Towards autonomous lab-on-a-chip devices for cell phone biosensing

Abstract

Modern cell phones are a ubiquitous resource with a residual capacity to accommodate chemical sensing and biosensing capabilities. From the different approaches explored to capitalize on such resource, the use of autonomous disposable lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices conceived as only accessories to complement cell phones underscores the possibility to entirely retain cell phones ubiquity for distributed biosensing. The technology and principles exploited for autonomous LOC devices are here selected and reviewed focusing on their potential to serve cell phone readout configurations. Together with this requirement, the central aspects of cell phones resources that determine their potential for analytical detection are examined. The conversion of these LOC concepts into universal architectures that are readable on unaccessorized phones is discussed within this context. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.<p>Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council (VR) [C0453801]; Carl Tryggers Foundation [CTS14140]</p

A Hybrid Lab-on-a-Chip Injector System for Autonomous Carbofuran Screening

“…To achieve a practical device configuration with potential for on-site use demands the integration of the paper assay into an autonomous LOC system able to support robust response evaluation [19]. Additionally, it is also imperative to conceive a completely disposable device compatible with the cost and user friendliness demands.…”

“…Thus, the elastic tubing containing the measured sample or reagent volume is delivered towards the functionalized paper when pressurized, but when the tubing is released, the atmospheric pressure in the distal side is not enough to send the flow backwards, thus creating an effective forward flow for each activation of the injection tubing. Once the injected volume reaches the paper membrane, wicking of the paper membrane also contributes to the transport, such as in other microfluidic concepts [19,24]. The developed protocol (Figure 1b) requires AChE immobilization on paper strips (5 U AChE/strip, see Materials and Methods), assembly in the ULOC device, and finally injection of a 15 uL sample.…”

Mobile phone-based biosensing: An emerging “diagnostic and communication” technology

“…Over the past few years, various reviews on wearable sensors and on the use of mobile phones in biosensing (Vashist et al, 2014;Preechaburana et al, 2014;Xu et al, 2015;Zhang and Liu, 2016;Roda et al, 2016;Comina et al, 2016;Sun et al, 2016a) have been published. These focus mostly on different measurement methods.…”

Cellphone-based diagnostic devices

“…This device successfully measured cerebellar microcirculation across different locomotor behaviors in active mice and simultaneously tracked more than 200 of Ca 2+ spiking Purkinje neurons across nine cerebellar microzones ( Figure 5). With the rise of microfluidic technologies, cellphone-based fluorescent microscopy continues to keep pace, from a conjoined research perspective, with microfluidic application developments [53]. In addition to bacteria and parasite detection, hand-held cellphone-based fluorescent devices have demonstrated the capacity to image objects at nanoscale, i.e., viruses and single nanoparticles in microfluidic platforms ( Figure 6) [27].…”