Lab on a Particle Technologies
Rajesh Ghosh, Alyssa Arnheim, Mark van Zee, Lily Shang, Citradewi Soemardy, Rui-Chian Tang, Michael Mellody, Sevana Baghdasarian, Edwin Sanchez Ochoa, Shun Ye, Siyu Chen, Cayden Williamson, Amrith Karunaratne, and Dino Di Carlo
Analytical Chemistry, May 2024
Introduction
The miniaturization and automation of life science laboratory operations has leveraged fabrication advances in the integrated circuit industry, using planar substrates or “chips”. The term “lab on a chip” was coined to articulate this merger and has encompassed research on continuous flow, droplet, and digital microfluidic approaches. Lab on a Particle (LoP) technologies are emerging as complementary approaches to perform microscale reactions to analyze molecules and cells. Unlike microfluidic chips, LoP platforms utilize microparticles to confine samples and facilitate reactions within compartments that are fully suspendable and can be highly parallelized . These compartments can be analyzed using easily accessible instruments, like flow cytometers, fluorescence activated cell sorters (FACS), microscopes, and other imaging platforms. The microparticles used for LoP assays are often manufactured with unique shapes and/or chemistries, enabling functions such as templating droplets; capturing molecules, cells, and secretions; or barcoding reactions. Materials and structures essential for assay functions are imprinted in each particle, eliminating the need for custom chips or specialized instruments, thus making LoP platforms compatible with standard laboratory instrumentation and infrastructure. In this way, the microparticles in LoP technologies act in a similar manner as a software application, or App, running on ubiquitous life science instrument hardware, fueling more rapid adoption and expanded impact.
Topics
Technology, Review Paper