Thanks to the Chemical and Biological Miniaturisation Society (CBMS) Lab on a Chip is pleased to offer free access to the microTAS abstracts from the 2010 conference in Groningen, The Netherlands.
The microTAS meeting abstracts from 2003-2010 can be found on our website here as click-through pdf files.
The ring structure of the neuron networks was prepared by stamping proteins onto a glass substrate and growing neurons on the proteins
US scientists have created a model of the ring-shaped networks of neurons in the brain, which could help researchers to understand small changes within diseased brain cells.
Henry Zeringue, and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, developed the model to enable the study of brain circuitry in an in vitro system instead of using brain slices. In neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, subtle changes in this activity take years, or even decades, to become clinically detectable. Most studies only explore the electrical properties of a single neuron or the connection between two neurons. Until now, there hasn’t been a good model to study network activity in vitro.
Zeringue and his team are considering using their platform to characterise network-level changes based on small experimental perturbations, like changes in network geometry or expression of mutant proteins in 10 per cent of the neurons. ‘Deciphering the relationship between the connectivity of the neurons and the activity in the ring culture will be challenging and unravelling the connections between the neurons may still prove to be a daunting task,’ he concludes.
Read Carl Saxton’s Chemistry World article online here or go straight to the Lab on a Chip paper:
Ring-shaped neuronal networks: a platform to study persistent activity
Ashwin Vishwanathan, Guo-Qiang Bi and Henry C. Zeringue,
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 1081
DOI: 10.1039/c0lc00450b
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a faster, easier way to create microelectrodes, for use in microfluidic devices, by using liquid metal.
Read the full article by Ju-Hee So and Michael Dickey in the latest issue of Lab on a Chip here.
And why not check out some of the other articles in the same issue?
View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:
Magnetically-actuated artificial cilia for microfluidic propulsion
Separation of parasites from human blood using deterministic lateral displacement
The chip consists of a printed integrated circuit and a microfluidic device, powered wirelessly by a palm sized RFID reader
A team of US scientists has developed the first lab on a chip device to be powered remotely.
Wen Qiao at the University of California, San Diego, made a microfluidic chip that can be powered with a commercially available radio frequency transmitter for electrophoresis experiments.
Qiao’s team made the chip by printing a circuit onto a plastic sheet. Within the circuit, they placed a chamber containing microwells.
The device is cheap to produce and simple to use and can be used in the same way as a microscope slide, with the RFID transmitter mounted next to a microscope stage and a camera to capture images of the moving nanoparticles. Qiao says that the chip will ‘greatly simplify the operation of the device for pathologists and clinicians whose training and practices have been mostly on optical microscopes, with limited experience with sophisticated electronic instruments.’
Check out the full Chemistry World story online here or read the Lab on a Chip article:
Wirelessly powered microfluidic dielectrophoresis devices using printable RF circuits
Wen Qiao, Gyoujin Cho and Yu-Hwa Lo
Lab Chip, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/c0lc00457j
The issue includes an excellent range of articles from fundamental studies to developments in biology-inspired physics and micro/nanotechnologies. Contributors to the issue include Charles Baroud, Stephanie Descroix, Anne-Marie Haghiri-Gosnet, Benoit Ladoux, Emmanuel Mignard, Patrick Tabeling and Jean-Louis Viovy.
Jean-Louis Viovy was our Guest Editor for the issue, read his thoughts on the progress of microfluidics in France in his editorial here, view the great content online here and let us know what you think!
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Scientists in Japan have developed a portable influenza testing kit with better accuracy than current methods, which can give a result in 30 minutes.
Scientists from the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Sony Corporation made a nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT) device that not only gives information on the sample’s genetic make up to identify the flu pathogen type, but is also more than 90 per cent accurate. The device works by detecting the genes of the influenza virus pathogen – an organism that causes the disease – which gives information about the virus subtype and drug resistance.
Current rapid diagnostic kits to detect the flu virus suffer from low accuracy (40-69 per cent) and don’t provide genetic information about the sample. One NAT in use to test clinical specimens is real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, which involves amplifying, detecting and quantifying DNA sequences. It does give genetic information, but it consists of a complex procedure and takes 3-4 hours to produce results.
Sony’s detection system comprises: a laptop to control the system; a device for heating samples and detecting fluorescence; and disposable testing chips. The chips contain reaction wells made of polydimethylsiloxane sandwiched between two glass sheets in a vacuum chamber. Samples are injected into the wells through a port by a disposable injector, eliminating the need for pumps and tubing.
The detection system comprises: a laptop to control the system; a device for heating samples and detecting fluorescence; and disposable testing chips
Read the full article here
Link to journal article
Point-of-care testing system enabling 30 min detection of influenza genes
Tomoteru Abe, Yuji Segawa, Hidetoshi Watanabe, Tasuku Yotoriyama, Shinichi Kai, Akio Yasuda, Norio Shimizu and Naoko Tojo,
Lab Chip, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/c0lc00519c
View the new videos on the Lab on a Chip YouTube site using the links below:
3-Dimensional cell culture for on-chip differentiation of stem cells in embryoid body
A microfluidic chip that can come up with a DNA profile in less than three hours has been designed by US scientists for use at crime scenes.
With current techniques, forensic scientists have to wait up to eight hours to get results. Using microchips to speed up the process has been investigated but integrating all of the profiling steps in one device has remained elusive until now. Richard Mathies from the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues, in collaboration with the US Department of Justice, have produced a portable method to test DNA at a crime scene that integrates all of the steps in one device.
Andy Hopwood, an expert in DNA analysis techniques from the UK’s Forensic Science Service, believes that the work is ‘without a doubt a very exciting and significant development toward the total integration of the DNA-based human identification process onto a single microchip’.
Read Holly Sheahan’s Chemistry World article online here or go straight to the HOT Lab on a Chip paper:
Integrated DNA purification, PCR, sample cleanup, and capillary electrophoresis microchip for forensic human identification
Peng Liu, Xiujun Li, Susan A. Greenspoon, James R. Scherer and Richard A. Mathies
Lab Chip, 2011, 11, 1041
DOI: 10.1039/c0lc00533a
