Lab-on-a-chip sensors: recent trends and future applications

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-88431-0.00012-0

With the rapid developments in fields such as medicine, biotechnology, and genomics, the need for chemical/biochemical analysis has increased and practical applications of biochips have been developed for the use of classical methods, laboratories, and complex devices. Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a novel technology that reveals a mini lab onto a small coin size chip. On a sensor chip, reagents mixing, dilution, electrophoresis, separation, staining, and detection can be realized. This sensor technology enables one or several analysis and resulted with high sensitivity, short diagnostic time, better process control, low fabrication costs, portability, and safety. LOC is an automated miniaturized laboratory system used for plant science, food safety, environmental analysis, and medical diagnosis. For clinical applications, LOC systems can be used inside and outside the hospital. Compared to the current tests, LOCs have many advantages, including possibility to point-of-care diagnostic with low fluid volumes, use of small amounts of expensive reagents and samples, controlled flow rate, short diffusion distance, short mixing time, and low fabrication cost. But calibration of tests, training, and education for users are highly recommended. LOC can be integrated with smartphones and such a system can be used for personalized medicine applications. This chapter reveals the development of LOC technology and its main applications in research, clinical, environmental, and industrial scale. It also covers the potential of LOC systems in miniaturization and commercialization.