Biological Application of Digital Microfluidics Technology

Abstract

Digital microfluidics technology offers a platform for developing diagnostic applications with the advantages of portability, sample and reagent volume reduction, faster analysis, increased automation, low power consumption, compatibility with mass manufacturing and high throughput. In addition to diagnostics, digital microfluidics is finding use in nucleic acid analysis, peptide and protein analysis, cell analysis, drug analysis and delivery and immunization analysis. In this review, we describe these applications, their implementation, and associated design issues. As other review in the digital microfluidics technology, there have been and will be unexpected developments as DMF matures, but we predict that the future is bright for this promising technology at the last section.Keywords: Digital microfluidics technology; Nucleic acid analysis; Peptide and protein analysis; Cell analysis; Drug analysis and delivery Citation: B. Liu et al. Biological Application of Digital Microfluidics Technology. Nano Biomed Eng. 2010, 2(2), 149-154. DOI: 10.5101/nbe.v2i2.p149-154. The advent and development of digital microfluidics technologyTraditional (continuous-flow) microfluidic technologies are based on the continuous flow of liquid through microfabricated channels [1]. Continuous-flow systems are inherently difficult to integrate because the parameters that govern flow field (e.g. pressure, fluid resistance, electric field strength) vary along the flow-path, making the flow at any location dependent upon the properties of the entire system.The concept of digital microfluidics (DMF) arose in the late 1990s and involves the manipulation of discrete volumes of liquids on a surface. Manipulation of droplets can occur through various mechanisms, including electrowetting [2], dielectrophoresis [3], thermocapillary transport [4] and surface acoustic wave transport [5]. DMF was popularized in the early 2000s by Fair and coworkers [6] and Kim and coworkers [7] at Duke and UCLA, respectively. The technique was explained as being a phenomenon driven by surface tension, and was called "electrowetting" or "electrowetting ondielectric" (EWOD). A detailed review of electrowetting basics can be found in the work of Mugele [8]. In addition, work on simulation and modeling of dropletbased electrowetting has been reported by Biddut Bhattacharjee and Homayoun Najjaran [9].In contrast to continuous-flow biochips, digital microfluidic biochips platform is under software-driven electronic control, eliminating the need for mechanical tubes, pumps, and valves. Moreover, because each droplet can be controlled independently, these "digital" systems also have dynamic reconfigurability, whereby groups of cells in a microfluidic array can be reconfigured to change their functionality during the concur- Application of digital microfluidics technology in bioanalysisTo accomplish a digital microfluidics device it requires a hierarchical taxonomy. At the top level, applications are scaled to a microfluidic platform. The second level describ...

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