PMID- 16372075
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20060216
LR  - 20061115
IS  - 1473-0197 (Print)
IS  - 1473-0189 (Linking)
VI  - 6
IP  - 1
DP  - 2006 Jan
TI  - Digital microfluidics using soft lithography.
PG  - 96-104
AB  - Although microfluidic chips have demonstrated basic functionality for single 
      applications, performing varied and complex experiments on a single device is 
      still technically challenging. While many groups have implemented control 
      software to drive the pumps, valves, and electrodes used to manipulate fluids in 
      microfluidic devices, a new level of programmability is needed for end users to 
      orchestrate their own unique experiments on a given device. This paper presents 
      an approach for programmable and scalable control of discrete fluid samples in a 
      polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic system using multiphase flows. An 
      immiscible fluid phase is utilized to separate aqueous samples from one another, 
      and a novel "microfluidic latch" is used to precisely align a sample after it has 
      been transported a long distance through the flow channels. To demonstrate the 
      scalability of the approach, this paper introduces a "general-purpose" 
      microfluidic chip containing a rotary mixer and addressable storage cells. The 
      system is general purpose in that all operations on the chip operate in terms of 
      unit-sized aqueous samples; using the underlying mechanisms for sample transport 
      and storage, additional sensors and actuators can be integrated in a scalable 
      manner. A novel high-level software library allows users to specify experiments 
      in terms of variables (i.e., fluids) and operations (i.e., mixes) without the 
      need for detailed knowledge about the underlying device architecture. This 
      research represents a first step to provide a programmable interface to the 
      microfluidic realm, with the aim of enabling a new level of scalability and 
      flexibility for lab-on-a-chip experiments.
FAU - Urbanski, John Paul
AU  - Urbanski JP
AD  - Hatsopoulos Microfluids Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 
      Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139 USA.
FAU - Thies, William
AU  - Thies W
FAU - Rhodes, Christopher
AU  - Rhodes C
FAU - Amarasinghe, Saman
AU  - Amarasinghe S
FAU - Thorsen, Todd
AU  - Thorsen T
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PT  - Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
DEP - 20051129
PL  - England
TA  - Lab Chip
JT  - Lab on a chip
JID - 101128948
RN  - 0 (Dimethylpolysiloxanes)
SB  - IM
MH  - *Computers
MH  - Dimethylpolysiloxanes/chemistry
MH  - Microfluidic Analytical Techniques/*instrumentation
MH  - Printing/*instrumentation
MH  - Sensitivity and Specificity
EDAT- 2005/12/24 09:00
MHDA- 2006/02/17 09:00
CRDT- 2005/12/24 09:00
PHST- 2005/12/24 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2006/02/17 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2005/12/24 09:00 [entrez]
AID - 10.1039/b510127a [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Lab Chip. 2006 Jan;6(1):96-104. doi: 10.1039/b510127a. Epub 2005 Nov 29.