Premium
Microfluidics Based Point‐of‐Care Diagnostics
Author(s) -
Pandey Chandra M.,
Augustine Shine,
Kumar Saurabh,
Kumar Suveen,
Nara Sharda,
Srivastava Saurabh,
Malhotra Bansi D.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
biotechnology journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.144
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1860-7314
pISSN - 1860-6768
DOI - 10.1002/biot.201700047
Subject(s) - software portability , microfluidics , point of care testing , computer science , lab on a chip , point of care , nanotechnology , personalization , biochip , materials science , medicine , nursing , world wide web , immunology , programming language
Point‐of‐care (POC) diagnostic devices have been predicted to provide a boon in health care especially in the diagnosis and detection of diseases. POC devices have been found to have many advantages like a rapid and precise response, portability, low cost, and non‐requirement of specialized equipment. The major objective of a POC diagnostic research is to develop a chip‐based, self‐containing miniaturized device that can be used to examine different analytes in complex samples. Further, the integration of microfluidics (MF) with advanced biosensor technologies is likely to result in improved POC diagnostics. This paper presents the overview of the different materials (glass, silicon, polymer, paper) and techniques for the fabrication of MF based POC devices along with their wide range of biosensor applications. Besides this, the authors have presented in brief the challenges that MF is currently facing along with possible solutions that may result in the availability of the accessible, reliable, and cost‐efficient technology. The development of these devices requires the combination of developed MF components into POC devices that are user‐friendly, sensitive, stable, accurate, low cost, and minimally invasive. These MF based POC devices have tremendous potential in providing improved healthcare including easy monitoring, early detection of disease, and increased personalization.