Democratizing digital microfluidics by a cloud-based design and manufacturing platform
A cloud-based design and manufacturing platform for EWOD DMF.
Digital microfluidics for biological analysis and applications
Digital microfluidic (DMF) bioassays with the benefits of automation, addressability, integration and dynamic configuration ability for nucleic acids, proteins, immunoreaction and cell analysis are presented in this review.
Paper
Discretised microfluidics for noninvasive health monitoring using sweat sensing
We present the first wearable device with integrated electrowetting, which collects and transports sweat from single glands and measures sweat rate for extremely low sweat rate. This enables non-invasive biomarker monitoring of hospitalized patients.
Paper
Integration of complementary split-ring resonators into digital microfluidics for manipulation and direct sensing of droplet composition
Integrated sensing can be realized in a digital microfluidic (DMF) system not by adding components or materials to the DMF system, but by judiciously removing portions of the DMF ground plane to create microwave-resonant sensing structures.
Paper
A programmable and automated optical electrowetting-on-dielectric (oEWOD) driven platform for massively parallel and sequential processing of single cell assay operations
We describe a platform that uses droplet microfluidics and optical electrowetting-on-dielectric (oEWOD) to perform sequential and multiplexed single cell assays in massively parallelised workflows to enable complex cell profiling during screening.
A syndromic diagnostic assay on a macrochannel-to-digital microfluidic platform for automatic identification of multiple respiratory pathogens
A macrochannel-to-digital microfluidic platform for automatic identification of multiple respiratory pathogens.
Laser-induced graphene-based digital microfluidics (gDMF): a versatile platform with sub-one-dollar cost
Laser-induced graphene-based digital microfluidics (gDMF) offer an easy-to-access, highly versatile, and low-cost platform for POCT application.
Polar coordinate active-matrix digital microfluidics for high-resolution concentration gradient generation
Advancing active-matrix digital microfluidics through polar coordinates for precise concentration gradients. Demonstrated with chip photography, concentration gradient solution demo, and efficiency comparison.
Digital microfluidics with distance-based detection – a new approach for nucleic acid diagnostics
We introduce the integration of digital microfluidics (DMF) with distance-based detection (DBD). This platform allows for miniaturized diagnosis of infectious diseases in a format that is easy to operate with a detection scheme that can be read by eye.
About this collection
Handpicked by our Editor-in-Chief, Aaron Wheeler (University of Toronto), we are pleased to highlight select works on digital microfluidics published in recent years. Read what he had to say below:
“Digital microfluidics (sometimes abbreviated as “DMF”) is an exciting sub-set of the microfluidic technologies that Lab on a Chip readers know and love. In brief, DMF encompasses techniques in which discrete droplets are manipulated on an open surface (without channels or walls), often by application of electromechanical forces (as in “electrowetting” systems), but sometimes by others. As the ‘home’ of the microfluidics community, Lab on a Chip publishes the best DMF content in the literature. I am happy to introduce a small collection of some of my recent favorites in this collection.
Briefly, a great place to start is a comprehensive review by Chaoyong Yang and coworkers, that introduces readers to the theory and history of DMF, as well as the latest and greatest applications in the ‘bioassay’ space. On the subject of bioassays, medical diagnostics are a mainstay of Lab on a Chip, and Cheng Dong and coworkers describe a sophisticated, fully automated DMF system for diagnosis of respiratory diseases. Meanwhile, my own group offers an alternate take on medical diagnostics, with a “detector-free” approach relying on distance-based detection, and the groups of Heikenfeld and den Tooner introduce a fascinating wearable diagnostic platform relying on DMF. Lab on a Chip also publishes papers featuring fundamental advances, like the active-matrix methods (allowing for huge arrays of actuation electrodes) reported by Hanbin Ba and coworkers, as well as the beautiful optical-electrowetting platform described by Emma Talbot and colleagues. Practical advances related to DMF device fabrication and manufacture are also popular in the journal, including the laser writing/carbonization methods described by Tao Zhang and coworkers, and the new cloud-based design-manufacture-deliver approach introduced by CJ Kim and colleagues. Finally, Lab on a Chip is always a leading source of content describing the coupling of microfluidics with innovative detectors, like the split-ring resonators described by Pekas and co-authors.
Whatever your interests, I encourage you to take a look at the fantastic papers in this collection which the journal has made free to read (for anyone) for the next three months. Perhaps these stories will be inspirational for your own work; look forward to reading about your latest advances soon in a paper in Lab on a Chip!”