Lab on a Chip Blog

📣 Exciting News from Lab on a Chip! 📣 We are thrilled to announce the opening of nominations for the annual and prestigious Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lectureship for 2024.

This annual award celebrates early to mid-career scientists who are within 15 years of their PhD and have demonstrated significant achievements in the field of miniaturised systems. It’s a fantastic opportunity for researchers to gain recognition for their innovative contributions to the community.

Key Benefits for the Awardee:

– An invitation to present a lecture at microTAS 2024 in Montréal, Canada taking place in October
– Up to $3,000 in funding to support travel and accommodation expenses

Nomination Deadline: June 14, 2024

For eligibility criteria and nomination details, please visit our website HERE

The winner will be carefully selected by the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board, based on their contributions and impact in the field via letters of recommendation, candidate CV and nomination form.

Help us celebrate the brilliance and strong impact of our scientific community by submitting your nominations today!

Bringing together multiple communities who are focused on developing and implementing diagnostic technologies for global health applications. This virtual workshop included communities that research, develop, and commercialized microfluidic technologies as well as public health and clinical professionals who strategize, implement, and evaluate new technologies and systems. Lab on a Chip was delighted to sponsor this event.

“We are grateful that this workshop was able to run as an online conference to bring together renowned researchers, entrepreneurs, and public health experts from across the world onto a single platform for learning and discussion of critical diagnostics topics. This year’s speaker and panel themes focused around sustainability, commercialization and delivery of global health diagnostics.

Our keynotes included Madhukar Pai (McGill University, CANADA), Maiwenn Kersuady-Kerhoas (Heriot-Watt University, UK), Umut Gurkan (Case Western Reserve University, USA), Tivani Mashamba-Thompson (University of Pretoria, South Africa), Bushan Toley (Papyrus Diagnostics, Indian Institute of Science, India), Catherine Klapperich (Boston Univeristy, USA), and Adriana Velazquez Berumen (World Health Organization, Switzerland).

We had 109 attendees joining from 6 continents, including 35 complementary attendees from the Global South thanks to the Purdue’s Global Engineering Program and Partnerships and Shah Family Global Innovation Lab which helped to sponsor the complementary registrations. And much thanks to RSC for the Lab on a Chip Poster Awards – I know the competition was tough and the awards mean a lot to the winners.” – Conference Chair Jacqueline Linnes

Congratulations to our Lab on a Chip poster prize winners Vanessa Ho at Imperial College London and Oshin Sharma at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay!

Here is what Vanessa had to say about her work and the workshop:

What impact can your work have on the field and wider global health?
My research focuses on developing a microfluidic chip platform designed for quantifying individual cell-expressed microRNA molecules using a minimal number of cells, particularly beneficial for handling clinically scarce samples. This innovative tool integrates cell selection, isolation, lysis, and analysis within a single device. I have successfully demonstrated its efficacy in analysing microRNA levels across various cell types isolated from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient samples, revealing insights into their responses to different stimuli. Additionally, the device exhibits sensitivity in measuring microRNA molecules in non-invasive nasal samples with limited quantities.

Beyond its current applications, this platform holds promise for the comprehensive study of various human diseases. Its adaptability allows for the analysis of diverse biological samples, including saliva and blood. This versatility is instrumental in advancing drug therapeutic approaches and precision medicine. The potential impact extends not only to enhancing our understanding of diseases but also to improving diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for better global health outcomes..

How did you benefit from attending the Global Health 2023 workshop?

I am grateful to the organisers for giving me the chance to participate in and present at the Global Health 2023 workshop. The workshop significantly broadened my perspective, particularly in terms of refining my platform to better serve users in less developed countries and incorporating sustainability considerations. Engaging with experts in the field from around the world was enlightening, as their insights provided valuable lessons for the further development of my project. Connecting with researchers in the global health community from diverse countries allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of their challenges and enriched my overall experience.

Lab on a Chip and Dolomite are delighted to announce the winner of the 2023 Pioneers of Miniaturization Lectureship, Professor David Issadore!

This Lectureship honours and supports the up and coming, next generation of scientists who have significantly contributed to the understanding or development of miniaturised systems.

