Abstract
Centrifugal microfluidic or lab-on-a-disc platforms have many advantages over other microfluidic systems. These advantages include a minimal amount of instrumentation, the efficient removal of any disturbing bubbles or residual volumes, and inherently available density-based sample transportation and separation. Centrifugal microfluidic devices applied to biomedical analysis and point-of-care diagnostics have been extensively promoted recently. This paper presents an up-to-date overview of these devices. The development of biomedical centrifugal microfluidic platforms essentially covers two categories: (i) unit operations that perform specific functionalities, and (ii) systems that aim to address certain biomedical applications. With the aim to provide a comprehensive representation of current development in this field, this review summarizes progress in both categories. The advanced unit operations implemented for biological processing include mixing, valving, switching, metering and sequential loading. Depending on the type of sample to be used in the system, biomedical applications are classified into four groups: nucleic acid analysis, blood analysis, immunoassays, and other biomedical applications. Our overview of advanced unit operations also includes the basic concepts and mechanisms involved in centrifugal microfluidics, while on the other hand an outline on reported applications clarifies how an assembly of unit operations enables efficient implementation of various types of complex assays. Lastly, challenges and potential for future development of biomedical centrifugal microfluidic devices are discussed.
Highlights
In past few decades, the lab-on-a-chip system, which aims at integrating laboratory work into a chip platform, has attracted a great deal of attention
This paper provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account on recent advances in biomedical centrifugal microfluidic platforms
To solve the overpressure caused by high temperature evaporation in a closed thermocycling chamber during polymerase chainchain reaction (PCR), Czilwik et al presented a method in which a microchannel was integrated as a vapor-diffusion barrier (VDB) to separate the liquid-filled PCR chamber from an auxiliary air chamber
Summary
The lab-on-a-chip system, which aims at integrating laboratory work into a chip platform, has attracted a great deal of attention. Current reviews on the LOAD platforms are mainly focused on a specific topic in centrifugal microfluidics, for example handling and analysis of cell or bioparticles [2,3], molecular diagnostics [4], optical detection strategies [5] and detection methods [6]. It can be seen that NA (nucleic acid) based assays and valving systems are currently the most important topics This signifies that researchers place equal emphasis on applications and device development. Our overview on unit operations explains the basic concepts and mechanisms involved in centrifugal microfluidics This is followed by an outline of biomedical applications that clarifies how an assembly of unit operations may enable efficient implementation of various complex assays. Improvement of the complex bioassay devices depends largely on the development of several unit operations, including mixing, valving, flow switching, metering, and sequential loading. Ρ is the density of the fluid, u denotes the velocity vector of the fluid, μ is the dynamic viscosity of the liquid, ∇ pis thepressure gradient, F is the external force field applied to the fluid (e.g., centrifugal force), ∇ ̈ u C denotes convective mass flux, D ∇2 C denotes diffusive mass flux (D is the diffusion coefficient), and R g is the net rate of the species generation
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