Lab on a Chip/Art in Science and MicroTAS 2009

November 1–5, 2009, Jeju, Korea

Once again the μTAS conference was a huge success. Of the 1044 participants 662 were non-Korean and arrived from 30 different countries, 441 of the participants were also students, hence demonstrating the significance of this meeting in the miniaturisation calendar.

Lab on a Chip played a significant role at the meeting in supporting the community through a series of prizes and awards. The front cover of this issue shows the winning entry of the “Art in Science” award presented in association with the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) who also supported the award with a $2000 prize.

This year's winners were Jungkwun Kim and Yong Kyu Yoon who put together the image. The image presents an SU-8, negative tone photopatternable epoxy (SU-8_2025, Microchem Inc.). The shapes have been defined by multidirectional ultraviolet lithography, where glass with a pre-patterned chromium layer is used as a photomask as well as a substrate. UV exposure has been performed through the photopattern in the substrate (called backside exposure). There are a couple of factors that affect the formation of thin leaves at the tip and a thick stem at the bottom. First, since the optical dose is coming from the bottom, this portion receives a much stronger optical dose compared to the top for even a single exposure. Second, since the sample has been exposed from nine different angles this means that the lower portion receives nine times the optical dose compared to the individual tip for polymerization. Third, during the development process, the top portion experiences longer development times which result in swelling if the top portion is not completely cross-linked. When the tips are not strongly cross-linked, they become quite “flowery” in the developing solution. Half of the cross-linked tips can join and stand together whilst drying after development. So the winners named this image “Micro world: united we stand.”

This award was conceived to spotlight ideas, inventions and theories that have both a practical utility and applicability and convey an element of aesthetic appeal—a chrysalis from which the aesthetics of scientific appeal can be discussed. The judges (Andreas Manz, Harp Minhas, Michael Gaitan and Tae Song Kim) thus chose this entry as it purports to mimic a beautiful and unusual exotic flower, the image encouraged and inspired viewers to find out more about its origins and how it was created. We hope that the concept and principles of this award will be appreciated by the wider scientific and non-scientific community as the intention is to reach out to all disciplines to demonstrate that scientific research is so much more than that portrayed in the general media and that science too can be an art form.

This Editorial also features a few of the other images (Fig. 1–3) submitted for this award, exemplifying the high quality of images submitted.

Fig. 1 “Cells on a micropallet array”. Four 3T3 fibroblast cells are constrained to individual polymer pedestals (“micropallets”) on a glass substrate. Each micropallet can be released individually from the system using a high-powered laser.

Fig. 2 “Square cells on flexible posts”. HPAEC (human pulmonary artery endothelial cell) is deflecting posts (shown in red) by generating forces with its actin (shown in green), myosin and focal adhesions (FA). (Vinculin, one protein that comprises FA, is shown in orange.) (Sangyoon Han, University of Washington).

Fig. 3 “Droplet-scale estrogen assays in breast tissue, blood, and serum”. A picture of the first microfluidic device (25 × 12.5 mm) applied to the extraction and quantification of estrogen in 1 μl samples of breast tissue homogenate, whole blood and serum (Mais Jebrail, University of Toronto).

Lab on a Chip supported the Widmer Award and CHEMINAS supported the other Student Poster Awards. The Widmer Young Research Award Winner was poster number [T81F], “Generation of monodisperse cell-sized and unilamellar vesicles from a microfluidic T-junction”—Sadao Ota (The University of Tokyo, Japan). Other Young Researcher Poster Award Winners were as follows:

[M51F] “High-throughput cell separation using differential inertial migration for rapid sepsis therapy”—Albert Mach (University of California, Los Angeles, USA).

[T2D] “Diffusion measurement of bio-molecules using rapid generation of black hole in a molecular solution by optoelectrofluidics”—Hyundoo Hwang (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST, Korea).

[W21F] “Hydrogel microbeads for high throughput PCR”—Aki Adachi (The University of Tokyo, Japan).

The Corning/Lab on a Chip, Pioneers of Miniaturisation Award (supported with $5000 from Corning Inc.) was won by Professor Abe Lee not only for his pioneering research, but also for his work and dedication to help develop the lab on a chip community.

Joel Voldman did an excellent job of arranging, co-ordinating and presenting all the student poster awards. The ACS Young Researcher Award was presented to Jongyoon Han (MIT, USA). In addition, 49 student participants were selected to receive student travel grants; these were selected from 179 applicants.

The technical program committee (composed of members from around the world) planned the conference to provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of significant progress of research, development and applications in the field of miniaturized systems for chemistry and life sciences. Six categories were defined to conduct the paper selection process, and these were: (1) microfluidics; (2) nanotechnology; (3) materials; (4). detection technologies; (5) MEMS & NEMS technologies; (6) applications.

As a result of the selection process a total of 666 contributed papers (66 oral and 600 poster papers) were accepted from the 1031 papers submitted from 30 countries. There were 1044 participants in total, including 441 students and 662 overseas participants. Of the 664 posters, the country breakdown was as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Breakdown of posters by country^a

a Figures rounded to whole numbers.
Korea	382	37%
Japan	195	19%
USA	172	17%
Taiwan	42	4%
Canada	29	3%
Sweden	28	3%

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Other countries were represented in smaller numbers (2% or less).

Before the plenary session, the opening address was given by the conference Chair, Dr Tae Song Kim, and the poster voting instruction was delivered by Prof. Joel Voldman.

Six excellent and broad ranging plenary talks were presented that demonstrated the breadth of the conference: Don Ingber (Harvard Medical School, USA) spoke on “Biomimetic microsystems technologies: organs-on-chips”; Motoichi Ohtsu (The University of Tokyo, Japan) discussed “Nanophotonics: dressed photon science and technology”; Andrew deMello (Imperial College London, UK) discussed “High-throughput chemistry and biology: photons, particles and droplets”; Chang-Jin “CJ” Kim (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) discussed “Micro-manipulation of liquids using electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD): lab-on-a-chip and beyond”; Pengyuan Yang (Fudan University, China) discussed “Microfluidic-based analytical tools for proteomic research” and finally Sabeth Verpoorte (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) discussed “Leveraging microfluidics to bridge the in vitro–in vivo gap”

The setting for the meeting was the highly modern and luxurious International Conference Centre on the beautiful volcanic island of Jeju, which is off the south coast of Korea. The island was resplendent with oranges over the period of the conference which added a blaze of colour to the lush greens of the countryside and vitamin C to the diet of many conferees. The island is supposedly famous for three things: roaring winds, magnificent rocks, and women divers (for fish). The roaring winds and the rain were, unfortunately, witnessed by many participants, fewer saw the rocks and I doubt that any saw the women divers, except those that were diving into the bowls of excellent chocolate-orange sweets. These factors had no bearing on the successful organisation and execution of this meeting by the local Korean committee and the technical programme committee who put together a truly excellent program of speakers and poster presenters. These committees and Tae Song Kim, who Chaired the meeting, are to be congratulated for their success.

Harp Minhas

Editor, Lab on a Chip

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