Lab on a Chip Blog

Flow17 will be hosted by Pierre Gilles de Gennes Institute at Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University, Paris on 3^rd – 5^th July 2017.

An excellent scientific program will include three parallel sessions, plenary talks, pitches and a very strong poster exhibition. Among the speakers are Lab on a Chip Editorial Board Member Shoji Takeuchi and Advisory Board Members George Whitesides and Albert Folch. The social program surrounding the sessions should allow for stimulating scientific exchange with your colleagues.

The aim of this three-day international conference is to develop the fundamentals of micro- and nanofluidics by stimulating exchanges within the community, providing them a unique opportunity to meet and be inspired by the exciting applications that are currently driving the field.

Main topics will include:

• Droplets & Emulsion
• Interface & Wetting
• Microreactors
• Nanofluidics
• Modeling / Numerical Simulation / Theory
• Cells & Tissues
• Physicals concepts in technology / Paper microfluidics
• Fluids transports (actuation & porous)
• Biological flows

IMPORTANT DATES

17th March 2017: Abstract submission closes

24th April 2017: Notification of authors

15th May 2017: Early bird registration

Register now on the Flow17 website.

You are cordially invited to the Microfluidics Congress: USA in Philadelphia on 24th – 26th July 2017. Join our community of leading academics and scientists from biotechnology & pharmaceuticals organizations who are working to transform healthcare by harnessing the developments of these new and overlapping technologies.

Microfluidics is a rapidly developing area of research, and scientists are continually discovering the wide range of possibilities the technology can provide. At the intersection of engineering, physics, chemistry, nanotechnology, and biotechnology, microfluidics is revolutionizing the way patients are diagnosed, monitored and treated, and is unlocking the potential for reduced reagent consumption and thus, cost.


The conference will examine the latest developments in the technologies and techniques being used for progressing medical research, as well as the challenges and future of microfluidics. Registration is now open here.

Some of the topics to be covered:


• Point-of-care diagnostics
• Organ-on-a-chip
• Droplet microfluidics
• Microfabrication
• Isolation and analysis of CTCs
• 3D printing of microfluidic devices
• Single-cell analysis
• Commercialization and venture capitalism

Keynote speakers will include Lab on a Chip Editor-in-Chief  Abraham Lee and Advisory Board member George Whitesides. See the agenda for further details.



Enhance your itinerary with pre & post event workshops. Lab on a Chip Advisory Board member Holger Becker (microfluidic ChipShop GmbH), will lead a 4 hour workshop on Lab-on-a-Chip technologies as an enabling technology for new product development in diagnostics and the life sciences.

The 4th Analytical Biosciences Early Career Researcher Meeting is the annual meeting organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Biosciences Group aimed at engaging with and promoting early career researchers work. This year, it will be held the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK on 15^th-16^th March. They hope to “engage in discussions and debate through considering applications of the current and future analytical technologies”. Confirmed keynote speakers include Mark Viant, from the University of Birmingham, Pete O’Connor, from the University of Warwick and Matthew Baker, from the University of Strathclyde. To find out more about the programme and to register to attend, please visit their website.

Important Dates:

Abstract Submission Deadline: 1^st March 2017

Early Bird Registration Deadline: 31^st January 2017

Submit your abstract in order to take advantage of this excellent opportunity to present your work!

SLAS2017 is the annual International Conference and Exhibition from the Society of Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS). The event will take place at the Walter E Washington Convention Center in  Washington DC, USA  on 4-8 February 2017. Through a unique combination of education, access to innovative technologies and intelligent peer networking, SLAS2017 delivers unmatched value for professionals and students looking to leverage the potential of life sciences discovery and technology. The keynote speakers at this event are Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (Group Leader, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus) and Rachel Swaby (Author of “Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science—and the World”). Visit the conference website for further details on the themes and speakers, as well as the preliminary scientific program.

Important date: 

Register now to attend and present your work!

