Lab on a Chip Blog

What?

The Dicty World Race is a cell engineering challenge – competitors must apply their knowledge of chemotaxis to engineer the ultimate chemotaxing cell line. The test is between Dictyostelium, HL60 cells and human neutrophils.

Cells will navigate a complex microfluidic maze to reach a pool of chemoattractant at the finish line. As the race goes on, chemoattractant will diffuse through the microfluidic device, creating a spatial gradient to guide cells along the shortest path.

When?

The date for the 2014 Dicty Race is set for Friday May 16

Why?

To show off your molecular skills!

If you need more encouragement to take part, the winning team will win $5,000 and 15 minutes of fame at the Annual Dicty Conference.

More info?

Visit the website for more details: https://sites.google.com/site/dictyworldrace2014/

A platform for simultaneously screening thousands of sperm cells could lead to more efficient identification of high performing sperm for fertility treatments.

Protein islands trap individual sperm cells for motility analysis

 Assisted reproductive technologies have revolutionised the fertility world, however, sperm must be carefully picked on the basis of specific characteristics, including motility, to increase the chance of a successful pregnancy. However, more than half of the sperm selected for intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) using current procedures are damaged.

To read the full article, please go to Chemistry World.

Make it Spin: Individual Trapping of Sperm for Analysis and Recovery Using Micro-Contact Printing
Jean-Philippe Frimat, Mathijs Bronkhorst, Bjorn de Wagenaar, Johan Bomer, Ferdi van der Heijden, Albert van den Berg and Loes Segerink  
Lab Chip, 2014, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C4LC00050A, Paper

Researchers in the US have demonstrated that mechanical energy from a human hand can power a microfluidic device.

The behaviour of liquids on a charged dielectric surface can be controlled by passing a current through that surface, known as the electrowetting on dielectric phenomenon (EWOD). In digital microfluidic devices, individual droplets containing samples or reagents are manipulated, allowing the controlled movement and mixing of reagents in different droplets. However, the need for a bulky external high-voltage power supply currently limits the potential application in biomedical devices and optics.

Movement creates piezoelectric potentials for manipulating droplets in the microfluidic system

 To read the full article please visit Chemistry World.

EWOD (Electrowetting on Dielectric) Digital Microfluidics Powered by Finger Actuation
Cheng Peng, Zhongning Zhang, Chang-Jin Kim and Y. Sungtaek Ju  
Lab Chip, 2013, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC51223A, Paper

The holidays are nearly here!!

We know everyone’s been working hard to finish off semesters and write up those papers. Here in Cambridge we’ve been working hard too, planning for the New Year and wrapping up 2013.

To spread the holiday cheer, we’ve chosen three highly accessed papers and made them *FREE TO ACCESS* for the next four weeks. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas from the LOC team!

Paper: Albumin testing in uring using a smartphone, by Aydogan Ozcan, UCLA

Critical Review: Paper-based microfluidic point-of-care diagnostic devices, by Ali Kemal Yetisen, Cambridge

Paper: Cholesterol testing on a smartphone, by David Erickson, Cornell

Access is free through a registered RSC account – click here to register

 We are pleased to announce the inclusion of Altmetrics on Lab on a Chip.

With a constantly changing publishing landscape and changes to the way people use scientific literature, altmetrics is a measure that can monitor the level of conversation and interest in a particular piece of research at the article level. Thus altmetrics provides an additional modern metric for our authors to measure the impact of their work, rather than rely solely on citations and impact factor.

To view altmetrics on Lab on a Chip articles, use the Metrics tab as pictured below on the article landing page.

A press release from Altmetrics is available on our website.

What do you think? We are interested to hear your feedback on this new development and how you are utilising these new types of metrics. Please leave your comments below.