Lab on a Chip Blog

Check out our new Lab on a Chip themed collection, focussing on Wearable and Implantable Sensors.

The collection was curated by members of the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board, and highlights some excellent recent papers in this area. The collection features papers addressing the issues involved in creating wearable or implantable sensors and their applications for diagnostics, medicine and therapeutics, health awareness and other novel applications.

We hope you enjoy reading these articles!*

Wearable sensors: modalities, challenges, and prospects
J. Heikenfeld, A. Jajack, J. Rogers, P. Gutruf, L. Tian, T. Pan, R. Li, M. Khine, J. Kim, J. Wang and J. Kim
Critical Review, Lab on a Chip Recent Review Articles, Lab on a Chip Recent Open Access Articles
Lab Chip, 2018, 18, 217-248

A fluorometric skin-interfaced microfluidic device and smartphone imaging module for in situ quantitative analysis of sweat chemistry
Yurina Sekine, Sung Bong Kim, Yi Zhang, Amay J. Bandodkar, Shuai Xu, Jungil Choi, Masahiro Irie, Tyler R. Ray, Punit Kohli, Naofumi Kozai, Tsuyoshi Sugita, Yixin Wu, KunHyuck Lee, Kyu-Tae Lee, Roozbeh Ghaffari and John A. Rogers
Paper
Lab Chip, 2018, 18, 2178-218

Electrostatically gated nanofluidic membrane for ultra-low power controlled drug delivery
Nicola Di Trani, Antonia Silvestri, Antons Sizovs, Yu Wang, Donald R. Erm, Danilo Demarchi, Xuewu Liua and Alessandro Grattoni
Paper
Lab Chip, 2020, 20, 1562-1576

Liquid metal electrode-enabled flexible microdroplet sensor
Renchang Zhang, Zi Ye, Meng Gao, Chang Gao, Xudong Zhang, Lei Li and Lin Gui
Paper
Lab Chip, 2020, 20, 496-504

A flexible enzyme-electrode sensor with cylindrical working electrode modified with a 3D nanostructure for implantable continuous glucose monitoring
Zhihua Pu, Jiaan Tu, Ruixue Han, Xingguo Zhang, Jianwei Wu, Chao Fang, Hao Wu, Xiaoli Zhang,  Haixia Yu and Dachao Li
Paper
Lab Chip, 2018, 18, 3570-3577

Flexible plastic, paper and textile lab-on-a chip platforms for electrochemical biosensing
Anastasios Economou, Christos Kokkinos and Mamas Prodromidis
Critical Review, Lab on a Chip Recent Review Articles
Lab Chip, 2018, 18, 1812-1830

A multi-modal sweat sensing patch for cross-verification of sweat rate, total ionic charge, and Na⁺ concentration
Zhen Yuan, Lei Hou, Mallika Bariya, Hnin Yin Yin Nyein, Li-Chia Tai, Wenbo Ji, Lu Li and Ali Javey
Paper
Lab Chip, 2019, 19, 3179-3189

A wearable electrofluidic actuation system
Haisong Lin, Hannaneh Hojaiji, Shuyu Lin, Christopher Yeung, Yichao Zhao, Bo Wang, Meghana Malige, Yibo Wang, Kimber King, Wenzhuo Yu, Jiawei Tan, Zhaoqing Wang, Xuanbing Cheng and  Sam Emaminejad
Communication
Lab Chip, 2019, 19, 2966-2972

Passive sweat collection and colorimetric analysis of biomarkers relevant to kidney disorders using a soft microfluidic system
Yi Zhang, Hexia Guo, Sung Bong Kim, Yixin Wu, Diana Ostojich, Sook Hyeon Park, Xueju Wang, Zhengyan Weng, Rui Li, Amay J. Bandodkar, Yurina Sekine, Jungil Choi, Shuai Xu, Susan Quaggin, Roozbeh Ghaffari and John A. Rogers
Paper
Lab Chip, 2019, 19, 1545-1555

Complete validation of a continuous and blood-correlated sweat biosensing device with integrated sweat stimulation
A. Hauke, P. Simmers, Y. R. Ojha, B. D. Cameron, R. Ballweg, T. Zhang, N. Twine, M. Brothers, E. Gomez and J. Heikenfeld
Paper
Lab Chip, 2018, 18, 3750-3759

*These articles are free to read for 4 weeks.

