Themed collection 2014 Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigators

Guest editors Dino Di Carlo, Yanyi Huang and Helene Andersson-Svahn introduce this year's Emerging Investigators themed issue.

Contributors to the Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigators 2014 themed issue.

Salt solution electrodes provide a simpler and equally functional alternative to metal electrodes for applying electric fields in PDMS.

An antibody barcode microchamber array chip permits the measurement of secreted proteins from pairs of individual tumor and macrophage cells and quantifying paracrine signaling-induced functional changes.

First report on 3D rotation of cells using alternating current electric field on a single, open-top, and cost effective biochip.

We engineer interconnected 3D vascular networks in hydrogels using molded sodium alginate lattice as sacrificial templates. The size and morphology of simulated vascular networks were well controlled and a fully-developed endothelial layer was formed.

The dynamics of intermediate filament network formation are studied in microfluidic drops at high temporal and spatial resolution.

The single cell microbioreactor allows for precise and rapid control over the growth environment for cells cultured in free solution, thereby facilitating direct analysis of intracellular dynamics.

In this paper we introduce “liquid polystyrene,” a castable photocurable polystyrene prepolymer, for microfluidic prototyping. Using this material, polystyrene, an important polymer in cell biology will become accessible via soft lithography replication.

The novelty of this platform is the combination of sedimentation principles with an enzymatically hydrolyzed fluorogenic substrate to develop a rapid immunoassay.

A smart hydrogel microvalve is in situ fabricated within a microchip and integrated in the flow circulation loop of a micro-heat-exchanging system for thermostatic control.

We present a flow-templating micro-bioreactor as a new concept for controlled patterning of linear biofilm formations. Experiments and simulations comprehensively exploit control parameters to grow biofilm patterns with controllable dimensions. The paper concludes with a study of biofilm growth rates under well-defined shear stress environments.

A microfluidically fabricated DNA-functionalized porous hydrogel based on hyaluronic acid is applied to spatially confine in vitro gene expression in a membrane-free compartment that facilitates precise control over protein production rates and is envisioned to serve as a basis to design protocells.

A microfluidic cell separation mechanism created using constrictions with adjustable size that can selectively capture and release cells, thereby enabling high throughput size and deformability based cell separation without clogging.

Microtissues on the scale of several hundred microns are a promising cell culture configuration resembling the functional tissue units in vivo.

Trapping of single sperm cells on protein islands for subsequent motility analysis as an aid to choose the best one.

A microarray/microfluidic platform measures four protein biomarkers in 1024 blood serum samples for 4096 assays per device with a limit-of-detection of ~1 pM.

We present a technique to 3D print unprecedented microfluidic PDMS device geometries, circumventing the need for photolithography masks and sacrificial molds.