What is the chip laboratory?

Lab-on-A-chip devices, formally known as "micro overall analytical systems" (µtas) are microfluidic systems that integrate more laboratory capabilities on one chip only a few centimeters in size. Their use is the reaction of polymerase chains in real time (used to amplified small DNA chains into more manageable samples), immunotests that diagnose the presence of antigen/antibodies, dielectrophory, dielectrophory that are used to detect certain cell type blood cells. Equipment mounted on the skin capable of almost immediately detect the presence of bacteria of disease or biochemical substances in the bloodstream. In the future, doctors may be able to diagnose quickly and precisely using information transmitted from such a device. Laboratory technology has been on the chip since the age of 80 and even in the form of precursors at the end of the 70s, but it was not to the biotechnologyThe explosion in the mid -1990s began to pay attention to the mainstream scientists.

Lab-on-A-chip devices are an example of a continuing miniaturization that takes place with numerous technologies, from computer chips to communication devices such as mobile phones. Laboratory research on a chip can be considered a subgroup of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) and contains many components based on MEMS research: micropumpy, capillaries, valves, sensors, levers, etc. One of the greatest advantages on the chip is its small size that allows mass production and reduced use of expensive substances that are sometimes necessary for certain types Laboratory work. However, with the expansion of traditional chemical principles, there are many challenges, which means that the laboratory systems on the chip may require some reworking to correspond to the function of larger cousins.

In the not too distant budLaboratory systems on the chip can even be integrated into known devices such as laptop computers, allowing chemistry and biology students to play with scientific instruments outside the traditional boundaries of the laboratory environment. In recent years, many conferences have appeared around the Labs-on-A-Chip, and while technology is still in its infancy, dozens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars around the world, are investing in its improvement.