We are delighted to announce a new thematic collection in Lab on a Chip, focusing on multimodal single cell analysis, with Professors Daniel T. Chiu and Pratip K. Chattopadhyay as thought leaders.

Professors Chiu and Chattopadhyay describe the current challenges in the field in their recent editorial in Lab on a Chip on “The Next Frontier in Single Cell Analysis: MultiModal Studies and Clinical Translation”:

“Biological processes are inherently complex. Stochasticity, redundancy, plasticity, and noise are built into fundamental cellular activities from gene transcription to protein expression. A major challenge in biomedical research is to untangle this complexity. Microarray technology influenced biological research because it demonstrated clearly the wide selection of cellular molecules available for measurement and provided an efficient means to query them. However, microarrays require a large amount of material and assay large numbers of cells together in bulk.

Single cell analysis overcomes the problems of bulk measurements, but for many years the only available technology—flow cytometry—was incapable of highly multiplexed measurements. The current movement in single cell analysis is multimodal characterization. These approaches, which are rapidly replacing one-dimensional single cell analysis in biomedical research, simultaneously combine measurements of transcription with post-transcriptional regulation, epigenetic modifications, and surface protein expression. It is possible that lipid and metabolite composition, and/or cellular morphology may also be analyzed with the transcriptome or proteome.

We now have a dizzying array of tools that provide us with the potential to comprehensively and accurately characterize the cells involved in a biological process. We are a step away from using these tools widely and efficiently to impact clinical care, but there are large obstacles we must break down first. With a better understanding of the complexity ingrained in cellular systems, how do we smartly choose subsets of markers and cell types to survey, remembering that samples from patients are often limited as are research budgets? Once we know what to measure, there is the critical question of how to measure it, since there are a myriad of technical platforms and data analysis tools from which to choose. As we make measurements, how do we ensure that they are robust—are there general validation and quality control principles we can establish, or are such measures wholly platform-specific? Finally, are highly multiplexed, single cell technologies valuable only as a screening tool to identify simple biomarkers, or can these highly complex technologies (and their associated data analysis algorithms) be used directly for clinical diagnostics?”

We invite review and research manuscripts that suggest answers to these questions and related issues for inclusion in a thematic collection focused on multimodal single cell analysis. If you are interested in submitting to the collection please contact the Editorial Office.

This collection open for submissions now, and into 2020.

If you’re interested in this topic, you can read our previous thematic collection on droplet-based single-cell sequencing here. The articles are free to read until November 15^th 2019.

Professor James R. Heath, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, USA

We are very happy to announce a new thematic collection in Lab on a Chip on cancer immunotherapy with Professor James R. Heath, President and Professor at Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, acting as Thought leader.

In his recent Editorial published in Lab on a Chip, Professor James R. Heath wrote “The rapid development of cancer immunotherapies over the past 5-10 years is not only revolutionizing clinical cancer care, but it is also making the immunotherapy field a proving ground for many new measurement and computational technologies.  An understanding of the technological needs of this field can be gleaned by placing those needs within the context of state-of-the-art treatments. […]

The level of personalisation that is now being tested in the clinic hardly was unthinkable just a decade ago.  The newness of personalized cancer immunotherapies means that, as a rule, they are still extremely expensive.  An urgent and unmet need is to develop technologies that can assist in the democratization of such treatments.[…]

A unique characteristic of the biology of immuno-oncology is that it can invariably be mined to generate new hypotheses for how to improve treatments.  Such hypotheses might include approaches for improved bioengineering of T cells, or the potential identification of new immune checkpoints, etc.  While this characteristic gives cancer immunotherapy a very bright future, it also means that finding technologies that can rapidly and inexpensively validate or negate such hypotheses is an urgent and rapidly expanding need”

We welcome primary research and review content relating to how lab-on-a-chip technologies can be developed to address these and related challenges for inclusion in a thematic collection in Lab on a Chip focused on immuno-engineering and immuno-therapy. This collection is now open for submissions and we are looking for submissions into 2020.

Please note that all submitted manuscripts will be subject to peer review in accordance with the journal’s normal standards.

Lab on a Chip publishes significant and original work related to miniaturisation, at the micro- and nano-scale, of interest to a multidisciplinary readership. The journal seeks to publish work at the interface between physical technological advancements and high impact applications that are of direct interest to a broad audience.

