Microfluidics and Lab-on-a-Chip

A subsequent theme of much effort in the microfluidics community has been the development of integrated microfluidic systems. In conceptual form, the success of a microfluidic system is defined by its ability to rapidly and 

Since microfiuidic systems can rapidly manipulate, process, and analyze small volumes of complex fluids with high efficiency, their use as basic tools in medical and clinical diagnostics is an attractive prospect [7]. At the current time, a wide diversity of diseases such as infectious or cardiac diseases are 

Although significant advancements continue in public healthcare within the developed world, more than one billion people still lack the most basic 

Holding Valve Waste Buffer References Assay 

Disposable card and off-card manifold with valves 

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However, the flow cytometers are bulky and expansive, and are available only in large reference laboratories. In addition, the required sample volumes are quite large, usually in the 100 pL range. Many clinical applications require frequent blood tests to monitor patients status and the therapy effectiveness. It is highly desirable to use only small amount of blood samples Ifom patients for each test. Furthermore, it is highly desirable to have affordable and portable flow cytometry instruments for field applications, point-of-care applications and applications in resource-limited locations. To overcome these drawbacks and to meet the increasing needs for versatile cellular analyses, efforts have been made recently to apply microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies to flow cytometric analysis of cells. 

Zeta potential is a fundamental parameter for modeling and characterizing electrokinetic flows in a variety of microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip devices. Because the zeta potential depends on so many factors (pH, concentration, liquid, surface, etc.), more measurements are required for a variety of surface-liquid combinations, particularly, biological and biochemical fluids. Since measurements can vary greatly between methods... 

Dr. Dongqing Li was a professor at the University of Alberta, Canada (1993-2000), a professor at the University of Toronto, Canada (2000-2005), the H. Fort Howers Chair Professor at Vanderbilt University, USA (2005-2008), and the Canada Research Chair in Microfluidics and Nanofluidic (2008-2013). He is currently a professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Li s research is in the areas of electrokinetic microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technology. Dr. Li has published 260 papers in international journals, over 100 papers in conference proceedings, 31 book chapters, and 3 books. He founded an international journal. Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, and served as its editor-in-chief from 2004 to 2012. 

The next two chapters of this book section address the novel micro- and nanotechnologies impact in the field. Electroanalysis on board of microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip platforms is studied in Chapter 12 and selected nanoelectrochemistry applications for food analysis are covered in Chapter 13. To conclude this part. Chapter 14 deals with the principles and food applications using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. 

Klank, H., J. P. Kutter, and O. Geschke. C02-laser micromachining and back-end processing for rapid production of PMMA-based microfluidic systems. Lab on a Chip 2, 242-246 (2002). 

The use of nucleic acids recognition layers represents a new and exciting area in analytical chemistry which requires an extensive study. Besides classical methodologies to detect DNA, novel approaches have been designed, such as the DNA chips [10-12] and lab-on-a-chips based on microfluidic techniques [13]. However, these technologies are still out of the scope of food industry, since it requires simple, cheap and user-friendly analytical devices. 

Microfluid ic Lab-on-a-chip for Chemical/Biological Analysis and Discovery... 

Henry, C. 2002. Microfluidic circuits Lab on a chip. Chemical and engineering news September 30 11. 

Microfluidics is a key functionality in the success of microdevices. It is defined as a branch of physics and biotechnology that studies the behavior of fluids at tire microscale and mesoscale, volumes thousands of times smaller than a common droplet. It also concerns the design of systems in which such small volumes of fluids will be used. For example, the gene chips and labs-on-a-chip are based on the transport of nanoliter or picoliter volumes of fluids through microchannels within a glass or plastic chip. 

K. Churski, J. Michalski, and P. Garstecki, Droplet on demand system utilizing a computer controlled microvalve integrated into a stiff polymeric microfluidic device.. Lab on a Chip, (in press), (2009). 

Herrmann, M., Veres, T., and Tabrizian, M. (2006) Enzymatically generated fluorescent detection in micro channels with internal magnetic mixing for the development of parallel microfluidic ELISA. Lab on a Chip, 6, 555 560. 

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