Harnessing microfluidics for high throughput microbiology R&D
Posted 13th March 2019 by Joshua Sewell
The BioMillenia technology platform is based on microfluidics, a technology platform widely used in life sciences, but not necessarily in microbiology. There are some commercial developments of the technology, for example NGS or dPCR platforms, but it’s a very new application in the field of microbiology.
The future of Organ-On-A-Chip
Posted 9th January 2019 by Jane Williams
Bas Trietsch is the CTO and co-founder of MIMETAS and co-inventor of the OrganoPlate. As CTO he currently drives the continued product development of the OrganoPlate and its peripheral equipment.
Here, Bas talks about what the future holds for organ-on-a-chip and other breakthroughs technologies in biology.
Neurobehavioural Screening, Microfabricated Platforms and Medical Device Innovation with Microfluidics
Posted 10th December 2018 by Jane Williams
Microfluidics is revolutionising the way patients are diagnosed, monitored and treated. If you weren’t able to attend the 4BIO Summit in San Francisco, we have made these presentation slides from Suvajyoti Guha, Dr Todd Thorsen & Pouya Rezai available here.
Rabies diagnostics with RT-PCR assays, Liquid Diagnostics and What the Future Holds for Digital PCR
Posted 16th November 2018 by Jane Williams
With its reduction in cost, and an increased number of real-time PCR users purchasing Digital PCR, the qPCR and Digital PCR market is predicted to grow to $4.94 billion by 2021. At the 4BIO event in San Francisco, three dedicated tracks proved a timely opportunity to learn first-hand about dPCR whilst keeping up-to-date with latest market developments and strategies. If you weren’t able to be there in person, these slides are now available from Hestia Mellert, Olivier Thas and Yu Li.
How to make digital microfluidics suit biological need
Posted 14th November 2018 by Jane Williams
Droplet-based microfluidics is a technology that allows for the manipulation of small liquid droplets with a volume ranging from microliters to picolitres. The technology that handles discrete droplets is called digital microfluidics. The small volume offers various advantages such as quick mixing, simple handling, high throughput with a large number of droplets. The small volume also poses a serious challenge to engineering droplet-based microfluidic platforms: evaporation.
Microfluidics: How origami is saving lives in Africa
Posted 7th November 2018 by Jane Williams
This article was originally published by The Scottish Funding Council in May 2018 and is published here with permission.
A folded piece of paper could save lives in Uganda, says Glasgow University’s Prof Jonathan Cooper.
Apac is a district in central Uganda sitting just north of the equator. Its main village is surrounded by Lake Kyoga and the Arocha and Wirewiri swamps. It also has an unusually hot microclimate producing an environment that results in the region having the highest number of mosquito bites per person in the world – on average, each person is bitten five times per night, year-round. The local health workers refer to these as “innoculations” – for, despite years of mass drug administrations, insecticide spraying and distribution of nets, it remains one of the most malarial districts in the world.
Dissecting gene expressions in nucleus versus cytoplasm with single-cell resolution
Posted 4th July 2018 by Jane Williams
Single-cell ITP for physical fractionation of cytoplasmic versus nuclear nucleic acids (NAs)
Single-cell analyses have become powerful tools to explore the heterogeneity of cell populations such as tumours and developing embryos. Microfluidics have significantly contributed to this field, particularly to reduce the cost and improve the throughput of single-cell RNA sequencing and DNA sequencing.
New Tools, New Possibilities – 3D Printing for Lab-on-a-Chip
Posted 15th June 2018 by Jane Williams
Diagnostic technologies rely heavily on our tools. If we want new possibilities, we need to create new tools. In this video from TED Talks, Greg Nordin speaks about his research in new breakthrough methods for microfluidic devices. He considered 3D printing but found that commercial printers and materials could not fabricate feature sizes that are in the truly microfluidic regime (<100 μm).