“Connecting worlds – a view on microfluidics for a wider application”

Abstract

From its birth, microfluidics has been referenced as a revolutionary technology and the solution to long standing technological and sociological issues, such as detection of dilute compounds and personalized healthcare. Microfluidics has for example been envisioned as: (1) being capable of miniaturizing industrial production plants, thereby increasing their automation and operational safety at low cost; (2) being able to identify rare diseases by running bioanalytics directly on the patient's skin; (3) allowing health diagnostics in point-of-care sites through cheap lab-on-a-chip devices. However, the current state of microfluidics, although technologically advanced, has so far failed to reach the originally promised widespread use. In this paper, some of the aspects are identified and discussed that have prevented microfluidics from reaching its full potential, especially in the chemical engineering and biotechnology fields, focusing mainly on the specialization on a single target of most microfluidic devices and offering a perspective on the alternate, multi-use, "plug and play" approach. Increasing the flexibility of microfluidic platforms, by increasing their compatibility with different substrates, reactions and operation conditions, and other microfluidic systems is indeed of surmount importance and current academic and industrial approaches to modular microfluidics are presented. Furthermore, two views on the commercialization of plug-and-play microfluidics systems, leading towards improved acceptance and more widespread use, are introduced. A brief review of the main materials and fabrication strategies used in these fields, is also presented. Finally, a step-wise guide towards the development of microfluidic systems is introduced with special focus on the integration of sensors in microfluidics. The proposed guidelines are then applied for the development of two different example platforms, and to three examples taken from literature. With this work, we aim to provide an interesting perspective on the field of microfluidics when applied to chemical engineering and biotechnology studies, as well as to contribute with potential solutions to some of its current challenges.

Induced pluripotent stem cells for treating cystic fibrosis: State of the science

“…The concept of developing “lab‐on‐a‐chip”(LOC) technology for CF has only recently begun to mature . A LOC is a microfluidics device that integrates several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit to achieve automation and high throughput . For our present purposes, however, “lab‐on‐a‐chip” has become “lung‐on‐a‐chip,” in which cyclic mechanical stress can be applied to either proximal or distal lung epithelial cells.…”

“…[103][104][105] A LOC is a microfluidics device that integrates several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit to achieve automation and high throughput. 106 For our present purposes, however, "lab-on-a-chip" has become "lungon-a-chip," in which cyclic mechanical stress can be applied to either proximal or distal lung epithelial cells. For example, it has been possible to mimic what might be happening in emphysema, where wall stresses might be great, 107 or ventilator-induced lung injury, where flow and stretch conditions can vary profoundly from normal states.…”

Adaptation of a microfluidic qPCR system for enzyme kinetics studies

“…This usually results in a limited range of conditions and substrates being tested and hinders the exploration of enzymatic potential of a protein. Number of high-throughput methods have been developed for both end-point and kinetic measurements of enzyme activity [5][6][7] , however, their adaptation by a wider scientific community proves difficult, as it requires specialized knowledge and access to microfluidic manufacturing facilities 8 . A simple method for performing enzyme kinetic studies in readily available high-throughput off-the-shelf devices would help to address this problem.…”

“…However, the system presented in this work provides a clear advantage over the previously described methods: low system complexity, which allows users to operate it without fluid handling expertise or infrastructure required for microfluidic device fabrication. This is an important advantage, as the lack of easy to use devices is a frequent cause for low adaptation of microfluidics by non-specialists like biochemists8 .A further advantage of the system is that it allows parallelization of many enzyme kinetic measurements at the same time, with the possibility of testing different enzymes, substrates and conditions in a single chip. Availability of many easy to use, off-the-shelf chips makes the Fluidigm system a good platform for different experiment designs for enzyme screening.…”

Biomimetic intestinal barrier based on microfluidic encapsulated sucralfate microcapsules

“…A variety of techniques, such as spray drying, interfacial polymerization, complex coacervation, and microfluidics, have been employed for the preparation of functional microcapsules [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Among these methods, the microfluidics technologies can overcome limitations associated with variability during microcapsule production and generate functional microcapsules with fine-tuned chemical compositions, shell thicknesses, and encapsulant volume ratios by the precise control of their multiphasic flow [15][16][17][27][28][29][30][31][32] considerable challenges [16,33,34]. Additionally, the potential value of microcapsule encapsulated bioactive agents in building a biomimetic mechanical intestinal barrier is still unexplored.…”