Microfluidic diagnostics for the developing world

Abstract

For more than a decade, it has been expected that microfluidic technology would revolutionize the healthcare industry with simple, inexpensive, effective, and ubiquitous miniature diagnostic devices. To date, however, microfluidics has not yet been able to live up to these expectations. This fact has led to the recent development of new philosophies and methodologies for microfluidic diagnostics. In this Focus article, we will discuss some of the latest breakthroughs that could significantly impact medical diagnostics in the developing world.

Fig. 1

Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for infectious and parasitic diseases. Image reproduced from ref. 1 with permission from Nature publishing.

Fig. 2

(A) Schematic of the fabrication process for a paper-based microfluidic channel. (B) Three-dimensional (3D) paper microfluidic channel network and multiplex detection. Image reproduced from ref. and with permission from ACS and the National Academy of Sciences.

Fig. 3

(A) Images of the microfluidic chip. (B) Schematic diagram of passive delivery of multiple reagents. (C) Illustration of biochemical reactions in detection zones at different immunoassay steps. (D) Absorbance traces of a complete HIV-syphilis duplex test as reagent plugs pass through detection zones. Image reproduced from ref. 5 with permission from Nature Publishing.

Fig. 4

(A)–(C) Various schematic diagrams of the designed optical attachment for optofluidic fluorescent imaging cytometry on a cell phone are illustrated. (D) The picture of the optofluidic fluorescent imaging cytometer on a cell phone. Image reproduced from ref. 6 with permission from ACS publishing.