The Symposium Latsis EPFL 2016 “Multicellular organisms in microfluidic systems” was held from 14 November 2016 to 16 November 2016 at the EPFL campus in Lausanne (Switzerland). The event was co-organised by Prof. Johan Auwerx and Lab on a Chip Advisory Board member Prof. Martin Gijs.

PhD student Li Dong was presented the Poster Award

Studies of living organisms like nematodes and invertebrate embryos in controlled spatio-temporal chemical environments on microfluidic chips are gaining momentum, as these animals offer genetic amenability, low-cost, and culture conditions that are compatible with large-scale screens, while not raising ethical issues. The Latsis Symposium wanted to bridge the gap between microfluidic systems and biological model organism research, by providing an interdisciplinary forum on the technology and applications of microfluidic systems for studies of multicellular organisms in medicine and biology.

Topics covered in each of the sessions were:

Li Dong's winning poster on "On-chip biocommunication through exchange of compounds secreted by male C. elegans nematodes"

A distinction for the best contributed poster of the Symposium was given to Ph.D. student Li Dong of the Laboratory of Microsystems of EPFL. He received an electronic subscription to the RSC journals Lab on a Chip and Integrative Biology.

Last week Zhejiang University hosted Lab on a Chip’s International Symposium on droplet-based microfluidics in Hangzhou, China.

This high-quality international symposium was an enormous success, with 200 attendees and 22 speakers from around the world. A range of topics were covered, such as “Droplet microfluidics for single studies” by David Weitz (Harvard University), “All-aqueous droplet microfluidics for bio-encapsulation” by Anderson Ho Cheung Shum, (Hong Kong University), “Collective behavior of crowded drops in microfluidic systems” by Sindy Tang (Stanford University) and “Digital microfluidics for chemistry, biology, and medicine” by Aaron Wheeler (University of Toronto). You can read more of Dr Shum’s and Dr Tang’s recently published work on microfluidics in the Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigators 2016 issue.

Droplet-based microfluidics has emerged as one of the most active research fields in microfluidics. As the world’s leading chemistry community, the Royal Society of Chemistry was pleased to collaborate with Zhejiang University to co-organise this symposium, chaired by Prof Qun Fang (Zhejiang University) and co-chaired by Prof Aaron Wheeler (University of Toronto).

Novel microfluidic droplet manipulation technologies were showcased along with their system applications in chemistry, biology, medicine, making this a thoroughly productive interdisciplinary event.

Winners of the Poster Prizes, with Professor Yanyi Huang (far left), Lab on a Chip Advisory Board member, and Maria Southall (far right), Lab on a Chip Deputy Editor

Speakers who presented at the symposium are listed below and also included three Lab on a Chip Associate Editors and multiple Advisory Board members:

• Daniel T. Chiu, University of Washington, United States
• Liangyin Chu, Sichuan University, China
• Petra Dittrich, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
• Wenbin Du, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
• Yanyi Huang, Peking University, China
• Xingyu Jiang, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China, China
• Dong-Pyo Kim, Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea
• Jinming Lin, Tsinghua University, China
• Baohong Liu, Fudan University, China
• Bifeng Liu, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
• Jiuan Lv, Fudan University, China
• Nicole Pamme, University of Hull, United Kingdom
• Jianhua Qin, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, China
• Anderson Shum, Hongkong University, China
• Sindy KY Tang, Stanford University, United States
• David A. Weitz, Harvard University, United States
• Aaron Wheeler, University of Toronto, Canada
• Xinghua Xia, Nanjing University, China
• Jianhong Xu, Tsinghua University, China
• Jingjuan Xu, Nanjing University, China
• Chaoyong Yang, Xiamen University, China
• Zhiling Zhang, Wuhan University, China

At the Tuesday lunch break of this year’s conference for Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences (MicroTAS) in Dublin, you may have thought the conference audience was getting significantly younger, despite being in its 20^th year. Pupils from local schools filled lecture halls along with members of the conference delegation. Conference chairs Nicole Pamme and Jens Ducrée invited attendees to join 500 local pupils for a science outreach event sharing the capabilities of microfluidic technologies. Pupils attended a lecture by Professor Sabeth Verpoorte explaining what microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies are and had the chance to participate in a number of hands-on activities. The event served to increase student interest in STEM as well as a way for researchers to share activities they use for science outreach.

