Be a part of 8^th International Conference on Microfluidics

Droplet-based digital microfluidics is a topic with growing relevance to biological, chemical, and health science fields. The high precision and excellent reagent economy of such systems are unparalleled. There are, however, fundamental challenges related to actuation and sensing in terms of system scalability, and these challenges are addressed within this chapter. In particular, a new digital microfluidics multiplexer is shown to overcome contemporary on-chip micro drop motion addressability issues and eliminate droplet interference challenges. At the same time, an integrated folded-cavity optical sensor provides highly localized and sensitive probing of internal fluid refractive indices. The complete system offers improved micro drop motion and sensing capabilities for future lab-on-a-chip technologies.

Point-of-care testing (POCT) is essential for the rapid detection of analytes near the patient, which facilitates better disease diagnosis, monitoring, and management. Recent years have witnessed tremendous advances in point-of-care diagnostics (POCD), which are a result of continuous developments in biosensors, microfluidic, bioanalytical platforms, assay formats, lab-on-a-chip technologies, and complementary technologies. This special issue targets the critical advances in POCD and provides guided insights and directions for future research.  It enables quick medical decisions, as the diseases can be diagnosed at a very early stage, leading to improved health outcomes for patients by enabling the early start of treatment. The global POCT market is expected to grow from US$ 23.16 in 2016 to US$ 36.96 billion in 2023 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% from 2016 to 2023.

Wearable devices are currently at the heart of just about every discussion related to the Internet of Things. The requirement for self-health monitoring and preventive medicine is increasing due to the projected dramatic increase in the number of elderly people until 2022. Developed technologies are truly able to reduce the overall costs of prevention and monitoring. This is possible by constantly monitoring health indicators in various areas, and in particular, wearable devices are considered to carry this task out. These wearable devices and mobile apps now have been integrated with telemedicine and telehealth efficiently, to structure the medical Internet of Things. This paper reviews wearable healthcare devices both in scientific papers and commercial efforts.

Micro-total analysis systems, or the so-called "Lab-on-a-chip", have attracted increasing attention because of their ability to integrate multiple biochemical processes at pL/nL-scale in a single device using microfabrication technology. The advantages of miniaturizing and integrating genetic analysis include high speed, less reagent consumption, and a reduction in the size of instruments. The development of microsystems or "Lab-on-a-Chip" for both biological and chemical applications is a fast-growing field due to the ability of these devices to perform a complex set of successive operations at a scale not easily handled by human experimenters. If few of these systems have reached the market nowadays, there are many public and industrial researchers working together on worldwide research programs. In this paper, we first present the two microsystem archetypes, the microarrays, and the microfluidic systems, and some of their applications in chemistry and biology (chemical microarrays, chemical microreactors, DNA chips, and micro separation).

Micro-channels are characterized as stream sections that have pressure-driven measurements in the scope of 10 to 200 micrometers. Methods/Statistical Analysis: It is assumed that the present work would provide new direction to the researcher in the field of the microchannel heat sink. Findings: Subsequent to looking into the progression in warmth exchange innovation from a verifiable point of view, the benefits of utilizing microchannels as a part of high warmth flux cooling applications are examined and research done on different parts of micro channel heat exchanger execution is assessed. Application/Improvements: The present condition of manufacturing innovation is looked into, taxonomically sorted out, and found to offer numerous new potential outcomes for building microchannels.
 

Bio-imaging generally indicates imaging techniques that acquire biological information from living forms. Recently, the ability to detect, diagnose, and monitor pathological, physiological, and molecular dynamics is in great demand, while scaling down the observing angle, achieving precise alignment, fast actuation, and a miniaturized platform become key elements in next-generation optical imaging systems. Optofluidics, nominally merging optic and microfluidic technologies, is a relatively new research field, and it has drawn great attention in the last decade. Given its abilities to manipulate both optic and fluidic functions/elements in the micro/nanometer regime, optofluidics shows great potential in bio-imaging to elevate our cognition at the subcellular and/or molecular level.

Lab on a chip and microfluidics are important technologies with numerous applications from drug delivery to tissue engineering. LOC integrates fluidic and electronic components on a single chip and becomes very attractive due to the possibility of their state of art implementation in personalized devices for the point of care treatments. The implementation of microfluidic devices within life sciences has furthered the possibilities of both academic and industrial applications such as rapid genome sequencing, predictive drug studies, and single-cell manipulation. In contrast to the preferred two-dimensional cell-based screening, three-dimensional (3D) systems have more in vivo relevance as well as the ability to perform as a predictive tool for the success or failure of a drug screening campaign.

Microdevices, since their inception in the last decade of the twentieth century, have changed our view of science, due to their potential applications in fields ranging from optics, semiconductors, and the microelectronics industry to drug discovery and development, point-of-care clinical diagnostics, sensitive bioanalytical systems and other areas of the biological sphere. The potential applications of microfluidic platforms for drug discovery applications comprise high-throughput screening in target selection, lead identification/optimization, and preclinical testing. The application of microfluidics in chemical analysis, as well as the analysis of metabolites in blood for studying pathology, is also discussed.

Simulations of microfluidic devices are carried out for instance in the process of designing new apparatus for drug delivery. Whatever the case, fluid flow simulation is only a part of the larger development process. After carrying out flow investigation, one can investigate for instance transport and diffusion of chemical species in such a device. The Microfluidics Module brings you easily-operated tools for studying microfluidic devices. Important applications include simulations of lab-on-a-chip devices, digital microfluidics, electrokinetic and magneto-kinetic devices, and inkjets. The Microfluidics Module includes ready-to-use user interfaces and simulation tools, so-called physics interfaces, for single-phase flow, porous media flow, two-phase flow, and transport phenomena.