Lab on a Chip Blog

In recent years methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become one of the most prevalent antibiotic resistant pathogens in hospitals and as such there is an urgent need for a way of rapidly detecting it to limit the spread of the infection.

Current methods of detection, involving the use of PCR, require quite bulky, power-intensive and quite expensive apparatus. Gwo-Bin Lee et al. have developed a portable hand-held system where the entire diagnostic protocol, from bio-sample pre-treatment to optical detection, can be automatically completed within an hour and with a limit of detection 1000- fold higher than conventional bench-top PCR systems.

The entire process can be accomplished automatically via magnetic bead-based hybridization of the target DNA purified from clinical samples, a loop-mediated isothermal amplification process for the amplification of the target genes, and then spectrophotometric analysis of the amplified target genes.

To find out more take a look at this HOT article which is FREE to view for 4 weeks!

A magnetic bead-based assay for the rapid detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus by using a microfluidic system with integrated loop-mediated isothermal amplification
Chih-Hung Wang, Kang-Yi Lien, Jiunn-Jong Wu and Gwo-Bin Lee
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 1521-1531
DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00430H

A platform capable of seamlessly unifying both optoelectrowetting and optoelectronic tweezers has been developed by Justin Valley and co-workers from the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center.

The device requires no lithographically defined microelectrodes as it uses light patterning to define the electrodes, which means that manipulation of droplets and the particles within these droplets can occur anywhere on the device surface. Switching between manipulating droplets to manipulating the particles in those droplets is merely a case of altering an externally applied electric frequency.

Learn more about the device by reading this HOT article, which is free to access for the next 4 weeks!

A unified platform for optoelectrowetting and optoelectronic tweezers
Justin K. Valley, Shao NingPei, Arash Jamshidi, Hsan-Yin Hsu and Ming C. Wu
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00568A

Reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) has been introduced as the most sensitive method for detecting and pathotyping the avian influenza virus (AIV) or ‘bird flu’, however the number of targets that can be amplified in a single run is limited.

Now chemists at the Technical University of Denmark have developed a device for the rapid and unambiguous detection of AIV by integrating DNA microarray-based solid-phase PCR on to a microfluidic chip. This combines the advantages of microfluidic devices, the high-throughput capabilities of microarrays and the superior specificity of solid-phase PCR. The whole process takes under an hour and uses a sample volume 10 times less than anything previously, meaning that this device can be widely employed by veterinarians for rapid on-site screening of AIV in wild and domestic poultries.

Find out more by reading this HOT article, which is free to access for the next 4 weeks!

A lab-on-a-chip device for rapid identification of avian influenza viral RNA by solid-phase PCR
Yi Sun, Raghuram Dhumpa, Dang Duong Bang, Jonas Høgberg, Kurt Handberg and Anders Wolff
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00528B