Microfluidics for Biologists Fundamentals and Applications

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Chapter 8

Biological Applications of Microfluidics


System


Shipra Solanki and Chandra Mouli Pandey


1 Introduction


In the last decade, the applications for microfluidic (MF) devices have proliferated
at an explosive rate similar to the revolution brought in the field of microelectronics
by the invention of the integrated circuit [ 1 ]. These MF devices have shown
enormous potential in diverse fields of biological applications, including cell
sorting, enzymatic assays, immuno-hybridization reactions, and polymer chain
reaction (PCR). The advances in MF technology are revolutionizing the areas of
cell biology, molecular biology and diagnostics [ 2 ]. The similarity in the dimen-
sions of cells and microchannels (10–100μm widths and depths) plays a crucial role
in modifying the procedures of molecular biology for enzymatic analysis, DNA
analysis, and proteomics [ 3 ]. MF systems offer many advantages over traditional
macroscale laboratory techniques such as:



  • The small size of the MF chip requires very fewer sample volumes (typically in
    nanolitres as compared to the hundreds of microliters needed for microlitre plate
    based assays). This reduction in the quantity of the sample, as well as the
    reagents, decreases the cost of the device. Nowadays low-cost paper-based MF
    devices are being explored as a tentative solution for clinical diagnostics in
    developing countries.


S. Solanki
Biomedical Instrumentation Section, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory,
New Delhi-110012, India


C.M. Pandey (*)
Biomedical Instrumentation Section, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory,
New Delhi-110012, India


Department of Applied Chemistry, Delhi Technological University, New Delhi-110042, India
e-mail:[email protected]


©Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
C.K. Dixit, A. Kaushik (eds.),Microfluidics for Biologists,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40036-5_8


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