A software-programmable microfluidic device for automated biology

• Published in: Lab on a Chip (ISSN: 1473-0197), vol. 11, p. 1612-1619
• Royal Society of Chemistry, 2011

Specific-purpose microfluidic devices have had considerable impact on the biological and chemical sciences, yet their use has largely remained limited to specialized laboratories. Here we present a general-purpose software-programmable microfluidic device which is capable of performing a multitude of low- and high-level functions without requiring any hardware modifications. To demonstrate the applicability and modularity of the device we implemented a variety of applications such as a microfluidic display, fluid metering and active mixing, surface immunoassays, and cell culture. We believe that analogously to personal computers, programmable, general-purpose devices will increase the accessibility and advance the pervasiveness of microfluidic technology.

Keywords: microfluidics

Reference

• EPFL-ARTICLE-165280
• doi:10.1039/C0LC00537A

Record created on 2011-04-20, modified on 2012-02-23