Nanomaterial-based in vitro analytical system for diagnosis and therapy in microfluidic device

Abstract

Nanomaterials have several advantages in detecting several biomaterials and in enhancing signals and their inherent effects. Thus, they have been widely applied in the biomedical fields such as biosensor and cancer therapeutics. Recently, the development of microfluidic technology has led to superior biological analysis systems to detect biomarkers related to diseases or serve as in vitro drug screening platform. In a microfluidic device, samples could be analyzed more accurately, rapidly and simply. In addition, it is possible to culture the cells in these microfluidic devices, therefore making the in situ analysis of secretomes easy. Nanomaterials can be easily applied in the microfluidic channels as capturing and signaling materials in order to improve the sensing or therapeutic property. In particular, nanomaterial integrated microfluidic cell culture model can replace in vivo disease models for nanotherapeutics screening. In this review, nanomaterial-based sensing systems, which include diverse organic and inorganic nanoparticles, are introduced with specific examples, including microfluidics integrated systems. Moreover, microfluidics derived nanomaterial analytic systems as in vitro 2 or 3-dimensional (2D or 3D) cell culture platform will be presented. We also highlight the future perspectives of the microfluidic-driven system as highly sensitive total analysis system with functional nanoparticles.