Abstract

Promoting Microfluidics From the Lab to Real Biomedical Applications

An-Bang Wang, Distinguished Professor, Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University

Microfluidics could bring significant advantages in the applications of chemical reaction, process control and biomedical detection. In the past fifteen years, the research topics have been shifted from different microfluidic components in our lab, including micropump, microvalve, and micromixer etc., to various integration systems, e.g., micro-multiphase flow/multiemulsion generators, microreactor, high-throughput fluid/flow properties detection, and the maskless pattern coating technology by two-phase microfluidic method, etc. Recently, special efforts were made for the extension of microfluidic applications in the life science studies and clinical diagnoses with advantages of easy use, compact size and excellent cost performance, e.g., a lab-on-a-chip with sequential control for biomedical point-of-care testing and a new extremely material- and time-saving Western blotting method that is widely used in analytical chemistry.