This book provides a current view of the research and commercial landscape of diagnostics devices, particularly those that utilize microscale technologies, intended for both patient and laboratory use. Common diagnostic devices that are based on microfluidic principles include glucose sensors for diabetic patients and over-the-counter pregnancy tests. Other diagnostic devices are being developed to quickly test a patient for bacterial and viral infections, and other diseases. The chapters, written by experts from around the world, discuss how to fabricate, apply, and market microfluidic diagnostic chips – for lab and at-home use. Most importantly, the book also contains a discussion of topics relevant to the private sector, including patient-focused, market-oriented development of diagnostics devices. Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a CC-BY 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781498772938_oachapter9.pdf

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "3D Printed Microfluidic Devices" that was published in Micromachines

Microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip have, in recent years, come to the forefront in diagnostics and detection. At point-of-care, in the emergency room, and at the hospital bed or GP clinic, lab-on-a-chip offers the potential to rapidly detect time-critical and life-threatening diseases such as sepsis and bacterial meningitis. Furthermore, portable and user-friendly diagnostic platforms can enable disease diagnostics and detection in resource-poor settings where centralised laboratory facilities may not be available. At point-of-use, microfluidics and lab-on-chip can be applied in the field to rapidly identify plant pathogens, thus reducing the need for damaging broad spectrum pesticides while also reducing food losses. Microfluidics can also be applied to the continuous monitoring of water quality and can support policy-makers and protection agencies in protecting the environment. Perhaps most excitingly, microfluidics also offers the potential to enable entirely new diagnostic tests that cannot be implemented using conventional laboratory tools. Examples of microfluidics at the frontier of new medical diagnostic tests include early detection of cancers through circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and highly sensitive genetic tests using droplet-based digital PCR. This Special Issue on “Advances in Microfluidics Technology for Diagnostics and Detection” aims to gather outstanding research and to carry out comprehensive coverage of all aspects related to microfluidics in diagnostics and detection.

This book provides a well-focused and comprehensive overview of novel technologies involved in advanced microfluidics based diagnosis via various types of prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers. This authors examine microfluidics based diagnosis in the biomedical field as an upcoming field with extensive applications. It provides a unique approach and comprehensive technology overview for diagnosis management towards early stages of various bioanalytes via cancer diagnostics diabetes, alzheimer disease, toxicity in food products, brain and retinal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and bacterial infections etc. Thus, this book would encompass a combinatorial approach of medical science, engineering and biomedical technology. The authors provide a well-focused and comprehensive overview of novel technologies involved in advanced microfluidics based diagnosis via various types of prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers. Moreover, this book contains detailed description on the diagnosis of novel techniques. This book would serve as a guide for students, scientists, researchers, and microfluidics based point of care technologies via smart diagnostics and to plan future research in this valuable field.

This volume provides an overview of the recent advances in the field of paper microfluidics, whose innumerable research domains have stimulated considerable efforts to the development of rapid, cost-effective and simplified point-of-care diagnostic systems. The book is divided into three parts viz. theoretical background of paper microfluidics, fabrication techniques for paper-based devices, and broad applications. Each chapter of the book is self-explanatory and focuses on a specific topic and its relation to paper microfluidics and starts with a brief description of the topic’s physical background, essential definitions, and a short story of the recent progress in the relevant field. The book also covers the future outlook, remaining challenges, and emerging opportunities. This book shall be a tremendous up-to-date resource for researchers working in the area globally.

The field of microfluidics has in the last decade permeated many disciplines, from physics to biology and chemistry, and from bioengineering to medical research. One of the most important applications of lab-on-a-chip devices in medicine and related disciplines is disease diagnostics, which involves steps from biological sample/analyte loading to storage, detection, and analysis. The chapters collected in this book detail recent advances in these processes using microfluidic devices and systems. The reviews of portable devices for diagnostic purposes are likely to evoke interest and raise new research questions in interdisciplinary fields (e.g., efficient MEMS/microfluidic engineering driven by biological and medical applications).The variety of the selected topics (general relevance of microfluidics in medical and bioengineering research, fabrication, advances in on-chip sample detection and analysis, and specific disease models) ensures that each of them can be viewed in the larger context of microfluidic-mediated diagnostics.