The Issadore lab combines microelectronics, microfluidics, nanomaterials, and machine learning to solve big, currently intractable problems in healthcare. The lab develops new miniaturized platforms for the diagnosis of disease, new platforms to manufacture micro and nano-scale materials, and they dip their toes into an assortment of other areas where they can leverage micro and nano-scale engineering to improve healthcare. This work requires an interdisciplinary approach in which engineers, scientists, and physicians work together in teams. David has a PhD in applied physics from Harvard with Robert Westervelt, he completed post-doctoral training in the Systems Biology department at Mass General Hospital with Hakho Lee and Ralph Weissleder and has been on the faculty of Penn’s Bioengineering department since 2013.

Our Pioneers of Miniaturization Lectureship Winner is invited to speak at MicroTAS, and thus David will be presenting his talk at the MicroTAS 2023 meeting, 15-19^th October 2023.

We give our warmest congratulations to David on his achievement!

Read some of David Issadore’s recent Lab on a Chip papers below:

A web-based automated machine learning platform to analyze liquid biopsy data

Advancing microfluidic diagnostic chips into clinical use: a review of current challenges and opportunities

Diagnosis of traumatic brain injury using miRNA signatures in nanomagnetically isolated brain-derived extracellular vesicles

We are delighted to welcome:

• Professor Xingyu Jiang (SUSTech, China)
• Professor Amy Herr (UC Berkeley, USA)
• Professor Hongkai Wu (HKUST, Hong Kong)

as our newest Lab on a Chip Associate Editors! You can read more about them and their research focus below.

Amy Herr

John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Professor, Department of Bioengineering, 

University of California,  Berkeley, USA

Amy Herr is the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Professor in the Department of Bioengineering , a Chan Zuckerberg (CZ) Biohub Investigator, and CTO of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network.

A major focus of the Herr lab is engineering innovation for analysis of complex biological systems — as is required to address questions important to both fundamental biological systems and applied clinical research. They employ a combination of approaches drawn from chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering with strong foundations in biology, materials science, and analytical chemistry.  In essence, they strive to advance the “mathematization” of biology & medicine.  Their research projects span understanding fundamental transport to materials design to applications in life sciences tools and diagnostics.

Professor Herr’s research has been recognized by prominent international andnational organizations, including: 2018 Sciex Microscale Separations Innovation Medal, 2017 Georgina Sweet Lectureship from the Australian Research Council, 2016 Mid-career Achievement Award from the American Electrophoresis Society, 2015 Georges Guiochon Faculty Fellow from HPLC, 2012 Young Innovator Award from Analytical Chemistry/CBMS, 2011 NSF CAREER award, 2010 NIH New Innovator Award, 2010 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in chemistry, 2010 New Investigator Award in Analytical Chemistry from Eli Lilly & Co., and a 2009 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award. Her commitment to creating a strong professional community is reflected in recognition as: 2019 Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring, Visiting Scientist & Posdoc. Assoc. at UC Berkeley, 2017 Berkeley Visionary Award from the City of Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, and 2007 Outstanding Mentor Award from Sandia National Labs.

Research Expertise and Interest
microfluidics, bioanalytical separations, diagnostics, electrokinetic transport, engineering design

Find out more on the Herr Lab website – Bioinstrumentation for Quantitative Biology & Medicine

Here are a selection of Amy’s most recent Lab on a Chip papers below:

• • • Multimodal detection of protein isoforms and nucleic acids from low starting cell numbers
    • Separation-encoded microparticles for single-cell western blotting
    • Mouse-to-mouse variation in maturation heterogeneity of smooth muscle cells

Xingyu Jiang

Chair Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering                                                                                                                                                                         Southern University of Science and Technology, China

Xingyu Jiang is a Chair Professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China. He obtained his BS at the University of Chicago (1999) and PhD at Harvard University (Chemistry, 2004). In 2005, he joined the National Center for NanoScience and Technology/the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He moved to the Southern University of Science and Technology in 2018. His research interests include microfluidics and nanomedicine and their applications in diagnostics, screening for therapeutics, as well as engineered tissues. He has over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He was awarded the “Hundred Talents Plan” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation of China’s Distinguished Young Scholars Award, the Scopus Young Researcher Gold Award, and the Human Frontier Science Program Young Investigator Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK) and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.

