The chip consists of a printed integrated circuit and a microfluidic device, powered wirelessly by a palm sized RFID reader
A team of US scientists has developed the first lab on a chip device to be powered remotely.
Wen Qiao at the University of California, San Diego, made a microfluidic chip that can be powered with a commercially available radio frequency transmitter for electrophoresis experiments.
Qiao’s team made the chip by printing a circuit onto a plastic sheet. Within the circuit, they placed a chamber containing microwells.
The device is cheap to produce and simple to use and can be used in the same way as a microscope slide, with the RFID transmitter mounted next to a microscope stage and a camera to capture images of the moving nanoparticles. Qiao says that the chip will ‘greatly simplify the operation of the device for pathologists and clinicians whose training and practices have been mostly on optical microscopes, with limited experience with sophisticated electronic instruments.’
Check out the full Chemistry World story online here or read the Lab on a Chip article:
Wirelessly powered microfluidic dielectrophoresis devices using printable RF circuits
Wen Qiao, Gyoujin Cho and Yu-Hwa Lo
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/c0lc00457j
