Announcement: Fabrication and Laboratory Methods Section

Abstract

Modern research in areas relevant to our readership demand practical knowledge of both classical and the latest fabrication and laboratory techniques. Often times, standard journal articles leave the reader wanting more information on how best to adopt a process for their own work, and the latest techniques are characteristically unfamiliar to most researchers, detracting from the potential rapid progress of research. To help address this problem, we are introducing a new section specifically targeting methods in fabrication and laboratory work. By soliciting contributions from prominent researchers on classical methods, well known to those using them but still difficult to access by researchers entering the field from other areas, we aim to provide a resource not readily available via other means. Over time, this resource will come to represent a collection of standard methods that a researcher new to the field can quickly adopt and use to add their voice to the burgeoning research area of Biomicrofluidics. An example of such an article is the simple use of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) in fabricating microfluidics devices (“Fabrication of microfluidic devices using polydimethylsiloxane”) (see http://link.aip.org/link/BIOMGB/v4/i2/p026502/s1): Elementary to those already in the field, but among the first hurdles to those wishing to enter it. For those researchers already in the field, the advance of laboratory and fabrication methods almost universally presages advances in the research itself. While keeping abreast of these developments is possible through the general research literature, having sufficient knowledge to make use of such a technique in one’s own laboratory often takes considerably longer. By focusing on new methods in rapidly published, brief, peer-reviewed articles that provide detail and background sufficient to permit the reader to duplicate it in their own laboratory, the dissemination of knowledge on such methods will accelerate, enabling advances in the area at a rate commensurate with its promise. We invite those in the area to consider submitting articles on methods used in their laboratories that may be useful to other research groups, and offer an example article on “Using laser Doppler vibrometry to measure capillary surface waves on fluid-fluid interfaces (see http://link.aip.org/link/BIOMGB/v4/i2/p026502/s1).” An attractive feature of the new section is the opportunity to include multimedia materials to show the reader how the method is to be conducted, a significant benefit of the online and open-access format at Biomicrofluidics, and one we encourage authors to adopt to enhance their contribution to the journal. The Fabrication and Laboratory Methods section is especially for microfluidics, nanofluidics, and those techniques pertaining to chemical and biological applications of lab-on-a-chip devices, and though submissions are usually solicited from leading researchers in the field, the editors welcome proposals from prospective authors. As with the rest of the journal articles, the protocols will carry full citation details.