Xingyu has been a committed member of the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board since 2020, and will now start handling papers for the journal.

Research Expertise and Interest
microfluidics & nanomedicine, and their applications in diagnostics, screening for therapeutics,  engineered tissues

Find out more on the Jiang lab website and follow @xingyu on Twitter

Here are a selection of Xingyu’s most recent Lab on a Chip papers below:

• • • Microfluidic on-chip valve and pump for applications in immunoassays
    • Wearable chem-biosensing devices: from basic research to commercial market
    • Hierarchically structured microchip for point-of-care immunoassays with dynamic detection ranges

Hongkai Wu

Professor,  Department of Chemistry, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Hongkai Wu is a Professor in Department of Chemistry & Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China. Dr. Wu received his BSc from University of Science and Technology of China in 1995 and Ph.D from Harvard University, USA in 2002. After working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford, he joined the faculty in Department of Chemistry in Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2005 and moved to HKUST as an Assistant Professor in 2007. In 2012, he was promoted to be an Associate Professor. From 2009 to 2015, he established a satellite laboratory in Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, focusing on developing functional biomaterials.

Research at the Wu lab focuses on the interdisciplinary frontiers of microfluidics, bioanalytical science and materials chemistry. They use the technologies in MEMS, microfluidics, soft lithography, and surface chemistry to design and provide new tools for the applications and understanding of fundamentals in materials and biological sciences, including microfluidic chemical reactors, high throughput single-cell analysis and chemical separations.

Research Expertise and Interest
microfluidics, bioanalytical science, materials chemistry, single-cell analysis

Find out more on the Wu lab website 

Here are a selection of Hongkai’s Lab on a Chip papers below:

• • • A high-throughput, open-space and reusable microfluidic chip for combinational drug screening on tumor spheroids
    • Cell pairing and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-mediated cell fusion using two-step centrifugation-assisted single-cell trapping (CAScT)
    • Point-of-care testing: applications of 3D printing

Please join us in welcoming our new Associate Editors. We look forward to continuing to work with them on Lab on a Chip, and they are looking forward to handling your papers!

Submit your paper today!

The founding Editor of Lab on a Chip and pioneer of the µTAS field, Professor Andreas Manz, has announced his retirement. In celebration of all his works and achievements, we have collated a video from his friends and colleagues across the lab on a chip community. 

Watch the video ⬇️

We have created a retrospective collection across the past 2 decades since Lab on a Chip’s inception, of his work published in the journal, which can be found here:

Andreas Manz Special Collection

In addition, we will be honouring Andreas with a special Lab on a Chip collection with invited papers from his networks throughout his career, for publication next year. Keep an eye on our Twitter for more details

Please join us in congratulating Andreas on his retirement, and we thank him for all his vital contributions to the journal, the field and the community!

We are delighted to welcome Professor Jean-Christophe Baret as an Associate Editor for Lab on a Chip!

Jean-Christophe Baret

University of Bordeaux , France

JC Baret is Professor at the University of Bordeaux and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He obtained his PhD from the University of Twente (NL) in 2005 and joined the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (Univ Strasbourg) as a post-doc and then the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Goettingen as a Max Planck Group Leader.

His laboratory is now located at the CNRS Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal where he develops research activities centered on microfluidics for applications in biochemistry, high-throughput screening and more recently for the bottom-up assembly of artificial cells. He is founder and scientific advisor of Emulseo developing industrial formulations for microfluidics.

Find out more on the his group website and follow @BaretJc on Twitter

Submit your work to Jean-Christophe today!

