Microfluidic Platforms

Lai S, Wang SN, Luo J, Lee LJ, Yang ST, Madou MJ (2004) Design of a compact disk-like microfluidic platform for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Anal Chem 76 1832-1837... 

Cygan ZT, Cabral JT, Beers KL, Amis EJ (2005) Microfluidic platform for the generation of organic-phase microreactors. Langmuir 21 3629-3634... 

Chastek TQ, lida K, Amis EJ, Fasolka MJ, Beers KL (2008) A microfluidic platform for integrated synthesis and dynamic light scattering measurement of block copolymer micelles. Lab Chip 8 950... 

We are currently pursuing protein crystallization imaging in microfluidic devices, which can use both THG and CARS microscopy. The use of the microfluidic platform is the newest and one of the most promising trends in the colossal project of obtaining the exact structure of more than 70,000 protein molecules. The goal is to use microfluidic devices as a multifunctional, multiparallel platform for trying out a... 

Electrode surface fouling is a problem in amperometric detection on microfluidic platform. Wang et al. introduced boron-doped diamond electrode with highly stable response towards detection of explosives [23]. While thick-film carbon detector displayed a gradual decrease in... 

The methodology and assay protocols described hereinafter will be limited to the primary applications of the present microfluidic platform and will thus concentrate mainly on the ELISA technique, where the affinity reaction incorporates an antibody to recognise the diagnostic molecule. 

Dodge, A., Turcatti, G., Lawrence, I., de Rooji, N.R, Verpoorte, E., A Microfluidic platform using Molecular beacon-based temperature calibration for thermal dehybridization of surface-bound DNA. Anal Chem. 2004, 76, 1778-1787. 

Badr, I.H.A., Johnson, R.D., Madou, M.J., Bachas, L.G., Fluorescent ion-selective optode membranes incorporated onto a centrifugal microfluidics platform. Anal. Chem. 2002, 74(21), 5569-5575. 

Beads in microfluidic systems are an interesting evolution of the homogeneous phase bead biochips. Indeed, examples of microfluidic platforms in which biospecific molecules are immobilized on an internal channel surface are still rare [26]. 

Tourovskaia A, Figueroa-Masot X, Folch A. Differentiation-on-a-chip A microfluidic platform for long-term cell culture studies. Lab Chip 2005 5 14-9. 

V. Srinivasan, V.K. Pamula, M.K. Pollack, and R.B. Fair, Clinical diagnostics on human whole blood, plasma, semm, urine, saliva, sweat, and tears on a digital microfluidic platform. Proceedings ofMicroTAS 2003 1287-1290 (2003). 

Instead of the time-consuming and expensive developments of application-specific microfluidic solutions, we propose to base microfluidic developments on a microfluidic platform approach, where a combinable set of liquid handling steps together with a suitable fabrication technology enable the flexible and affordable implementation of biochemical protocols in a market-relevant... 

This review contains examples of microfluidic platforms for lab-on-a-chip applications which were selected as fitting to our platform definition and no comprehensiveness is claimed. The review should, however, provide the reader with some orientation in the field and the ability to select platforms with appropriate characteristics on the basis of application-specific requirements. 

Figure 1. Microfluidic platforms classified according to actuation method.

The Framework for Microfluidic Platforms Unique Properties, Requirements and Applications... 

THE NEED FOR THE MICROFLUIDIC PLATFORM APPROACH Definition of a Microfluidic Platform ... 

A microfluidic platform provides a set of fluidic unit operations, which are designed for easy combination within a well-defined fabrication technology. A microfluidic platform allows the implementation of different application-specific (bio-)chemical processes, automated by microfluidic process integration. 

Conveying this to the microfluidic platform approach, a set of validated microfluidic elements is required, each able to perform a certain basic liquid handling step or unit operation. Such basic unit operations are building blocks of laboratory protocols and comprise fluid transport, fluid metering, fluid mixing, valving, separation or concentration of molecules or particles (see Table 1) and others. Every microfluidic platform should offer an adequate number of microfluidic unit operations that can be easily combined to build application-specific microfluidic systems. 

This concept, however, does not imply that every microfluidic platform needs to provide a complete set of all the unit operations listed in Table 1. It is much more important that the different elements are connectable, ideally in a monolithically integrated way or at least by a well defined, ready-to-use interconnection and packaging process. Therefore at least one validated fabrication technology is required to realize complete systems from the individual elements within a microfluidic platform. 

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