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A software-programmable microfluidic device for automated biology

2011; Royal Society of Chemistry; Volume: 11; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1039/c0lc00537a

1473-0197

Luis M. Fidalgo, Sebastian J. Maerkl,

Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies

Specific-purpose microfluidic devices have had considerable impact on the biological and chemical sciences, yet their use has largely remained limited to specialized laboratories. Here we present a general-purpose software-programmable microfluidic device which is capable of performing a multitude of low- and high-level functions without requiring any hardware modifications. To demonstrate the applicability and modularity of the device we implemented a variety of applications such as a microfluidic display, fluid metering and active mixing, surface immunoassays, and cell culture. We believe that analogously to personal computers, programmable, general-purpose devices will increase the accessibility and advance the pervasiveness of microfluidic technology.