Themed collection Lab on a Chip HOT Articles 2021

Cost-effective technologies allow >85% economical savings, making clinical pathology more accessible worldwide.

We review recent work examining flow asymmetries observed for viscoelastic shear-thinning fluids around obstacles in microchannels, and provide a mechanism for the instability.

Standards can demonstrate technological and biological relevance, increase industry implementation and support regulatory acceptance. This article will give you an overview on the state of play and future needs in standardisation for OoC.

Eyes have remarkable potential as biological sensing sites for various physical factors and biomarkers, which makes contact lens sensors a promising platform for a wearable point-of-care device for monitoring and diagnosis of diseases.

Toward tackling the ongoing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, this review aims to bridge the gap between researchers who develop nucleic acid amplification-based point-of-care tests and end-users who need such tests.

Circulating microRNAs (or miRNAs) can be extracted from bodily fluids using off-chip or on-chip sample processing platforms that hold the key to the next generation of diagnostic and predictive nucleic acid tests.

This article reviews the rapid and unprecedented development, scaleup and deployment of POC devices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the future of diagnostics and digital health.

This review summarizes typical microfluidic platforms for isolation and transcriptomic analysis of single cells and highlights recent advances in microfluidic single-cell transcriptomics including multimodal omics and spatiotemporal transcriptomics.

To discover Ag-specific mAbs using miniaturized single-cell technologies, cells are: (i) confined, (ii) identified, (iii) retrieved, and (iv) sequenced.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted by cells into the bloodstream and other bodily fluids, including exosomes, have been demonstrated to be a class of significant messengers that mediate intercellular communications.

Microraft arrays an analysis and isolation platform enable a wide range of strategies to be used when separating biological entities.

We highlight recent acoustofluidic advances that demonstrate versatility for activities beyond periodic patterning in pressure nodes.

This article reviews recent innovations in cost-effective polymer and paper hybrid microfluidic devices and their biological and biomedical applications.

A review of the advances in supramolecular chemistry achieved by the application of continuous and dispersed microfluidic approaches.

We critically review the extensive applications and the frontline advances of bubbles in microfluidics for manipulation.

We demonstrate high-resolution ptychographic imaging in a flow cytometer configuration. The device complements the miniaturization provided by microfluidics and allows the integration of ptychographic microscopy into various lab-on-a-chip systems.

The transient double emulsion technique can produce highly uniform ATPS droplets with tunable stability by introducing a middle oil phase. The middle oil phase promotes the generation of ATPS droplets and controls their generation frequency and size.

We studied the effect of AHR expression on metastasis using cell invasion in digital microfluidic microgel systems (CIMMS), which provided a unique combination of functional discrimination with transcriptome profiling of sub-populations of cells.

We report a versatile method for delivering reagents into microscale droplets without increasing volume.

An automated process was carried out on an integrated microfluidic system that featured SELEX 1) a positive + negative + competitive selection on a single chip and 2) aptamer-based ELISA-like assay for detection of PJI positive and negative samples.

A magnetophoretic cytometry chip with integrated purification and multiplexed readout for membrane antigen expression in hematological samples.

We propose to employ NN-enhanced IFC to achieve both real-time single-cell intrinsic characterization and intrinsic metric-based cell classification at high throughput.

We interfaced with a painless blood collection device and integrated on-chip blood-to-plasma separation with an electronic bead-based biomarker detection assay to enable true sample-to-answer detection of biomarkers.

We demonstrate microfluidic acoustic sawtooth-like metasurfaces that create steerable acoustofluidic fields for microscale patterning and separation.

A non-invasive sampling capsule is introduced to site-selectively collect calprotectin biomarker from the small intestine. This approach can be accompanied with the fecal calprotectin assay to diagnose IBD and differentiate its types (CD and UC).

TSAWs quickly form a tumor spheroid for a drug screening platform.

Trapping voltage in 2D DC-iEK systems was significantly reduced (∼80 V) via a design optimization process primarily focused on E-field amplification.

We demonstrate a label-free, high-throughput cell separation method via a SSAW-based acoustofluidic device with a serpentine channel for clinical diagnosis and point-of-care analysis.

3-D spheroid cultures contain networks that develop by 9 days and develop increasingly complex network activity patterns as they mature. We demonstrate, for the first time, that spheroids exhibit network activity similar to in vivo network events.