We have compiled a collection of recent papers and reviews published in Lab on a Chip on this topic. These articles can be read at rsc.li/immunotherapy and are available free to access* until the 15^th November 2019. A couple of highlights from this collections are shown below.

Graphical Abstract from Segaliny, Zhao, et al., 2018 (DOI: 10.1039/C8LC00818C)

Functional TCR T cell screening using single-cell droplet microfluidics

Aude I. Segaliny, Weian Zhao, et al.

MATE-Seq: microfluidic antigen-TCR engagement sequencing

Alphonsus H. C. Ng, James R. Heath et al.

If you’re interested in contributing to this collection,

please contact the Lab on a Chip Editorial Office.

We are pleased to announce a new Thematic Collection on Organ-on-a-Chip systems, translating concept into practice!

The first collection of papers on “Organ-body-and disease-on-a-Chip” collection has proved to be popular with the community. The collection has given this emerging field an identity and an effective venue for others to learn of the breadth, depth, and importance of this emerging area. We are delighted to announce that Michael Shuler (Cornell University, USA) will be acting as Thought Leader this follow-up collection.

We believe that a second collection highlighting efforts to translate this concept into practice would be valuable. While proof-of-concept papers for potential devices remains important, there has been significant progress in the last two years towards addressing the practical issues of translating these concepts into workable systems that will be adopted by industry and approved by regulators. While pharmaceuticals remain the primary target, it is clear that these devices will play important roles in the cosmetic, food, and chemical industries.

For regulatory approval and industrial adoption these devices need to be simple (easy to run by a technician), largely self-contained, low cost, reliable, incorporate advanced analytical techniques, and have efficient software to convert measurements into predictions of human response. Some of the initial proof-of-concept devices are too complicated and hence costly to be implemented industrially.  For an academic paper a lab can afford to have a high failure rate of systems as long as sufficient systems function to provide a robust data set.  For an industrial setting a high success rate will be necessary for adoption.  Automation of devices and efficient data collection and interpretation will be necessary for systems to have a broad impact and reduce labour costs.  Although much of the industrial data are proprietary, it should be possible to take historical cases where a drug candidate was approved and then withdrawn from the market due to toxicity and determine if the failure of the drug could have been anticipated from studies with a microphysiological (MPS) system.  Such examples could provide a compelling rationale for inclusion of MPS systems particularly in the later stages of the preclinical drug development process.

A series of papers that address aspects of the issues involved in moving from “proof-of-principle” devices to systems that can be routinely incorporated into testing of drugs, cosmetics, food ingredients, and chemicals would be valuable to the development of the field of microphysiological systems. We seek contributions that will help us fulfill this goal.

Lab on a Chip publishes the best work on significant and original work related to minia-turisation, at the micro- and nano-scale, of interest to a multidisciplinary readership. The journal seeks to publish work at the interface between physical technological advancements and high impact applications that are of direct interest to a broad audience.

Extraordinarily novel organ-on-a-chip systems that demonstrate unique new functions are also welcome.

Interested in submitting to the collection? 

We welcome submissions of original research articles and reviews to this collection and the collection is open for submissions.

Articles will be published as they are accepted and added to this online collection. They will receive extensive promotion throughout the submission period and as a complete collection.

If you are interested in submitting to the series, please get in touch with the Lab on a Chip Editorial Office at loc-rsc@rsc.org.

We are delighted to announce our latest Thematic Collection in Lab on a Chip – Personalised Medicine: Liquid Biopsy!

This collection is being lead by Thought Leaders Stefanie Jeffrey and Mehmet Toner.

Stefanie Jeffrey, MD, is the John and Marva Warnock Professor and Chief of Surgical Oncology Research in the Department of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her lab focuses on technology development and applications related to liquid biopsy (CTCs, ctDNA, extracellular vesicles), droplet-based microfluidic platforms, and preclinical models for testing new cancer therapies.

Mehmet Toner, PhD, is a member of the faculty at the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Toner is motivated by multi-disciplinary problems at the interface of engineering and life sciences. In the fields of microfluidics/micro-engineering/cancer he is working on microfluidics in biology and medicine including microfluidic blood processing, developing a microchip to help sort rare cells and integration of living cells and micro-engineered tissue units into micro-devices.

