Abstract

Capillary-Based Microfluidics: from Concepts to Chips

Emmanuel Delamarche, Manager, Precision Diagnostics, IBM Research GmbH

I will present how to program capillary flow and encode specific functions to form microfluidic elements that can easily be assembled into self-powered devices for immunoassays. I will detail some particularly important functions for the integration of biological receptors and detection antibodies in microfluidic chips. In addition, small peripherals can augment the functionality of microfluidic chips having electrodes for monitoring flow with sub-nanoliter precision and providing connectivity to smartphones. This can be done using a low-cost chip peripheral and tracking flow using near-real time capacitance measurements of a liquid front gradually wetting a pair of electrodes. All together, these concepts may extend the performances of microfluidic devices for point-of-care diagnostics to a next level of precision by accurately encoding sequential steps for effecting biochemical reactions.