Transform microfluidics industry with your research

Dolomite Microfluidic Competition 2022 is a competition for all researchers, students who are working or studying on microfluidics projects across the globe. We know scientists around the world may have many great ideas, but don’t have enough resources for their projects. Therefore, Dolomite Microfluidics would like to organize this competition to bring your ideas to the world and make them come true. – 

Prize

• 1^st Prize:  A virtual voucher to purchase Dolomite Microfluidics products up to a maximum value of USD 6000 (including shipping fee)
• 2^nd Prize:  A virtual voucher to purchase Dolomite Microfluidics products up to a maximum value of USD 2500 (including shipping fee)

The Dolomite Applications team will suggest of the most suitable products for the winner to benefit from in their project based only on the products produced and available on Dolomite Microfluidic Webshop.

Entry period

00:01 am GMT +7 on September 12, 2022 and ends at 11:59 pm GMT +7 on October 31, 2022

How to submit?

Visit the Dolomite Scientific Competition to learn more about the competition, how to submit, and FAQS

Dolomite Scientific Competition 2022_Terms Conditions

Lab on a Chip and Dolomite are delighted to announce the winner of the 2022 Pioneers of Miniaturization Lectureship, Professor Yi-Chin Toh.

This Lectureship honours and supports the up and coming, next generation of scientists who have significantly contributed to the understanding or development of miniaturised systems.

Her major scientific contribution is in the interfacing of tissue engineering with microfluidic technology to mimic biological complexity but in scalable and manufacturing-compatible formats that will be practical for deployment in routine drug testing. Her work has contributed significantly to understanding human pluripotent stem cell development and mimicking systemic multi-organ interactions, such as metabolic and immune interactions.

She has produced 64 peer-reviewed publications (h-index = 27), 8 patent applications, and over 100 conference presentations. Her works on animal alternative technologies have won accolades, such as the Global 3R Award, and are being featured in the Lab on the Chip Emerging Investigator Series (2019). Yi-Chin serves in the Australian Research Council College of Experts and is an associate editor of AIP Biomicrofluidics and Frontier in Digital Health (Personalised Medicine). She recently joined the Scientific Advisory Committee of Lab on a Chip (2022). She also contributes actively to the organization of the MicroTAS conference series, including the Poster Award Committee (2018-2019) and the Executive Technical Program Committee (ETPC) in 2021.

Read some of Yi-Chin Toh’s recent Lab on a Chip papers:

Lab on a Chip – Integration of a microfluidic multicellular coculture array with machine learning analysis to predict adverse cutaneous drug reactions

Lab on a Chip – Self-aligning Tetris-Like (TILE) modular microfluidic platform for mimicking multi-organ interactions

Lab on a Chip – A liver-immune coculture array for predicting systemic drug-induced skin sensitization

Lab on a Chip is very pleased to be sponsoring and attending Acoustofluidics 2022, taking place 19-21 October 2022 in Glasgow, Scotland.

This focused meeting is dedicated to exploring the science, engineering, and use of micro- to nanoscale Acoustofluidics.

Announced Keynote Speakers
David Weitz (Harvard Univ.)
Bruce Drinkwater (Univ. of Bristol)
Jürg Dual (ETH Zürich)
Eleanor Stride (Univ. of Oxford)

In particular, the scope of the conference includes but is not limited to:

1. Devices

• Transducer Fabrication
• Integrated System
• Lab-on-a-Chip
• Thin Film and Flexible Acoustofluidics
• Theory and/or Simulation
• Other

2. Applications

• Environment
• Biology
• Medicine
• Energy
• Theory and/or Simulation
• Other

3. Manipulation, Transport and Control

• Acoustic Manipulation
• Liquid Transport, Jetting and Nebulisation
• Bubble and Cavity Acoustics
• Control Schemes
• Theory and/or Simulation
• Other

4. Physics

• New Phenomena and Mechanisms
• Acoustic Fields and Streaming
• Acoustic Thermal Effects and Energy
• Fluid-Structure Interactions
• Theory and/or Simulation
• Other

Abstract Deadline
Sunday, 31 July 2022

Find out more and register at acoustofluidics.net

We are delighted to welcome Professors Keisuke Goda, Sindy Tang & Yi-Chin Toh to the Lab on a Chip Advisory Board.

