For diagnosis and research it often is necessary to isolate a subset of cells from a sample that contains bodily fluids, contaminants, tissue and other types of cells. For example, determining a pati...
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Investigation of cells, biochemicals and other samples by microfluidic devices stands to aid a full spectrum of research, from global HIV initiatives to the development of new drugs. Such devices prov...
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The cellular-scale engineering that undergirds microfluidic systems has provided researchers with efficient tools for the analysis and manipulation of cells in vitro minisculo. Methods and devices ref...
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Identifying pathways involved in human diseases is the first step in the discovery of targets for therapy and diagnostics. Cell-based assays conducted in vitro are powerful tools in this process. Reco...
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Despite the growing interest in the natural interactions between different cellular compartments— and the increasing need to model these phenomena in vitro—no method currently in practice in biolo...
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Oral ingestion of pharmaceuticals is considered the safest, most convenient and most economical method of administering drugs. However, many pharmaceuticals cannot be delivered orally because they are...
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Responsive hydrogels can respond to external stimuli such as temperature, pH, photons and antigens, which makes them applicable as functional materials in drug/gene delivery devices, microlenses and s...
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The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of a compound is the lowest dose that prevents the growth of a cell during a set time interval. Because of the increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria and ...
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Effective isolation of nucleic acids from biological samples is an essential prerequisite for efficient downstream amplification, detection and quantification of specific genetic sequences via quantit...
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Molecule-molecule interactions, including interactions between proteins, nucleic acids and other small molecules, are important in a variety of cellular events. A number of physical, molecular biologi...
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Quantifying cell adhesion strength is crucial for the development of implantable biomaterials and tissue scaffolds, as well as in understanding many fundamental physiological and disease processes. Ho...
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Now that complete sequence information is available for many organisms, researchers are focusing on the analysis of single genomic DNA molecules. A key issue in this analysis is how to unravel and mar...
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Microfluidic systems and methods can provide many functions of larger systems and facilities, such as entire laboratories, with increased efficiency as well as reduced size, cost and complexity. Such ...
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Several methods have been developed for pumping fluid through the channels of microfluidic devices. The most popular of these involves electrokinetic flow, which is accomplished by conducting electric...
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One component of lab-on-a-chip technology is on-chip microlenses for optical analysis. Prior investigators have demonstrated tiny optical lenses with variable focal lengths. These lenses use specializ...
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Detecting chemical and biological agents at low levels is important in military applications, drug enforcement, airport security and environmental monitoring.  A variety of devices and methods cu...
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Most high throughput screening (HTS) for new chemicals is done in microtiter well plates. Reagents for HTS can be very expensive, making miniaturization of the plates desirable. Microfluidics is an al...
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Microfluidic devices are being used in an increasing number of applications, including traditional laboratory tasks. To detect molecules in a small amount of solution, it’s often advantageous to...
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Most biochemical interactions are studied in solutions containing dilute concentrations of molecules. However, the complexity of the cellular environment makes it difficult to compare the results of s...
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Neuroscientists often study individual neurons in brain tissue in vitro. In order to reveal the cellular mechanisms underlying neural network reconfiguration, plasticity and behavior, many neurons mus...
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Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are an important area of cancer research.  They could provide clinically relevant information about a patient’s prognosis.  However, these cells are extre...
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Silicon-based microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) work well for optical- and physical-sensing applications, and can be fabricated very precisely by using standard integrated circuit technology. Howe...
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Current methods for isolating and culturing primary (stem/progenitor) cells remain unsatisfactory because most primary cells die when transferred to culture, and the remaining cells usually develop mu...
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Preparing cover slips for optical cell imaging is labor intensive and current methods are limited to one treatment per slip. Imaging multiple cover slips is also cumbersome, due to the time needed to ...
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Maskless lithography is cheaper and simpler than current methods of fabricating microfluidic channels, such as micro-molding, that require a final bonding step to attach a top cover to enclose the cha...
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