Microfluidics for understanding model organisms

Abstract

New microfluidic systems for whole organism analysis and experimentation are catalyzing biological breakthroughs across many fields, from human health to fundamental biology principles. This perspective discusses recent microfluidic tools to study intact model organisms to demonstrate the tremendous potential for these integrated approaches now and into the future. We describe these microsystems' technical features and highlight the unique advantages for precise manipulation in areas including immobilization, automated alignment, sorting, sensory, mechanical and chemical stimulation, and genetic and thermal perturbation. Our aim is to familiarize technologically focused researchers with microfluidics applications in biology research, while providing biologists an entrée to advanced microengineering techniques for model organisms.

Recent advances in microfluidics-based bioNMR analysis

“…31 It can also be integrated with electromechanical components 32 to realize automatic and high-throughput control of liquids, 33 cells 34 or even organisms. 35 Since μTAS has the capability to continuously handle nanoliter to microliter fluids, it should be promising to combine μTAS and NMR to form microfluidics-based NMR (μNMR) systems for the analysis of biochemical samples.…”

Non-invasive monitoring of biochemicals in hydrogel-assisted microfluidic chips

“…Thus, these chips hold the advantages of low sample consumption, low cost, high throughput and high speed. 5,6 Traditional microfluidic chips usually use glass or polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to fabricate the channels. The impenetrable nature of glass and PDMS perfectly encapsulates the liquid and also constrains target biochemicals inside the channels, leaving challenges for associated sensing.…”

Ultralow Expansion Glass as Material for Advanced Micromechanical Systems

“…The main fields of application in microsystems technology are in micro-optics, micro-fluidics, and biomedical engineering. [1][2][3] In addition, silicate materials with ultralow thermal expansion enable systems, which geometrically withstand temperature influences to an unimagined extent and thus, can act as reference structures in the field of high precision metrology. Notably, most applications of ultralow expansion (ULE) materials are so far still linked to macroscopic systems such as mirror substrates for astronomical applications, components of nanopositioning and nanomeasuring tools or as glass scales.…”