Pupils had a chance to use real microfluidic chips taken straight from the lab.

Researchers regularly participate in outreach events to promote an interest in STEM subjects. This is often through universities and community science festivals open to the public. Conferences serve as a great opportunity for international researchers to connect and share their work with other like-minded scientists, but in the past have rarely been opportunities to engage with the general public. For the first time in its history, MicroTAS included public engagement in its 2016 programme.

Pupils from eight local schools participated in a number of hands-on activities highlighting lab-on-a-chip technologies. Such activities ranged from interacting with large-scale versions of chips to trap ping-pong balls (cells); applying fabrication technology like injection molding to produce chocolate treats; to using microfluidic chips that volunteers brought and demonstrated. The outreach event was made possible through financial support from the RSC Outreach Fund, the Institute of Physics (Ireland), and the Analytical Chemistry Trust Fund. Eilish McLoughlin, Director of the Centre for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTeL) at Dublin City University connected the conference with local schools, and Mark Tarn (Leeds University) coordinated all the conference volunteers. Volunteers represented 20 different universities and companies, highlighting a range of possibilities for careers in STEM.

Pupils file in for the event in Dublin. (Photo credit Tae Jae Lee).

Professor Pamme, who spearheaded the event, wanted to create an opportunity for researchers to share the different types of educational activities they have developed using microfluidics. Publications using microfluidics as a teaching tool do crop up in the literature (for example: Lab on a Chip, 12, 696-701; Lab on a Chip, 15, 947-957), but many microfluidic outreach and teaching activities do not get published. Professor Pamme hoped that there would be cross-pollination of ideas by having volunteers help out with peers at different institutions. A poster exhibit highlighting all the different activities was on display for the duration of the conference and these will be available from the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society website (the host organization for MicroTAS).

This year’s outreach event may well serve as a template for future MicroTAS conferences as well as for other disciplines including outreach as a part of their international meetings.

Outreach organizers (from left to right) Mark Tarn, Nicole Pamme, and Jens Ducree.

Invited keynote talk “Lab, Cells and Organ on a Chip” by Dr. Albert van den Berg (University of Twente, The Netherlands)

The 6th Workshop on Microfluidics was held at the Convention Center of UNICAMP (State University of Campinas) in Campinas, Sao Paulo (Brazil), from 20-22 July, 2016. Since 2011, the workshop has brought together young students, researchers, and companies from different states of Brazil to discuss topics related to fundamentals, fabrication technologies, innovations, and applications in microfluidic science. This field has been spread out around different regions of Brazil presenting outstanding contributions for microfabrication and microfluidic technologies.

The event was supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry for the fourth time. Prof Dosil P. de Jesus (UNICAMP), member of the 6th Workshop on Microfluidics scientific board, presented the poster competition awards, sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Lab on a Chip and Analytical Methods journals.

The winner of the Analytical Methods Poster Competition was Gabriela B. Almeida, from State University of Campinas, for her work “Microfluidic Devices Combining Dielectrophoresis Trapping and Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy”.

Gabriela F. Giordano, from The Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory (LNNano), Campinas, was the winner of the Lab on a Chip Poster Competition for her work “Gravity-Assisted Distillation on a Chip: a Novel Concept for Sample Preparation in Microfluidics”.

Gabriela Brito Almeida (centre), winner of the Analytical Methods Competition, with Prof. Dosil P. de Jesus (UNICAMP) (right) and Dr Elizabeth Magalhaes (RSC Manager, Brazil) (left)

Gabriela F. Giordano (centre), winner of the Lab on a Chip Competition, with Prof. Dosil P. de Jesus (UNICAMP) (right) and Dr Elizabeth Magalhaes (RSC Manager, Brazil) (left)