Keisuke Goda

Professor, Department of Chemistry

University of Tokyo, Japan

Keisuke Goda is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tokyo, an adjunct professor in the Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan University, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA. He obtained his B.A. from UC Berkeley summa cum laude in 2001 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 2007, both in physics. At MIT, he worked on the development of gravitational-wave detectors in the LIGO group which led to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. After several years of work on high-speed imaging and microfluidics at Caltech and UCLA, he joined the University of Tokyo as a professor. His research group focuses on the development of serendipity-enabling technologies based on molecular imaging and spectroscopy together with microfluidics and computational analytics to push the frontier of science. He currently leads Serendipity Lab, a global network of scientists who aim to realize Louis Pasteur’s statement “Chance favours the prepared mind”. He has published >300 papers, filed >30 patents, and received numerous awards and honours such as Japan Academy Medal and JSPS Prize. He is a fellow of RSC and SPIE.

Keisuke was the recipient of the Lab on a Chip & Dolomite Pioneers of Miniaturization Lectureship Award 2021, and is a Thought Leader for our on-going AI in Microfluidics thematic collection.

Find out more on the GODA LAB website and follow @ut_godalab on Twitter

Here are a selection of Keisuke’s Lab on a Chip papers below:

• Deep imaging flow cytometry
• Are droplets really suitable for single-cell analysis? A case study on yeast in droplets
• AI on a chip

Sindy Tang

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and by courtesy of Radiology (Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics)

Stanford University, USA

Sindy KY Tang is the Kenneth and Barbara Oshman Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and by courtesy of Radiology (Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics) at Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in Engineering Sciences under the supervision of Prof. George Whitesides. Her lab at Stanford works on the fundamental understanding of fluid mechanics and mass transport in micro-nano systems, and the application of this knowledge towards problems in biology, rapid diagnostics for health and environmental sustainability. The current areas of focus include the flow physics of confined micro-droplets using experimental and machine learning methods, interfacial mass transport and self-assembly, and ultrahigh throughput opto-microfluidic systems for disease diagnostics, water and energy sustainability, and single-cell wound healing studies. She was a Stanford Biodesign Faculty Fellow in 2018. Dr. Tang’s work has been recognized by multiple awards including the NSF CAREER Award, 3M Nontenured Faculty Award, the ACS Petroleum Fund New Investigator Award, and invited lecture at the Nobel Symposium on Microfluidics in Sweden.

Sindy has been a committed member of the Lab on a Chip 2022 Commissioning Panel

Find out more on the Tang Lab website and follow @TangSindy on Twitter

Here are a selection of Sindy’s Lab on a Chip papers below:

• Exponential magnetophoretic gradient for the direct isolation of basophils from whole blood in a microfluidic system
• Confinement and viscosity ratio effect on droplet break-up in a concentrated emulsion flowing through a narrow constriction
• Optofluidic ultrahigh-throughput detection of fluorescent drops

Yi-Chin Toh

Associate Professor, School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering,  

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Yi-Chin Toh is a Future Fellow and Associate Professor at the Queensland University of Technology. She obtained her B.Eng in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D in Bioengineering from the National University of Singapore in 2001 and 2008 respectively. She did her post-doctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 under Professor Joel Voldman’s guidance. Before joining QUT, she led an independent research group as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore.

Her research interest is in engineering multi-scale tissue models to mimic complex biological interactions during human development and diseases, as well as translating them into scalable platforms for disease modeling and drug testing applications. Dr Toh is a recipient of the Australia Research Council Future Fellowship, National University of Singapore Research Scholarship, A*STAR Graduate Scholarship and A*STAR International Fellowship.

Yi-Chin has been a committed member of the Lab on a Chip 2022 Commissioning Panel

Find out more on the MicroTE Lab website and follow @MicroTElab on Twitter

Here are a selection of Yi-Chin’s Lab on a Chip papers below:

• Integration of a microfluidic multicellular coculture array with machine learning analysis to predict adverse cutaneous drug reactions
• Self-aligning Tetris-Like (TILE) modular microfluidic platform for mimicking multi-organ interactions
• A liver-immune coculture array for predicting systemic drug-induced skin sensitization

Please join us in welcoming our new Advisory Board members and we look forward to continuing to work with them on Lab on a Chip!