Chips & Tips—a new, free web resource for the LOC community

The Lab-on-a-chip field is burgeoning with new devices and applications appearing in every issue of this journal. Articles in the Lab on a Chip (LOC) journal are published in a highly polished form and contain only the refined results of much tedious work, as they should. However, microfabrication is as much an art as a science and the ‘tricks of the trade’ could potentially be a valuable asset to the LOC community if they were properly assembled and disseminated. Chips & Tips has been created to meet this need and to complement the Technical Note articles published in LOC. While Technical Notes present new methods and techniques (e.g., Haubert et al., Lab Chip, 2006, 6, DOI: 10.1039/B610567J), Chips & Tips will provide a venue for updates to previously published methods as well as a home for methods and techniques that do not warrant a full Technical Note, but are relevant and useful to practitioners.

The purpose of the Chips & Tips web resource is to provide tips and tricks for researchers in the μTAS field. Generally speaking, techniques developed in investigators' labs that often receive brief, or non-existent, mention in archival publications are ideal for Chips & Tips. By disseminating these tips and tricks in an online forum, where other users can post their spin on a technique, LOC hopes to create a de-facto μTAS community where researchers can submit and share solutions to commonly encountered problems or more efficient ways to perform tasks.

Members of the LOC community are encouraged to submit brief write-ups making liberal use of digital photographs as well as short video clips or even podcasts. Guidelines for authors will be provided. Submissions will be editorially reviewed for missing information or unclear ideas and then posted to the LOC website.

Chips & Tips will launch with five contributions focused on PDMS microfluidic devices. Meyvantsson describes a way to vacuum fill PDMS microfluidic devices. Mohanty shows how to create PDMS connectors for macro to microfluidic interfacing. O'Neill presents a way to speed up PDMS curing times by using disposable aluminium curing dishes. Young provides a way to avoid introducing bubbles into microchannels during sample injection. And if bubbles still persist, Eddington presents a way to incorporate bubble traps into microfluidic device designs. We look forward to contributing to the first user-generated online collection of practical tips for the miniaturization community. Welcome to Chips & Tips!

David Beebe

Glenn Walker

Visit the Chips & Tips website at: www.rsc.org/loc/chips&tips

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