Liquid Biopsy, coined by Pantel and Alix-Panabières in 2010, originally referred to real-time analyses of CTCs in cancer. However, that term has since expanded to encompass the analyses of many other disease-related substances found in blood and other body fluids. Our goal is to highlight the new advances in this growing field with an emphasis on the interface between the technological advancements and high impact applications of liquid biopsy technologies. These would include manuscripts related to components that can be captured or characterized from blood such as circulating tumour cells, circulating nucleic acids and circulating extracellular vesicles.

Interested in submitting to the collection?

If you are interested in submitting to the personalised medicine: liquid biopsy collection, please contact the Lab on a Chip Editorial Office at loc-rsc@rsc.org  and provide a title and abstract of your proposed submission.

Articles will be published as they are accepted and collated into an online Thematic Collection, which will receive extensive promotion. Read the collection so far – http://rsc.li/liquid-biopsy 

Submissions for this collection are open from 1st September 2017 to 31st October 2018

We are pleased to announce the latest Thematic Collection in Lab on a Chip – Droplet-Based Single-Cell Sequencing!

We are delighted that Lab on a Chip Advisory Board member David A Weitz (Harvard University, USA) is Thought Leader of this collection!

The field of droplet-based single-cell sequencing field has made increasing advances in recent years. Large numbers of studies are underway to collect and explore the new information that is now accessible with single-cell RNA-seq. Improvements to microfluidics are advancing rapidly and extensions to other sequencing methods are also being developed, enabling investigations to probe information beyond mRNA alone. This has rapidly become a burgeoning field, where microfluidic techniques are essential and where droplet-based microfluidics has enabled a major advance.

For more context, please read the editorials “Perspective on droplet-based-single cell sequencing” by David Weitz and “InDrops and Drop-seq technologies for single-cell sequencing” by Allon Klein and Evan Macosko.

The goal of this collection is to highlight the new advances in this growing field, with an emphasis on the interface between the technological advancements and high impact applications of droplet-based single-cell sequencing.

Read articles included in the collection so far at rsc.li/drop-sc-seq

Interested in submitting to the collection?

If you are interested in contributing to the droplet-based single-cell sequencing collection, please get in touch with the Lab on a Chip Editorial Office at loc-rsc@rsc.org and provide a title and abstract of your proposed submission.

Articles will be published as they are accepted and collated into an online Thematic Collection, which will receive extensive promotion.

Submissions for this collection are open from 15th July 2017 to 30th April 2018 

We are pleased to announce Lab on a Chip‘s first Thematic Collection in 2017, Organ-, Body- and Disease-on-a-Chip!

We are delighted to announce that Michael Shuler (Cornell University, USA) will be acting as Thought Leader for this collection. His research focuses on “Body-on-a-Chip” devices applied to evaluate different treatments for cancer, such as multi-drug resistant cancer. Read Michael Shuler’s recent Editorial for more information.

An emerging area of interest for drug development over the last 13 years has been constructing human biomimetic systems by combining the techniques of microfabrication and tissue engineering. In this collection, we define an “Organ-on-a-Chip” as a physical microscale model (typically an order of 10⁻⁶ to 10⁻⁴ of actual size) of a particular human organ.

The questions we aim to address in this collection are whether these emerging technologies will improve both drug development and the regulation of human exposure to chemicals. What technical challenges remain? What will be the most effective way to utilize this emerging technology? Can this technology lead to cost effective, measurable improvements in human health? Our goal is to highlight the new advances in this growing field with an emphasis on the interface between the technological advancements and high impact applications of organ-, body- and disease-on-a-chip technologies.

Interested in submitting to the collection? 

We have recently launched a second collection highlighting efforts to translate this concept into practice. A series of papers that address aspects of the issues involved in moving from “proof-of-principle” devices to systems that can be routinely incorporated into testing of drugs, cosmetics, food ingredients, and chemicals would be valuable to the development of the field of microphysiological systems. We seek contributions that will help us fulfill this goal. More information can be found on the updated blog.  

We welcome submissions of original research articles and reviews to this collection and the collection is open for submissions. 

If you are interested in submitting to the series, please get in touch with the Lab on a Chip Editorial Office at loc-rsc@rsc.org.