Lab on a Chip Blog

NMC 2013: 10th International Workshop on Nanomechanical Sensing

25 Apr 2013

The 10^th International Workshop on Nanomechanical Sensing will be taking place from next Wednesday 1^st May until 3^rd May in Stanford, California USA.

This year the workshop is focused on interdisciplinary research on and with nanoscale sensors.

NMC started in 2004 as the “nano mechanical cantilever” meeting but has grown along with innovations in nanomechanics and probing at the nanoscale. NMC focuses on new developments, investigations, applications of cantilever-based sensors, cantilever systems engineering and the mission has expanded to all modes of nanomechanical sensing to include applications such as chemical sensing, biosensing, scanning probes and metrologies, optomechanics, nanomechanics, resonant sensing, and the associated modeling and experiments, etc.

NMC brings together companies and academia to present their latest results in a lively and personal atmosphere. NMC2013 will provide a single session technical program with the latest research on nanosensing including renowned invited speakers, contributed oral and poster presentations, and excellent networking opportunities.

http://www.nmc2013.org/

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Liver on a chip featured in Chemistry World!

25 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

Research from SangHoon Lee et al. on a new 3D liver on a chip that enables more detailed study of the paracrine signalling effects on liver tissue function is featured in Chemistry World today!

Read the Chemistry World article here, including independent comment from Gretchen Mahler at Binghamtom University, US. An excerpt is below:

“Researchers in South Korea have developed a three-dimensional liver model that can recreate cell signalling within the organ. The liver on a chip could cut tests on animals by providing an accurate artificial model of how the organ responds to new drugs.The liver contains two kinds of cells. 80% are hepatocytes and the remaining 20% are non-parenchymal cells, including hepatic stellate cells (HSCs). HSCs work with hepatocytes when the liver is damaged, playing a vital role in liver regeneration. Interactions between HSCs and hepatocytes are not well understood, but both direct cell–cell contact and short distance cell–cell signalling, called paracrine signalling, are known to be involved. Despite numerous artificial liver models, no study has yet looked at paracrine influence alone.”

Design concept (top) and operation mechanism (bottom) of the chip

Spheroid-based three-dimensional liver-on-a-chip to investigate hepatocyte–hepatic stellate cell interactions and flow effects
Seung-A Lee, Da Yoon No, Edward Kang, JongIl Ju, Dong-Sik Kim and SangHoon Lee
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50197C

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Issue 10 online today! Artificial skin, robust SPR sensing platform and plenty of Technical Innovations

24 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

Research led by Jan van Hest and Floris Delft at the Institute for Molecules and Materials, The Netherlands, is highlighted by the front cover artwork. Their research finds a robust way to control the immobilization of azide-containing ligands on a surface for surface plasmon resonance sensing (SPR) using strain-promoted cycloaddition on a cyclooctyne-modified surface. Don’t forget our cover articles are free to access for 6 weeks*!

Site-specific peptide and protein immobilization on surface plasmon resonance chips via strain-promoted cycloaddition Angelique
E. M. Wammes, Marcel J. E. Fischer, Nico J. de Mol, Mark B. van Eldijk, Floris P. J. T. Rutjes, Jan C. M. van Hest and Floris L. van Delft
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41338A

On the distinctive outside back cover, fascinating collaborative work between the Ohio Center for Microfluidic Innovation at University of Cincinnati and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory on a device termed artificial microfluidic skin, which mimics human perspiration with a view to replacing human and animal testing of wearable materials.

Artificial microfluidic skin for in vitro perspiration simulation and testing
Linlin Hou, Joshua Hagen, Xiao Wang, Ian Papautsky, Rajesh Naik, Nancy Kelley-Loughnane and Jason Heikenfeld
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41231H

Of course Issue 10 also includes Research Highlights from Ali Khademhosseini. In this issue, he focuses on lab-on-DVD devices for HIV diagnosis, atherosclerosis and muscle repair.

Research highlights
João Ribas, Mark W. Tibbitt, Mehmet R. Dokmeci and Ali Khademhosseini
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC90032K

Issue 10 contains plenty of significant primary research, including three Technical Innovation articles:

Measuring material relaxation and creep recovery in a microfluidic device
Alison E. Koser, Lichao Pan, Nathan C. Keim and Paulo E. Arratia
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41379A

Optically clear alginate hydrogels for spatially controlled cell entrapment and culture at microfluidic electrode surfaces
Jordan F. Betz, Yi Cheng, Chen-Yu Tsao, Amin Zargar, Hsuan-Chen Wu, Xiaolong Luo, Gregory F. Payne, William E. Bentley and Gary W. Rubloff
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50079A

