Posts tagged: Microfluidics

Curious about the latest advancements in microfluidics and Organ-on-Chip standardization? Interested in gaining insights into the ongoing discussions surrounding a groundbreaking sensor/microfluidics interface standard? This article provides a comprehensive overview of current and upcoming activities in these fields, offering a glimpse into the future of cutting-edge technologies.

The past pandemic has shown that smart lab on a chip solutions are stronger in need than ever, for infectious disease control, but also for routine diagnostics that require quick responses or automation of demanding sample preparation workflows. Start-ups and established companies often face the challenge to transform their product idea into initial prototypes and industrial series production with limited resources in terms of time, capacities and decentralized development processes.

Nowadays, there is a great need for highly efficient and accurate diagnostic systems. In order to save both time and money, you can transform passive diagnostic test into active microfluidic systems. These test are not only faster than their passive counterparts, but also more accurate and comprehensive.

Microfluidic devices take multiple shapes. The applications are diverse, with diagnostics, life sciences, drug delivery, and manufacturing being the main ones. Players performing well in this market are mainly the big companies, not generally expert in microfluidics but IVD systems. Almost 91% of the market (in value) is held by 20 players. COVID-19 has boosted the global microfluidics market from US$9.9 billion in 2019 to US$18.1 billion in 2021 (a growth of 45%). This dynamic can be explained by the widespread adoption of point-of-care (POC) solutions and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies.

Microfluidics got very popular within the last decade and is utilized for a vast number of biological, medical, biophysical, biochemical or pharmaceutical applications. In this field the term “microreactor” is increasingly encountered. What is a microreactor, what is it good for? For instance, when talking about synthesis of nanomaterials, it can refer to the whole microfluidic device, that is the microfluidic chip.

Cancer diagnostics, analysis, sensors and, of course, cartridges-all these are terms that gather around research at Fraunhofer IMM. As one of the pioneers in the use of microfluidics and the associated system technology for handling liquid volumes in the micro- to picoliter range, the so-called lab-on-a-chip technology, the Mainz-based institute has been developing microfluidic systems as well as new analysis methods for analytics and life science applications for more than 20 years.

The pandemic is increasingly becoming a race: a neck-and-neck race between research, development and production of drugs and vaccines on the one hand and mutations on the other. Microfluidics can make all the difference in this race, because microfluidic components accelerate the speed of development and Lab-on-a-chip and chemical microreactors make mobile rapid tests possible and accelerate vaccine development.

The Corona crisis has turned the world upside down and shown us once again how dependent we are on key technologies such as microtechnology and nanotechnology. These technologies support the fight against Corona, for example, in the field of rapid diagnostics, in the low-cost production of miniaturized components for urgently needed medical devices and in the development of vaccines.

When WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admonished nations to “test, test, test”, back in March of this year, testing was already recognized as a key strategy in the fight against COVID-19. In response to this, the diagnostics industry has been racing to develop new high-speed test platforms that can quickly and accurately carry out the wide-scale testing needed.

The corona pandemic with the new virus COVID-19 is turning our lives upside down and we are all confronted with a new and completely unexpected situation. At the moment we are increasingly asked by our customers: can you help with corona diagnostics with your micropump? That would be possible. Modern biotechnology needs microstructure technology.