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Lab-on-a-chip

Microfluidic chip helps replicate the motor neuron connections affected by ALS

December 27, 2018

In an advance that could help scientists develop and test new drugs for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that gradually kills off the motor neurons that control muscles, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; [more...]

China Develops Raman-activated Cell sorting and Sequencing System

December 27, 2018

Researchers at the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Qingdao, China) have developed a Raman-activated cell sorting and sequencing (RACS-SEQ) instrument that enables [more...]

1DROP Raises $4.25 Million to Develop Next-Generation Portable Medical Diagnostics

November 30, 2018

1DROP, a life science company developing and commercializing an easy to use, laboratory quality, portable medical diagnostic testing platform, today announced the successful closing of a $4.25 million Series A equity financing [more...]

Researchers Develop Wearable Microfluidic Cytometer

August 25, 2018

Wearable cytometry system on flexible PCB with integrated microfluidic polydimethylsiloxane chip, microcontroller, and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) readout to smartphone (not shown). Image credit: Furniturewalla et al, doi: [more...]

Lab-On-A-Chip Technology Could Detect Abnormalities For Pregnant Women

July 13, 2018

A wide range of fetal genetic abnormalities could soon be detected in early pregnancy thanks to a world-first study led by University of South Australia researchers using lab-on-a-chip, non-invasive technology. Biomedical engineers Dr [more...]

Seeing the Invisible with Microfluidic Devices

July 5, 2018

The laboratory is the traditional home of the scientific experiment. A biology lab is often like a cell nursery, where the cells are lovingly nurtured in conditions optimal for their growth. A chemistry lab might be filled with glassware, [more...]

Chip-Scale Broadband Optical System that Can Sense Molecules in the Mid-Infrared

June 10, 2018

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have demonstrated, for the first time, a chip-based dual-comb spectrometer in the mid-infrared range, that requires no moving parts and can acquire spectra in less than 2 microseconds. The system, [more...]

A Faster Way to Make Drug Microparticles

May 15, 2018

Pharmaceuticals owe their effects mostly to their chemical composition, but the packaging of these drugs into specific physical formulations also needs to be done to exact specifications. For example, many drugs are encapsulated in solid [more...]

Ultrafast Compression Offers New Way to Get Macromolecules into Cells

May 6, 2018

By treating living cells like tiny absorbent sponges, researchers have developed a potentially new way to introduce molecules and therapeutic genes into human cells. The technique first compresses cells in a microfluidic device by [more...]

Precision Waveguides with Inkjet Printing

May 6, 2018

Scientists at a Swiss laboratory have demonstrated an inkjet method for precise printing of tiny optical components such as waveguides (Opt. Express, doi:10.1364/OE.26.011934). The new technique leverages capillary forces—instead of [more...]

A Stopwatch for Nanofluids

April 29, 2018

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has filed a provisional patent application for a microflow measurement system, about the size of a nickel, that can track the movement of extremely tiny amounts of liquids—as [more...]

Skin-Mounted Microfluidics Analyze Biomarkers in Sweat

April 28, 2018

From a medical perspective, there are plenty of reasons to be interested in sweat. The quantitative measurement of its components can track certain bodily functions under different conditions and help in the diagnosis of diseases. Chloride [more...]

Chip-based Blood Test for Multiple Myeloma Could Make Bone Biopsies a Relic of the Past

April 28, 2018

A new University of Kansas research effort featured in the current edition of Integrative Biology has resulted in a low-cost, reliable blood test that uses a small plastic chip about the size of a credit card that can deliver the same [more...]

Future Food Formulation Factories

April 28, 2018

Nutraceutical is a broad term used to describe any compound found in food that is thought to add nutritional value. They are extracted from food and concentrated to enhance their therapeutic effect. This can range from lycopene found in [more...]

Food Scientist Works to Improve Nutrition, Understand Gut Disease

April 28, 2018

The difficulties of conducting research on the human gut are substantial: the presence of trillions of bacterial cells interacting with human cells and each other, constant environmental changes every time food is consumed and zero chance [more...]

Organ-on-a-chip: a New Model of Microfluidic Chip

April 22, 2018

Cells in a microwell and their growth after two days of perfusion An organ-on-a-chip is a microfluidic device with continuously perfused chambers in which cells are cultured to obtain functional units that mimic organ functions. The [more...]

Raman Spectroscopy Technique Identifies Antibiotic Resistance

April 15, 2018

Knowing that existing methods for pathogen diagnostics are time-consuming and expensive, a team of scientists at the Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technologies (Leibniz-IPHT), the Center for Sepsis Control and Care at the University [more...]

Acoustic Waves Direct Particles in Microchannels

March 4, 2018

Drug development, artificial tissue design, and the study of intercellular communication are just some of the applications that rely on the precise control of particles or cells in microfluidic devices. By manipulating the fluid motion, [more...]

MIT Engineers Make Microfluidics Modular Using the Popular Interlocking Blocks

March 4, 2018

MIT engineers have just introduced an element of fun into microfluidics. The field of microfluidics involves minute devices that precisely manipulate fluids at submillimeter scales. Such devices typically take the form of flat, [more...]

Single-Cell Analysis for Identification of Fibroblast Subtypes in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

March 4, 2018

Single-cell analysis holds enormous potential to study how individual cells influence disease and respond to treatment, but the lack of cost-effective and user-friendly instrumentation remains challenging. As described in a study [more...]