Multiplexed ionic current sensing with glass nanopores
Nicholas A. W. Bell, Vivek V. Thacker, Silvia Hernández-Ainsa, Maria E. Fuentes-Perez, Fernando Moreno-Herrero, Tim Liedl and Ulrich F. Keyser
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50069A

Have a quick browse of the contents pages of Issue 10 here

*Free access to individuals is provided through an RSC Publishing personal account. Registration is quick, free and simple

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Introducing Editorial Board Member Holger Becker

22 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

For the third post in the Introducing series, here we’re very happy to introduce you to Editorial Board member Holger Becker and his research vision, including the development of lab on a chip technology to marketable products:

Dr Holger Becker is co-founder and CSO of microfluidic ChipShop GmbH. He obtained physics degrees from the University of Western Australia/Perth and the University of Heidelberg in 1990 and 1991 respectively. He started to work on miniaturized systems for chemical analysis during his PhD thesis at the Institute for Applied Physics at Heidelberg University, where he obtained his PhD on miniaturized chemical surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors in 1995. Between 1995 and 1997 he was a Research Associate at the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College in London with Prof. Andreas Manz. In 1998 he joined Jenoptik Mikrotechnik GmbH where he was responsible for the realisation of a polymer-based microfabrication production line. Since then, he founded and led several companies in the field of microsystem technologies in medicine and the life sciences, for which he was nominated for the German Founder’s Prize in 2004. He lead the Industry Group of the German Physical Society between 2004 and 2009, and is the current chair of the SPIE ‘‘Microfluidics, BioMEMS and Medical Microsystems’’ conference as well as co-chair for MicroTAS 2013. Besides serving on the Editorial Board of “Lab-on-a-Chip”, he is a member of the General Advisory Board of MANCEF (Micro and Nanotechnology Commercialization Education Foundation), the expert panel on “Security Research” of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology as well as several other advisory boards and is acting as a regular reviewer of project proposals on a national and international level.

RESEARCH VISION: As lab-on-a-chip technologies make tremendous progress on their transition from a purely scientific topic to a commercially usable enabling technology, our work in industry concentrates on three main fields: In the area of the design of microfluidic structures, a clear trend towards fully integrated devices, i.e. devices which can perform a complete analytical or diagnostic process from sample input to result output, can be observed. We have over the years developed a microfluidic toolbox which allows a rapid development and validation of such integrated devices. The second field is the development of commercially viable back-end processing technologies. In higher volume production, these processes such as heterogeneous integration of sensors, filters or membranes, assembly, bonding, reagent storage or surface modifications, can make up to 80% of the overall manufacturing cost of a microfluidic device and many solutions which are used by the academic community cannot be scaled to higher volume manufacturing. For a commercial success however, manufacturing cost play a decisive role and research into these processes is therefore vital for the industry. The third field is the adoption of application cases onto a microfluidic platform. In order to run in a miniaturised format, existing protocols and assays have to be modified with respect to reagent composition, volumes, flow rates, timing and other parameters. We have therefore established an application lab with possibilities for processes like biomolecule deposition, reagent lyophilisation, cell culture or real-time PCR to name just a few. In our experience, a successful commercialization of a microfluidic system needs to address all the issues mentioned above in addition to a thorough business planning. It is nice to see that more and more microfluidics-enabled products are making it onto the market.

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Free software tool for quantitative droplet analysis

18 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

Prof. Amar Basu from Wayne State University, USA, uses a tutorial video to explain his new freely available software tool Droplet Morphometry and Velocimetry (DMV):

A common problem for researchers in droplet microfluidics is the quantitative analysis of droplets. Developments in the droplet microfluidics literature have shown that there is a great deal of relevant information encoded into a droplet’s physical characteristics, such its size, shape, velocity and trajectory. Indeed, several techniques utilize such characteristics as measurements for label-free assays. Currently however, much of the video or image analysis must be done manually.

Droplet Morphometry and Velocimetry (DMV) is a software tool which uses image processing techniques to track droplets in digital videos, providing quantitative, time-resolved, label-free measurements. DMV tracks 20 different parameters, including size, shape, trajectory, velocity, pixel statistics and nearest neighbor spacing. Our recent Lab on a Chip paper provides details on DMV performance and how it can be used to analyze common droplet operations and systems reported by industry and academic labs, including: droplet generators, splitting and merging devices, cell encapsulation efficiency, serial dilutions, emulsion packing, size distributions and sorting efficiency.

Droplet Morphometry and Velocimetry (DMV): A video processing software for time-resolved, label-free tracking of droplet parameters
A. S. Basu
DOI:10.1039/C3LC50074H

DMV is available free of charge to researchers in the droplet microfluidics community. Currently >25 labs worldwide have requested the software. To obtain the software, please feel free to contact Prof. Amar Basu at abasu@eng.wayne.edu. Accompanying the software are a video training tutorial, installation tutorial and a playlist of videos showing the application of DMV in various operations.

