Microcontrollers are programmable, integrated circuit chips. In the last two decades, their applications to industrial instruments, vehicles, and household appliances have reached the extent that microcontrollers are now the number-one selling electronic chip of all kinds. Simultaneously, the field of lab-on-a-chip research and technology has seen major technological leaps towards sample handling, sample preparation, and sensing for use in molecular diagnostic devices. Yet, the transformation from a laboratory based lab-on-a-chip technology to actual point-of-care device products has largely been limited to a fraction of the foreseen potential. We believe that increased knowledge of the vast possibilities that becomes available with open source microcontrollers, especially when embedded in easy-to-use development environments, such as the Arduino or Raspberry Pi, could potentially solve and even bridge the gap between lab-on-a-chip technology and real-life point of care applications. The profuse availability and extraordinary capabilities of microcontrollers, namely within computation, communication, and networking, combined with easy-to-use development environments, as well as a very active and fast moving community of makers, who are eager to share their knowledge, could potentially be the difference between a dreadful “chip-in-a-lab”-situation, and the next successful start-up. Here follows a brief insight into how open source microcontrollers could potentially have a transformative effect on the field of lab-on-a-chip research and technology. Details in some specific areas of application are briefly treated before addressing challenges and future perspectives.

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Abstract. Here we present a robust, stable and low-noise experimental set-up for performing electrochemical detection on a centrifugal microfluidic platform. By using a low-noise electronic component (electrical slipring) it is possible to achieve continuous, on-line monitoring of electrochemical experiments, even when the microfluidic disc is spinning at high velocities. Automated sample handling is achieved by designing a microfluidic system to release analyte sequentially, utilizing on-disc passive valving. In addition, the microfluidic system is designed to trap and keep the liquid sample stationary during analysis. In this way it is possible to perform cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements at varying spin speeds, without altering the electrochemical response. This greatly simplifies the interpretation and quantification of data. Finally, real-time and continuous monitoring of an entire electrochemical experiment, including all intermediate sample handling steps, is demonstrated by amperometric detection of on-disc mixing of analytes (PBS and ferricyanide).

During the last few decades, great advances have been reached in high-throughput design and building of genetically engineered microbial strains, leading to a need for fast and reliable screening methods. We developed and optimized a microfluidic supported liquid membrane (SLM) extraction device and combined it with surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing for the screening of a biological process, namely for the quantification of a bacterial secondary metabolite, p-coumaric acid (pHCA), produced by Escherichia coli. The microfluidic device proved to be robust and reusable, enabling efficient removal of interfering compounds from the real samples, reaching more than 13-fold up-concentration of the donor at 10 μL min flow rate. With this method, we quantified pHCA directly from the bacterial supernatant, distinguishing between various culture conditions based on the pHCA production yield. The obtained data showed good correlation with HPLC analysis.

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