Lab at home: a promising prospect for on-site chemical and biological analysis

Abstract

The continuing pursuit for a healthy life has led to the urgent need for on-site analysis. In response to the urgent needs of on-site analysis, we propose a novel concept, called lab at home (LAH), for building automated and integrated total analysis systems to perform chemical and biological testing at home. It represents an emerging research area with broad prospects that has not yet attracted sufficient attention. In this paper, we discuss the urgent need, challenges, and future prospects of this area, and the possible roadmap for achieving the goal of LAH has also been proposed.

Keywords: Biochemical analysis; Lab at Home; Microfluidic analysis; On-site analysis.

Fig. 1

Milestone diagram of some nodal technique in the development of POCT and microfluidic chips

Fig. 2

Conceptual diagram of the composition and application of Lab-at-Home systems

Fig. 3

Microfluidic liquid-handling techniques with potentials to meet the requirements of a household analyzer in high versatility and complex manipulation ability. a Centrifugation control; b Micropump/microvalve; c Digital microfluidics; and d Sequential operation droplet array (SODA)