Hand-held microfluidic chip

A palm-sized microfluidic chip has been developed by engineers in the US. Unlike previous devices, it is capable of supporting muscle and bone cell cultures over periods of up to weeks without the need for an incubator and external CO2 source. Shuichi Takayama and his team at the University of Michigan prepared this maintenance-free, self-contained, and portable system which has the potential to be used in point-of-need cell culture applications such as the development of handheld cellular biosensors. Microfluidics offer faster, more sensitive detection and use less sample and reagent and are therefore increasingly being used in tissue engineering, biosensors and in the study of fundamental cell biology questions.

Stephen B. Wilkes