This example video of DMV applied to drop splitting is one of eight available application example videos:

We welcome your feedback and new applications of DMV! Updates will be posted to our website at http://microfluidics.wayne.edu.

DMV video tutorial (58 minutes, HD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOaYX4Zk9mA

DMV Installation tutorial (4 minutes, HD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDpAIn2MsAQ

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Introducing Editoral Board member Helene Andersson Svahn

15 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

In the second in our Introducing series, we’re very pleased to introduce Editorial Board member Helene Andersson Svahn to readers of the blog!

Helene Andersson Svahn received her M. Sc. in Molecular Biotechnology from Uppsala University and her Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in 2001. In 2002-2005 Dr Andersson Svahn was Marketing Director at Silex Microsystems. In 2003 she was selected as member of the ‘TR100: Innovators under 35 who will create the future’ at MIT in USA. In 2005-2008 she was professor in Applied BIOMEMS at MESA+ Research Institute in Holland. In 2006 Prof Andersson Svahn was awarded a prestigious research fellowship from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2011-2012 she was the President of the Young Academy of Sweden and she is also a member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Currently she is heading the Nanobiotechnology division at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and CEO of the startup company Picovitro AB (part time). Her main research focus is micro- and nano-fluidic devices for biotech and medical applications.

RESEARCH VISION: “The Nanobiotechnology group at The Royal Institute of Technology was initiated in 2005 and consists today of approximately 20 people with a wide variety of backgrounds such as electrical engineering, medicine, biotechnology, chemistry and physics creating a very dynamic and interdisciplinary environment. The Nanobiotechnology group is focusing on interdisciplinary research with a focus to combine nanotechnology and microfluidics with various biotechnology and medical applications. In 2013 the research group moved to the Science for Life Laboratory, which is a new national resource center in Sweden devoted to high-throughput bioscience with a focus on health and environment. The aim is that SciLifeLab will become the leading technology-driven national life science center in Europe. By moving into the SciLifeLab, my research group will have closer contacts with biological expertise which in combination with our cutting edge nanotechnology tools can help to maximize the output of these tools. For the future I believe that it is critical for the microfluidics field to develop a common language and understanding with biologists to enable us to shoulder biologically complex and technically demanding challenges.”

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HOT article: Low cost, miniaturised, thermoplastic SPR biosensor

12 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

As featured on the bright inside front cover of Issue 5, this HOT article from Teodor Veres and colleagues at the National Research Council and McGill University, Canada, steps towards low cost point-of-care sensors for disease diagnosis.

The team present their all-polymeric nanoplasmonic microfluidic (NMF) transmission surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor. SPR, involving light stimulated electron oscillation, is advantageous for sensing as it means label-free, real-time detection with high throughput and automation. The device is miniaturised with a view to small, point-of-care applications. The approach involves nanostructures called nanogratings for transmission SPR, which gives a more stable response. The signal can be turned by altering their characteristics and they are easily fabricated en mass.

Thermoplastic materials present an advantage over traditional PDMS for such miniaturised SPR devices as they are more mechanically robust, inert, transparent and crucially viable for large scale production and commercial applications. The novel aspect of this work is that the nanostructured surface and the microchannels are incorporated into one substrate quickly and at low cost. Thermoplastic valves are used in large numbers for the first time for a multiplex detection scheme.

They demonstrate its application in sensing glycoprotein sCD44 at picomolar to nanomolar concentrations. Further work by the group is focused on integrating this device with a CCD spectrometer.

See the design and performance results in the full paper, now available free for 4 weeks*:

All-thermoplastic nanoplasmonic microfluidic device for transmission SPR biosensing
Lidija Malic, Keith Morton, Liviu Clime and Teodor Veres
DOI: 10.1039/C2LC41123G

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LOC Issue 9 online! Micronanofabrication, neurotransmitters, SAW-controlled droplets and pharmaceutical screening

10 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

The packed Issue 9 begins with an editorial celebrating over three decades since the birth of microfluidics by Lab on a Chip Associate Editor Abraham Lee.

Submit your work to his editorial office today at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lc!

