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The increasing need for portable bioanalysis and biosensor systems has accelerated the development of microfluidic “lab-on-a-chip” devices capable of functioning as self-contained miniature biochemical laboratories.
Since these devices are inexpensive, require only nanoliter sample volumes, and do not rely on the availability of a pre-existing laboratory infrastructure, they offer an unprecedented level of speed and portability, putting the power to conduct increasingly sophisticated tests directly in the hands of those who need it (doctors, criminologists, soldiers, etc.). The process of scaling-down these analytical operations to the microdevice level, however, is often difficult because our understanding of the underlying physics is not as complete as in the macro world.
Our research in this area involves harnessing the power of microfabrication technology to simultaneously miniaturize the experiment and the experimental apparatus so that they can be directly integrated to perform in situ studies of the physics associated with transport and flow in microfluidic systems.
