Microfluidic Systems in Space Science
ditions need to be screened in parallel with minimal consumption of analytes and reagents. Lee et al. also demonstrated high-density regular arrays of single cells isolated in a purely hydrodynamic fashion within a microfluidic device (Fig. 9b). Cells were held by obstacles incorporated into the channel while the fluid passed above and around both sides of the cells in the microchannel. Using obstacles of appropriate shape and size, just one cell per obstacle was trapped. The trapped cells were used for studies of enzyme kinetics on a single-cell level. Future Directions for Research The field of microfluidic systems for high throughput screening continues to mature. Before microfluidic devices replace existing assays and systems, several challenges still remain: standardization, interfacing between microand macro-worlds, ease of handling and robustness of systems, massive parallelization and cost. With these problems surmounted, future microfluidic systems will be capable of performing extensive processing and analysis for biological and drug discovery applications, on components ranging from DNA fragments to entire cells. The processing and analysis functions will be performed on a single chip, with high throughput rates in a continuousflow manner, and in near-physiological environments as close to in vivo conditions as possible. Furthermore, microfluidic systems combined with computational tools and nanobiotechnologies will make technological breakthroughs in the near future. For instance, personalized medicine could be realized to treat an individual patient with the exact drug with optimal efficacy and safety. Cross References Cell Culture (2D and 3D) on Chip Cell-Based Assays Using Microfluidics Control of Microfluidics Droplet Based Lab-on-a-Chip Devices Droplet Dispensing Flow Cytometer Lab-on-Chip Devices Lab-on-a-Chip (General Philosophy) Microfabrication Techniques
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4. Delamarche E, Juncker D, Schmid H (2005) Microfluidics for processing surfaces and miniaturizing biological assays. Adv Mater 17:2911–2933 5. McDonald JC, Duffy DC, Anderson JR, Chiu DT, Wu H, Schueller OJA, Whitesides GM (2000) Fabrication of microfluidic systems in poly(dimethylsiloxane). Electrophoresis 21:27–40 6. Unger MA, Chou H-P, Thorsen T, Scherer A, Quake SR (2000) Monolithic microfabricated valves and pumps by multilayer soft lithography. Science 288:113–116 7. Hong JW, Quake SR (2003) Integrated nanoliter systems. Nat Biotechnol 21(10):1179–1183 8. Song H, Chen DL, Ismagilov RF (2006) Reactions in droplets in microfluidic channels. Angew Chem 45:7336–7356 9. Dittrich PS, Manz A (2006) Lab-on-a-chip: microfluidics in drug discovery. Nat Rev Drug Discov 5:210–218 10. Breslauer DN, Lee PJ, Lee LP (2006) Microfluidics-based systems biology. Mol Biosyst 2:97–112 11. Sams-Dodd F (2006) Drug discovery: selecting the optimal approach. Drug Discov Today 11(9/10):465–472 12. Mere L et al (1999) Miniaturized FRET assays and microfluidics: key component for ultra-high-throughput screening. Drug Discov Today 4(8):363–369 13. Henderson E (2003) Surface pattering tools (SPTs™), Bioforce Nanoscience Inc, Ames, IA, USA 14. Kanigan TS (2004) OpenArray™, BioTrove Inc, Woburn, MA, USA 15. Wolff A, Perch-Nielsen IR, Larsen UD, Friis P, Goranovic G, Poulsen CR, Kutter JP, Tellemen P (2003) Integrating advanced functionality in a microfabricated high-through put fluorescentactivated cell sorter. Lab Chip 3:22–27 16. Wang MM, Tu E, Raymond DE, Yang JM, Zhang H, Hagen N, Dees B, Mercer EM, Forster AH, Kariv F, Marchand PJ, Butler WF (2005) Mircrofluidic sorting of mammalian cells by optical force switching. Nat Biotechnol 23(1):83–87
Microfluidic Systems Packaging Microfluidic Assembly
Microfluidic Systems in Space Science DAVID B RUTIN Poytech Marseille, IUSTI Laboratory, Marseille, France
[email protected] Synonyms
References 1. Squires TM, Quake SR (2006) Microfluidics: Fluid physics at the nanoliter scale. Rev Mod Phys 77:977–1026 2. Venkatasubbarao S (2004) Microarrays – status and prospects. Trends Biotechnol 22(12):630–637 3. Kim KH, Moldovan N, Espinosa HD (2005) A nanofountain probe with sub-100 nm molecular writing resolution. Small 1(6):632–635
Micro- and nanotechnologies; Microsystems Definition Microfluidics is the science of designing, manufacturing, and formulating devices and processes that deal with volumes of fluid of the order of nanoliters. The devices themselves have dimensions ranging from millimeters down to
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Micro Fluorescently-Activated Cell Sorting (μFACS)
micrometers. The microfluidic systems are initially developed at a larger scale and then miniaturized for technological applications such as in space science. They have diverse and widespread potential applications. Some examples of particular systems and processes that might use this technology include inkjet printers, blood cell separation equipment, etc.
Micro Energy Conversion Devices Microstructured Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Overview
Gas Chromatography
During the past 10 years, the concepts of miniaturization have been successfully applied to chemical and biological problems. The development and application of microfluidic or ‘Lab-on-a-Chip’ technology has been of particular interest. A few studies are developed on earth for future use in space considering the mass reduction benefit of the microscale [1, 2]. But at this stage, the main difficulty is to understand fluid behavior inside the Lab-on-Chip when biological or chemical reactions occur. On earth microfluidic systems have been used in a wide variety of applications including nucleic acid separations, protein analysis, process control, and smallmolecule organic synthesis; from a fundamental point of view, chip-based analytical systems have many advantages over their macroscale analogues. These advantages for space use concern an improved efficiency in respect to the sample size, response times, cost, analytical performance, process control, integration, throughput, and automation. The idea that microfabricated analysis systems could be used in extraterrestrial environments is not new. The small size and low power requirements of the first silicon 6sgas chromatograph fabricated at Stanford University in 1975 were seen at the time as ideal characteristics for better utilizing spacecraft resources. Chip-based analysis systems possess many distinct advantages in comparison to their conventional counterparts for spaceflight purposes. References 1. deMello AJ, Stone BM (2004) Unit Operations & Application of Microfluidic Systems for Remote Analysis. http:// astrobiotech.arc.nasa.gov/abstracts/abstract_pdfs/deMello42.pdf Accessed Nov 2004 2. Pimprikar M (2003) Integration of micro and nano technologies for space exploration: challenges, opportunities and vision Merging. Micro and Nanotechnologies, pp 6–7
Micro Fuel Cells
Micro Gas Analyzers
Micro Gas Chromatography Gas Chromatography
Micro Gas and Liquid Chromatography Chromatographic Chip Devices
Micro Gas Turbine Engines Microturbines
Micro Gas Turbines Microturbines
μGC Chromatographic Chip Devices Gas Chromatography
Microgravity Definition Very low gravity conditions, encountered in space flights. Cross References Boiling and Evaporation in Microchannels
Micro Fluorescently-Activated Cell Sorting (μFACS) Droplet Based Lab-on-Chip Devices
Micro Heat Engines Micro Energy Conversion Devices Microturbines
