Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Microfluidic Technology for Molecular
Diagnostics
Tom Robinson and Petra S. Dittrich
Abstract Molecular diagnostics have helped to improve the lives of millions of
patients worldwide by allowing clinicians to diagnose patients earlier as well as
providing better ongoing therapies. Point-of-care (POC) testing can bring these
laboratory-based techniques to the patient in a home setting or to remote settings in
the developing world. However, despite substantial progress in the field, there still
remain many challenges. Progress in molecular diagnostics has benefitted greatly
from microfluidic technology. This chapter aims to summarise the more recent
advances in microfluidic-based molecular diagnostics. Sections include an intro-
duction to microfluidic technology, the challenges of molecular diagnostics, how
microfluidic advances are working to solve these issues, some alternative design
approaches, and detection within these systems.
Keywords Microfluidics Lab-on-a-chip Immunoassays Pre-treatment
Paper-microfluidics Detection Lensless Label-free
Contents
1
Introduction........................................................................................................................
90
2
Microfluidics in Brief........................................................................................................
91
3
Challenges of Molecular Diagnostics ...............................................................................
93
4
The Challenges in Molecular Diagnostics Being Met by Microfluidic Technology .....
94
5
Alternative Approaches to Microfluidic Design ..............................................................
100
6
Detection Methods for Diagnostics ..................................................................................
104
7
Future Goals and Perspectives ..........................................................................................
109
References................................................................................................................................
110
T. Robinson P. S. Dittrich (
)
Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences,
ETH Zurich, Zurich Switzerland
e-mail: dittrich@org.chem.ethz.ch
&
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