A great breadth of questions remains in cellular biology. Some questions cannot be answered using traditional analytical techniques and so demand the development of new tools for research. In the near future, the development of highly integrated microfluidic analytical platforms will enable the acquisition of unknown biological data. These microfluidic systems must allow cell culture under controlled microenvironment and high throughput analysis. For this purpose, the integration of a variable number of newly developed micro- and nano-technologies, which enable control of topography and surface chemistry, soluble factors, mechanical forces and cell–cell contacts, as well as technology for monitoring cell phenotype and genotype with high spatial and temporal resolution will be necessary. These multifunctional devices must be accompanied by appropriate data analysis and management of the expected large datasets generated. The knowledge gained with these platforms has the potential to improve predictive models of the behavior of cells, impacting directly in better therapies for disease treatment. In this review, we give an overview of the microtechnology toolbox available for the design of high throughput microfluidic platforms for cell analysis. We discuss current microtechnologies for cell microenvironment control, different methodologies to create large arrays of cellular systems and finally techniques for monitoring cells in microfluidic devices.

Nowadays, there are strong efforts in developing new technology for rapid detection of specific DNA sequences for environmental monitoring, forensic analysis and rapid biomedical diagnosis applications. That is where microfluidic paper-based analytical devices are positioned as suitable platforms for the development of point of care analytical devices, due to their simple fabrication protocols, ease of use and low cost. Herein, a methodology for in situ single strand DNA detection by using a colorimetric assay based on the formation of a DNAzyme within a paper substrate was developed. A DNAzyme that could only be formed in the presence of a specific sequence of the Y human amelogenin gene was designed. The performance of the DNAzyme was followed colorimetrically first in solution and then in paper substrates. The reaction was found to be specific to the Y fragment selected as analyte. The DNAzyme reaction on paper enabled the unequivocal colorimetric identification of the Y single strand DNA fragment both qualitatively, with the naked eye (143 ng), and quantitatively by image analysis (45.7 ng). As a proof of concept, a microfluidic paper-based device, pre-loaded with all DNAzyme reagents, was characterized and implemented for the simultaneous detection of X and Y single strand DNA fragments.

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The effect of cell-cell contact on gene transfection is mainly unknown. Usually, transfection is carried out in batch cell cultures without control over cellular interactions, and efficiency analysis relies on complex and expensive protocols commonly involving flow cytometry as the final analytical step. Novel platforms and cell