One of the greatest challenges of the 21st century encountered by the health care sector is neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease – so called protein misfolding diseases. The immense cost of care for the infected elderly imposes a dramatic burden on health care systems all over the world. To study the inducing mechanisms and detect early onset of the disease, microfluidic chips are commonly found in industry, university laboratories as well as clinics. There, they are used to filter and detect the involved proteins and biomarkers in order to analy ..read more

Minimizing harm to patients from inadequately-tested new pharmaceuticals — and the bankroll-boggling process of adequate testing — are grabbing pandemic headlines. “The pharmaceutical industry needs new ways of doing things” is one example. Microfluidics advances have hovered on the horizon as a “new way” for some time. The creation and development of new drugs can cost millions, yet many end up being recalled for toxicity, or just plain not as effective in humans as they are in lab animals. The authors of a 2019 statistical analysis, “Impact of organ-on-a-chip technology on pharmaceutical R&a ..read more

“Sorting”, “lift force”, “serpentine microchannel”, all these words reminds us of inertial microfluidic focusing. Its physical principles are relatively straightforward. If a suspension of microparticles enters a spiral microchannel, microparticles will be located across the channel after a short time. This single equilibrium position is the result of the balance between two opposing forces; Dean rotational force and the wall lift force. Dean rotational force is due to the curvature of the channel. For example, when you are in a car while turning a corner, you feel a force which pushes you awa ..read more

Microfluidics advances appear in sometimes surprising ways. One of the most intriguing is their emerging role in microbiome research. A new study shows how some bacteria in the microbiome, inside the human intestine, generate electricity outside of their own cell walls. The potential for microfluidics’ role in this research is significant, considering that the electricity generated in gut bacteria might be harnessed on a large scale — for example, at a bacteria-laden waste processing facility. Microfluidics advances will likely define how the mechanics would work, and therefore how related pro ..read more

Developing a new drug has become a long and expensive process these days. Fewer drugs can get approved annually, and most of them fail in laboratories or preclinical phases. As science and technology advance, the approval process of a new drug has been becoming more complicated and needs more scientific studies to get to the clinic. On average, a new drug may need 10 – 12 years to be developed and this process may cost up to 2 – 3 billion dollars. We may wonder why developing a new drug is costly and how we can reduce it. To know where and how we should start, we should know that the main cost ..read more

Healthcare access around the world or lack thereof While healthcare access has increased globally in the last three decades1, at least half the world still lacks access to essential healthcare services2. For the ones that do have access, the high costs can often push them towards extreme poverty, bankruptcies, and homelessness. While there is a direct correlation between income equality and access to healthcare, another major reason that access to healthcare remains elusive to half the world population is because of the multiple dimensions that constitute healthcare – awareness and access to i ..read more

In a recent special communication edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association, sepsis was defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection1. This definition highlights the devastating nature of sepsis; arising from a simple infection and spiralling to an uncontrolled and often fatal immune response. Recent epidemiological studies place sepsis mortality at a staggering 18%, making it the leading cause of death in intensive care units2. This amounts to more than 30 million cases globally each year, nearly 6 million of which ending ..read more

Microfluidics’ potential role in creating accurate wearable technology is significant. For example, the density of metabolites in sweat — along with its ease of collection from skin pores — make it a useful biofluidic candidate for analysis. One recent study looked at how microchannels and micro reservoirs, pre-filled with fluorescent probes that react to target analytes in sweat, can perform quantitative analysis. To capture sweat, fluorometric sensing modalities were integrated into a skin-interfaced microfluidic system that was paired with a smartphone-based imaging module. This method yiel ..read more

A roundabout was recently constructed at an old 5-way intersection near my house. Pre-roundabout, it was a bit of a thrill. As a driver, I never really knew what to expect and would default to a “he who hesitates is lost” approach. As a pedestrian, a car came so close to mowing me down in one of the crosswalks that a police officer who was serendipitously on-the-scene decided to take a moment with the driver. Now the intersection is far less exciting. Traffic flows smoothly and safely as intended. This story illustrates how I feel about much of the experimental work that I do and what I see ot ..read more

When it comes to microfluidics or microfabrication, almost everyone thinks of PDMS or Poly(dimethylsiloxane). Since George Whitesides in 1998, for the first time introduced the use of PDMS in microfluidics, PDMS has become the primary material of choice, and it has been playing an essential role in microfluidics. This article reviews some of PDMS’s advantages and the role PDMS is playing in Microfluidics. In general, PDMS belongs to the silicone family with some unique features which have turned PDMS to the most desirable material in microfluidics. Transparency, biocompatibility, flexibility ..read more