Lab on a Chip Blog

The image on the outside front cover of Issue 16  shows the method developed by Damien Baigl, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, and colleagues to reversibly switch from a continuous two-phase laminar flow to a droplet generating regime in microfluidic chips.  They have achieved this by incorporating a photosensitive surfactant into the aqueous phase.

Photoreversible fragmentation of a liquid interface for micro-droplet generation by light actuation
Antoine Diguet, Hao Li, Nicolas Queyriaux, Yong Chen and Damien Baigl
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2666-2669

On the inside front cover we have μFlowFISH – an integrated microfluidic device capable of performing 16S rRNA fluorescence in situ hybridization with flow cytometric detection for identifying bacteria.  The device developed by Anup K. Singh, Sandia National Laboratories and colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories was tested in a highly contaminated site using species involved in Cr(VI) remediation and was proved capable of quantitative detection of low numbers of microbial cells from complex samples.

Microfluidic fluorescence in situ hybridization and flow cytometry (μFlowFISH)
Peng Liu, Robert J. Meagher, Yooli K. Light, Suzan Yilmaz, Romy Chakraborty, Adam P. Arkin, Terry C. Hazen and Anup K. Singh
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2673-2679

View the rest of the issue, which includes the first in the series of Research Highlight articles from Ali Khademhosseini, reviewing the current literature in miniaturisation and related technologies, a Critical Review from Daniel T. Chiu on transitioning disposable microfluidic substrates from the lab into the clinic and a Focus article from Helene Andersson Svahn on massively parallel sequencing platforms.

On the front cover of Issue 15 we have a HOT article from Klavs Jensen and colleagues at MIT on a Teflon stack microreactor with a piezoelectric actuator.  The microreactor has been developed to handle syntheses that are prone to clogging – such as palladium-catalyzed C–N cross-coupling reactions which form insoluble salts as by-products.

A Teflon microreactor with integrated piezoelectric actuator to handle solid forming reactions
Simon Kuhn, Timothy Noël, Lei Gu, Patrick L. Heider and Klavs F. Jensen
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2488-2492
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20337A

On the inside front cover is another HOT article from Dhananjaya Dendukuri and colleagues at Achira Labs Pvt. Ltd., India who have constructed a scalable microfluidic device by weaving silk to form a fabric chip.

‘Fab-Chips’: a versatile, fabric-based platform for low-cost, rapid and multiplexed diagnostics
Paridhi Bhandari, Tanya Narahari and Dhananjaya Dendukuri
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2493-2499
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20373H

And finally the back cover features an article from Shih-Kang Fan and Chiun-Hsun Chen demonstrating a parallel-plate device capable of generating water-core and oil-shell encapsulated droplets and subsequent removal of the oil shells.

Encapsulated droplets with metered and removable oil shells by electrowetting and dielectrophoresis
Shih-Kang Fan, Yao-Wen Hsu and Chiun-Hsun Chen
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2500-2508
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20142E

View the rest of the issue online here

The two striking images on the cover of Issue 14 are from Chan Beum Park and Tony Jun Huang.

The image on the outside front cover depicts a microfluidic artificial photosynthesis platform created by Chan Beum Park‘s group at KAIST.  The platform which incorporates quantum dots and redox enzymes is capable of enzymatic synthesis of L-glutamate following light-driven NADH regeneration, similar to photosynthesis in green plants.

Artificial photosynthesis on a chip: microfluidic cofactor regeneration and photoenzymatic synthesis under visible light
Joon Seok Lee, Sahng Ha Lee, Jae Hong Kim and Chan Beum Park
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2309-2311
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20303G

Highlighted on the inside front cover is another exciting article, demonstrating the 3D focussing of particles in a microfluidic channel using standing surface acoustic waves.  The paper builds on previous work from Tony Jun Huang‘s team at Penn State which had achieved 2D control of particles using the technique.

Three-dimensional continuous particle focusing in a microfluidic channel via standing surface acoustic waves (SSAW)
Jinjie Shi, Shahrzad Yazdi, Sz-Chin Steven Lin, Xiaoyun Ding, I-Kao Chiang, Kendra Sharp and Tony Jun Huang
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2319-2324
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20042A

View the issue here

Manipulating cells in microfluidic chips is often accomplished with a magnetically driven microtool (MMT), driven by a permanent magnet.  However MMTs driven by permanent magnets suffer from low positioning accuracy and response speed.  Here, Masaya Hagiwara (Nagoya University) and colleagues have devised a new way of driving MMTs – using a piezoelectric ceramic induce ultrasonic vibration and reduce the effective friction.  The result is a 1.1 mm positioning accuracy of the microrobot, which is 100 times higher than operating without vibration.

This HOT article is featured on the cover of Issue 12 and is free to access for 6 weeks:

On-chip magnetically actuated robot with ultrasonic vibration for single cell manipulations
Masaya Hagiwara, Tomohiro Kawahara, Yoko Yamanishi, Taisuke Masuda, Lin Feng and Fumihito Arai
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2049-2054
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20164F