Design automation for biochemistry synthesis on a digital microfluidic lab-on-a-chip

Abstract

Microfluidic biochips are recently being advocated for on-chip implementation of several biochemical laboratory assays or protocols [1]. Such labs-on-a-chip (LoC) have brought a complete paradigm shift in DNA analysis, toxicity grading, in molecular biology, and in drug design and delivery. This technology offers a viable and low-cost platform for reducing healthcare cost of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, for providing point-of-care (P-o-C) health services [2, 3], and for the management of bio-terrorism threats [4]. These chips are also immensely useful for rapid and accurate diagnosis of various diseases including malaria, human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV), acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and for mitigating neglected tropical diseases (NTD) prevalent in the developing countries [5].