View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:
1-Million droplet array with wide-field fluorescence imaging for digital PCR
Lateral dielectrophoretic microseparators to measure the size distribution of blood cells
Guiding, distribution, and storage of trains of shape-dependent droplets
On the outside front cover of Issue 22 we have an image from Aleksei Aksimentiev (University of Illinois) et al. highlighting their work modelling the transport of solutes through nanochannels with sticky surfaces. Their method allows Brownian dynamics simulations of nanofluidic systems with retention of atomic-scale precision in the description of solute interactions, without incurring the huge cost of molecular dynamics simulations.
A
toms-to-microns model for small solute transport through sticky nanochannels
Rogan Carr, Jeffrey Comer, Mark D. Ginsberg and Aleksei Aksimentiev
On the inside front cover a paper from Carolyn Ren and colleagues at the University of Waterloo is displayed. They have sought to understand the chaos that can be created at junctions in microfluidic channels and have developed a model to describe droplet sorting in different geometries, droplet resistances and pressures.
Passive droplet trafficking at microfluidic junctions under geometric and flow asymmetries
Tomasz Glawdel, Caglar Elbuken and Carolyn Ren
View the rest of the issue online here
Congratulations are in order for Lab on a Chip author Ali Khademhosseini, who is to receive the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers it was announced by The White House last month. This is the highest honour bestowed by the US government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.
Professor Khademhosseini writes a regular Research Highlights feature for Lab on a Chip, covering exemplary research in recent literature and also received the 2011 Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lecture at the 2011 MicroTAS meeting in Seattle earlier this month. The Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lectureship is awarded by Lab on a Chip and Corning Inc. to early to mid-career scientists for extraordinary or outstanding contributions to the understanding or development of miniaturised systems.
Why not take a look at some recent work in Lab on a Chip from Professor Khademhosseini:
An integrated microfluidic device for two-dimensional combinatorial dilution
Yun-Ho Jang, Matthew J. Hancock, Sang Bok Kim, Šeila Selimović, Woo Young Sim, Hojae Bae and Ali Khademhosseini
Microfabricated polyester conical microwells for cell culture applications
Šeila Selimović, Francesco Piraino, Hojae Bae, Marco Rasponi, Alberto Redaelli and Ali Khademhosseini
A cell-based biosensor for real-time detection of cardiotoxicity using lensfree imaging
Sang Bok Kim, Hojae Bae, Jae Min Cha, Sang Jun Moon, Mehmet R. Dokmeci, Donald M. Cropek and Ali Khademhosseini
We are now accepting nominations for the 2012 Lab on a Chip/Corning Inc. Pioneers of Miniaturisation Lectureship. Nominations should be sent to Harp Minhas, Editor, Lab on a Chip.
Cardiac troponin I (cTnI) occurs only in heart muscle, making it an excellent biomarker for diagnosing damage to heart tissue as a result of a heart attack, for example. Recent work has indicated that the phosphorylation state of cTnI is a more accurate indicator of heart muscle health than the total cTnI concentration – which is used in current assays.
In this hot paper Cornelius F. Ivory and colleagues at Washington State University have used cationic isotachophoresis to preconcentrate samples of cTnI spiked blood samples at clinically relevant concentrations in a cascade microchip. Preconcentration allows detection of concentrations as low as 46 ng mL-1, and the method is able to quantitatively differentiate between phosphorylated and unphosphorylated cTnI.
To read more on the design of the chip and its potential for use in clinical settings download the article – it’s free to access for 4 weeks following a simple registration:
Preconcentration and detection of the phosphorylated forms of cardiac troponin I in a cascade microchip by cationic isotachophoresis
Danny Bottenus, Mohammad Robiul Hossan, Yexin Ouyang, Wen-Ji Dong, Prashanta Dutta and Cornelius F. Ivory
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20469F
Large-scale plasmonic microarrays for label-free high-throughput screening
Tsung-Yao Chang, Min Huang, Ahmet Ali Yanik, Hsin-Yu Tsai, Peng Shi, Serap Aksu, Mehmet Fatih Yanik and Hatice Altug
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3596-3602
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20475K
Droplet formation via flow-through microdevices in Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy—concepts and applications
Anne März, Thomas Henkel, Dana Cialla, Michael Schmitt and Jürgen Popp
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3584-3592
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20638A
Speed of flow of individual droplets in microfluidic channels as a function of the capillary number, volume of droplets and contrast of viscosities
Slawomir Jakiela, Sylwia Makulska, Piotr M. Korczyk and Piotr Garstecki
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3603-3608
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20534J
As with all our cover article, these are free to access for the next 6 weeks.
