Chapter 14 - Lab-on-a-chip techniques for high-throughput proteomics and drug discovery

Abstract

Current drug discovery and screening practices necessitate extensive research, preclinical testing, and exhilarating clinical trials where frequent drug failures and rising costs are inevitable. Recent advances in the microfluidic technology are promising to replace various traditional laboratory methods with robust, low-cost, reduced reagent consumption and high-throughput lab-on-a-chip (LOC)-based analyses. Integration of cutting-edge microfabrication techniques with microfluidics and electric components on a single chip gives high flexibility to design miniaturized biomedical devices for multiple purposes. Their remarkable capability to mimic natural tissues and organ morphologies has bypassed the traditional methods in complexity and accuracy. The in vitro LOC devices based on cells, tissues, and organs have eased manipulations and understanding of biological systems and opened a new gateway for their pharmaceutical applications such as drug screening, tissue engineering, and disease modeling. In this chapter, the applications of microfluidic technologies and LOC devices for high-throughput drug screening and validation are discussed in detail.