An on-chip liquid metal based micro-thermocouple based on a reversible bonding technology.

A microfluidic platform to build bespoke prototissues with collective behaviours that depend on the chemical composition of the biomaterial.

Personalized gel-droplet-encapsulated monocyte vaccines were prepared using an integrated chip and injected back into the hosts to induce CTL for the treatment of cancer.

Automated microfluidics, laser tweezers, particle detection for pairwise particle stickiness measurements.

A simulation method for predicting drug responses is described that overcomes challenges relating to absorption of hydrophobic drug molecules by Organ Chips made from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS).

A scaffold-free and versatile acoustofluidic device to fabricate heterotypic cell spheroids with complexity over cell architecture and components.

A novel droplet microfluidic device called double-spiral chip enables the recapitulation of circulating tumor cell (CTC)–neutrophil clusters.

The biomarker barcode concept has been demonstrated by performing multiplexed microfluidic immunohistochemistry on tissue microarray samples.

Electrochemical detection in droplets with pyrolysed photoresist electrodes was characterized and then performed to quantify dopamine in biological concentration range and to reliably identify steps of concentration in in vitro microsampled droplets.

Concentration polarization (CP) with upright 3D reservoir.

We demonstrate a new method to induce vortices with AC-EOF by shaping insulator materials near parallel electrodes, giving control of vortex organization. Interestingly, non-orthogonality of insulator walls is a requirement to induce AC-EOF.

Integrins are key players in platelet adhesion and aggregation.

We describe high-throughput (>10³ strains per week) methods for discovery of engineered microbial strains with improved secretion phenotype. These novel approaches use real-time monitoring of colony productivity under steady-state or batch culture.

A “one-to-three” splitting method is able to generate sub-microlitre droplets beyond the “well-known” geometry limit in EWOD digital microfluidics. It helps to realise parallel on-chip CLIA with enhanced magnetic beads washing efficiency.

Rice-sized (1 × 4 mm) silicon nitride ring resonator photonic sensor chips paired with plastic micropillar fluidic cards for sample handling and optical detection yield a “disposable photonics” assay platform.

Autonomous lab-on-paper platform for simple, rapid, low-cost, and multiplex gene diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples.

A simple, economical and scalable microfluidic separation technology (ExoDFF) for label-free isolation of circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) from whole blood.

A three-dimensional origami-paper-based analytical device with electricity-free “timer” function for HIV type 1 p24 antigen detection.

An adaptive microfluidic system changing its operational state in real-time based on cell measurements through an on-chip electrical sensor network.

We developed an organ-on-a-chip platform with integrated stimulators and sensors. The platform is fabricated using direct laser writing (DLW) and allows for generation and study of functional 3D cardiac microtissues in controlled microenvironments.

We present the fundamental theory and experimental validations of an integrated ferrohydrodynamic cell separation (iFCS) method that can isolate circulating tumor cells with a high recovery rate.

96 microfluidic devices with independent electrical readouts are coupled with 192 micropumps to make a high-throughput organ-on-chip platform.

We use a millifluidic system to study the multi-species bacterial growth to unveil the details of cooperation between two Escherichia coli strains inside droplet reactors. This system also has the potential for studies of drug resistance transfer.

A compact, cost-efficient airborne ultrafine particle (UFP) dosimeter that can monitor essential parameters required for accurate UFP dosimetry.

Schematic representation of the methodology developed for creating cryopreservable high throughput paper-based arrays of 3D tumor models for drug screening applications.

Self-aligned sequential lateral field non-uniformities extending uniformly over the sample channel depth are fabricated using a single lithography step for enabling phenotype-specific dielectrophoretic separation of cells.

To overcome the hurdles of the ICP-based preconcentrator (i.e., instability and low efficiency) under physiological conditions, we proposed a novel approach by using a sequentially driven ICP process, showing a 13-fold preconcentration factor (PF) in human serum.

The present study investigated ultraviolet-induced in situ gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) coupled with LAMP for the point-of-care testing (POCT) of two major infectious pathogens, namely, Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Enterococcus faecium (E. faecium spp.).

Programmable multilayer printing is utilized to develop a 3D hydrogel co-culture system, consisting of a microgel array and hydrogel overlay with independently controlled mechanical properties and concurrent generation of mechanical gradients.