The third decade of microfluidics
Abraham Lee
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC90031B

An urgent communication from Lothar Schmid and Thomas Franke at University of Augsburg, Germany, and Harvard University, USA, is featured on the outside front cover, in which a surface acoustic wave is applied to control droplet size in real time:

SAW-controlled drop size for flow focusing
Lothar Schmid and Thomas Franke
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41233D

The inside front cover illustrates the work of researchers in New Zealand and Beijing led by Wenhui Wang who investigate locomotion metrics and muscular forces of C. elegans in one microfluidic assay:

On-chip analysis of C. elegans muscular forces and locomotion patterns in microstructured environments
Shazlina Johari, Volker Nock, Maan M. Alkaisi and Wenhui Wang
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41403E

Issue 9 includes one Tutorial Review on using microfluidics to study neurotransmitters from Callie Croushore and Jonathan Sweedler at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and one Critical Review discussing micronanofabrication techniques:

Microfluidic systems for studying neurotransmitters and neurotransmission
Callie A. Croushore and Jonathan V. Sweedler
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41334A

Fabrication and multifunction integration of microfluidic chips by femtosecond laser direct writing
Bin-Bin Xu, Yong-Lai Zhang, Hong Xia, Wen-Fei Dong, Hong Ding and Hong-Bo Sun
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC50160D

The high quality research published in Issue 9 includes a HOT article from Paul Kenis et al. again at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, which describes a new microfluidic platform for the screening of salt forms of pharmaceuticals:

Microfluidic Platform for Evaporation-based Salt Screening of Pharmaceutical Parent compounds
Sachit Goyal, Michael R. Thorson, Cassandra L. Schneider, Geoff G. Z. Zhang, Yuchuan Gong and Paul J. A. Kenis
DOI: 10.1039/C3LC41271G

View all of the articles in Issue 9 here

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Introducing Editorial Board Member Yoon-Kyoung Cho

02 Apr 2013

By Helen Bache, Development Editor.

In the first of a short series of blog posts introducing the newest members of the Lab on a Chip Editorial Board, here we are very pleased to welcome Yoon-Kyoung Cho:

Yoon-Kyoung Cho received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from POSTECH in South Korea in 1992 and 1994, respectively. She continued her studies in the USA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where she received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 1999 under the supervision of Prof. Steve Granick. Following her graduate work at UIUC, she returned to her homeland of South Korea and joined Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) as a senior research scientist. During her nine years at SAIT, she was involved in the research and development of a wide range of lab-on-a-chip technologies for biomedical applications, several of which have made it to the commercial marketplace.

In 2008, she returned to academia as an assistant professor in the school of Nano-Bioscience and Chemical Engineering at the Ulsan National Institute for Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea and was promoted to associate professor in 2010. Since 2009, she has been the chair of her department and the director of an ambitious and prestigious program, the World Class University (WCU) program, geared to perform international research with leading scientists at UNIST. Her current research interests include novel micro/nano fluidic devices for advanced diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and cell biology. She has had a prolific career in academia and industry, publishing more than 38 scientific papers and 107 registered patents to date.

Below, Professor Cho shares her views on Lab on a Chip, and the research areas she is working in currently:

RESEARCH VISION: ““Lab on a Chip” is an emerging research area where new discoveries and innovations are realized through multidisciplinary thinking and miniaturization to solve today’s most challenging problems in human health, energy and environment. Beyond the classic definition of a device that can integrates multiple laboratory functions on a small sized chip, Lab on a Chip has advanced the fundamental understanding of biological systems, broadened the basic knowledge on the molecular interactions in nano-scales, and translated into innovative designs and engineering of novel materials, devices and processes in order to provide paradigm-shifting solutions to the complex issues in chemistry, physics, biology and bioengineering. It is expected that there will be more and more examples of Lab on a Chip that go beyond chip-scale test devices and provide real impact in clinics and industry. My research group, under the title of “Integrated Nano-Biotechnology Lab”, in the school of Nano-Bioscience and Chemical Engineering at UNIST, is focused on the development of Lab on a Chip systems with fundamental understanding of bio-molecular interactions and fluidic behavior in micro/nano scales and its smart implementation by utilizing various engineering tools. Current research interests include novel micro/nano fluidic devices for advanced biomedical diagnostics, environmental monitoring and cell biology; e.g., fully integrated lab-on-a-disc for bioanalysis, biosensors using novel nano-materials, and cell chips for the investigation of cell to cell communication in cancer.”

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Lab on a Chip Blog

NMC 2013: 10th International Workshop on Nanomechanical Sensing

Liver on a chip featured in Chemistry World!

Issue 10 online today! Artificial skin, robust SPR sensing platform and plenty of Technical Innovations

Introducing Editorial Board Member Holger Becker

Free software tool for quantitative droplet analysis

Introducing Editoral Board member Helene Andersson Svahn

HOT article: Low cost, miniaturised, thermoplastic SPR biosensor

LOC Issue 9 online! Micronanofabrication, neurotransmitters, SAW-controlled droplets and pharmaceutical screening

Introducing Editorial Board Member Yoon-Kyoung Cho

Top ten most accessed LOC articles in January 2013

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