Ali Khademhosseini and Šeila Selimović discuss their highlights in recent literature, including a Lab on a Chip article from Christopher Bowman:
Research highlights
Šeila Selimović and Ali Khademhosseini
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3581-3583
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC90096J
Read the editorial on our forthcoming tutorial series on acoustofluidics, reviewing the state of the art and to providing a point of entry for newcomers to this rapidly developing research field:
Acoustofluidics—exploiting ultrasonic standing wave forces and acoustic streaming in microfluidic systems for cell and particle manipulation
Henrik Bruus, Jurg Dual, Jeremy Hawkes, Martyn Hill, Thomas Laurell, Johan Nilsson, Stefan Radel, Satwindar Sadhal and Martin Wiklund
Jurgen Popp, University of Jena, and colleagues review the applications of droplet formation with flow-through microdevices in Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS).
They look at the advantages of the techniques for highly-specific analytic detection and forward to the novel possibilities offered by future developments.
Areas covered:
This hot review is free to access for 4 weeks – download today to learn more:
Droplet formation via flow-through microdevices in Raman and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy—concepts and applications
Anne März, Thomas Henkel, Dana Cialla, Michael Schmitt and Jürgen Popp
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3584-3592
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20638A
On the cover of Issue 20 we have hot articles from Ye and Demirci et al., Liu and Kokini et al. and Ren and Wu et al.
The outside front cover depicts Bin Ye and Utkan Demirci‘s paper where they have demonstrated that a mobile phone can be used to image and process the results of an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test on a microchip, reducing previously bulky equipment to a size where it could be used at the bedside.
Integration of cell phone imaging with microchip ELISA to detect ovarian cancer HE4 biomarker in urine at the point-of-care
ShuQi. Wang, Xiaohu Zhao, Imran Khimji, Ragip Akbas, Weiliang Qiu, Dale Edwards, Daniel W. Cramer, Bin Ye and Utkan Demirci
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3411-3418 
The inside front cover highlights green microfluidic research from Gang Logan Liu and Jozef L. Kokini, where they have used a by-product from corn – zein – instead of the traditional plastics to produce a microfluidic device. This article was also highlighted in Chemistry World.
Green microfluidic devices made of corn proteins
Jarupat Luecha, Austin Hsiao, Serena Brodsky, Gang Logan Liu and Jozef L. Kokini
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3419-3425
And on the back cover is work from Hongwen Ren and Shin-Tson Wu where they report a novel approach which can extensively spread a liquid crystal interface, which opens a route to new voltage controllable, polarization-insensitive, and broadband liquid photonic devices.
Voltage-expandable liquid crystal surface
Hongwen Ren, Su Xu and Shin-Tson Wu
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3426-3430
This month sees the following articles in Lab on a Chip that are in the top ten most accessed:
Automated cellular sample preparation using a Centrifuge-on-a-Chip
Albert J. Mach, Jae Hyun Kim, Armin Arshi, Soojung Claire Hur and Dino Di Carlo
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2827-2834
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20330D
Benchtop micromolding of polystyrene by soft lithography
Yuli Wang, Joseph Balowski, Colleen Phillips, Ryan Phillips, Christopher E. Sims and Nancy L. Allbritton
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3089-3097
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20281B
Next-generation integrated microfluidic circuits
Bobak Mosadegh, Tommaso Bersano-Begey, Joong Yull Park, Mark A. Burns and Shuichi Takayama
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 2813-2818
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20387H
Beyond PDMS: off-stoichiometry thiol–ene (OSTE) based soft lithography for rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices
Carl Fredrik Carlborg, Tommy Haraldsson, Kim Öberg, Michael Malkoch and Wouter van der Wijngaart
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3136-3147
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20388F
A high-performance microsystem for isolating circulating tumor cells
Xiangjun Zheng, Luthur Siu-Lun Cheung, Joyce A. Schroeder, Linan Jiang and Yitshak Zohar
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3269-3276
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20331B
Paper on a disc: balancing the capillary-driven flow with a centrifugal force
Hyundoo Hwang, Seung-Hoon Kim, Tae-Hyeong Kim, Je-Kyun Park and Yoon-Kyoung Cho
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20445A
Double-emulsion drops with ultra-thin shells for capsule templates
Shin-Hyun Kim, Jin Woong Kim, Jun-Cheol Cho and David A. Weitz
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3162-3166
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20434C
Rapid spatial and temporal controlled signal delivery over large cell culture areas
Jules J. VanDersarl, Alexander M. Xu and Nicholas A. Melosh
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3057-3063
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20311H
Flexible microfluidic devices with three-dimensional interconnected microporous walls for gas and liquid applications
Po Ki Yuen and Michael E. DeRosa
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 3249-3255
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20157C
Microchip-based immunomagnetic detection of circulating tumor cells
Kazunori Hoshino, Yu-Yen Huang, Nancy Lane, Michael Huebschman, Jonathan W. Uhr, Eugene P. Frenkel and Xiaojing Zhang
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20270G
Why not take a look at the articles today and blog your thoughts and comments below.
Fancy submitting an article to Lab on a Chip? Then why not submit to us today or alternatively email us your suggestions.
