Abstract

Microfluidic Concepts For Bringing More Precision to Point-of-Care Diagnostics

Emmanuel Delamarche, Senior Manager, Spiden AG

Diagnostics are ubiquitous in healthcare because they support prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Specifically, point-of-care (POC) diagnostics are particularly attractive for identifying diseases near patients, quickly, and in many settings and scenarios. In the context of infectious diseases, there is clearly an urgent need for bringing POC diagnostics to a next level in terms of speed and precision. In this presentation, I will detail some of the former work I did, while at IBM, on new concepts for encoding flow at the microscale using capillary phenomena, implementing highly miniaturized assays, monitoring flow, and making programmable capillary circuits. Specifically, I will provide an update on “self-coalescence modules” and on how these microfluidic elements can be used to implement fast biochemical reactions involving nanoliter volumes and parallel reactions in just a few square millimeters.