Abstract
Magnetic nanoparticles have attracted significant attention in various disciplines, including engineering and medicine. Microfluidic chips and lab-on-a-chip devices, with precise control over small volumes of fluids and tiny particles, are appropriate tools for the synthesis, manipulation, and evaluation of nanoparticles. Moreover, the controllability and automation offered by the microfluidic chips in combination with the unique capabilities of the magnetic nanoparticles and their ability to be remotely controlled and detected, have recently provided tremendous advances in biotechnology. In particular, microfluidic chips with magnetic nanoparticles serve as sensitive, high throughput, and portable devices for contactless detecting and manipulating DNAs, RNAs, living cells, and viruses. In this work, we review recent fundamental advances in the field with a focus on biomedical applications. First, we study novel microfluidic-based methods in synthesizing magnetic nanoparticles as well as microparticles encapsulating them. We review both continues-flow and droplet-based microreactors, including the ones based on the cross-flow, co-flow, and flow-focusing methods. Then, we investigate the microfluidic-based methods for manipulating tiny magnetic particles. These manipulation techniques include the ones based on external magnets, embedded micro-coils, and magnetic thin films. Finally, we review techniques invented for the detection and magnetic measurement of magnetic nanoparticles and magnetically labeled bioparticles. We include the advances in anisotropic magnetoresistive, giant magnetoresistive, tunneling magnetoresistive, and magnetorelaxometry sensors. Overall, this review covers a wide range of the field uniquely and provides essential information for designing “lab-on-a-chip” systems for synthesizing magnetic nanoparticles, labeling bioparticles with them, and sorting and detecting them on a single chip.
Highlights
Nanomaterials have recently attracted enormous interest in various disciplines
Biologists have used magnetic nanoparticles in applications, including but not limited to (i) diagnostic purposes when conjugated with antibodies; (ii) magnetically labeling biological particles for sorting purposes; (iii) targeted drug delivery when loaded with drugs; (iv) magnetic hyperthermia; and (iv) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Researchers have developed a spiral microfluidic device with the continuous flow to synthesize magnetic nanoparticles based on the co-precipitation method in its ~20 μm deep microchannels [32]
Summary
Nanomaterials have recently attracted enormous interest in various disciplines. They are an interesting class of materials with amazing magnetic, catalytic, mechanical, electrical, and optical properties, which are not achievable in bulk materials [1]. Scientists are moving towards single-cell analysis, where genotypes and phenotypes at the single-cell level are studied [15,16,17] Another set of crucial biomedical applications of magnetic nanoparticle manipulation is microfluidic-based diagnostics, where measuring biomarkers in blood, urine, or serum provides essential information about diseases [18,19]. We discuss the fundamental goal of developing a “lab-on-a-chip” system to synthesize magnetic nanoparticles, label bioparticles, sort and detect them on a single chip With this broad structure, here the goal is to, instead of including all available works, highlight advances in the field. Here the goal is to, instead of including all available works, highlight advances in the field We believe it will provide crucial information for researchers interested in lab-on-a-chip, microfluidics, magnetic nanoparticles, and their use in medicine and immunology
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