a simple, rapid and low-cost test for regular use by the patient.’

‘This technology has the potential to make widespread impact on health care in developing as well as developed countries,’ says Olav Solgaard, an expert in optical microelectromechanical systems at Stanford University in the US.

Ozcan anticipates that their next step is to make it possible to measure other kidney disease biomarkers, such as creatinine, using the same smart phone attachment.

View this article on the Chemistry World website, or access the full paper: A F Coskun et al, Lab Chip, 2013, DOI: 10.1039/c3lc50785h

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Lab on a Chip Blog

Archive for September, 2013

Reprogrammable microfluidic chips

Lab on a Chip Co-hosts EU-Korea Microfluidics Workshop

Free to access HOT articles!

Personal kidney disease monitoring on your phone

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