Innovative Advances in Droplet Microfluidics.

Abstract

Droplet microfluidics is a rapidly evolving technology enabling precise control and manipulation of small-volume droplets, typically ranging from picoliters to nanoliters, offering important potential for biomedical applications. By generating highly uniform droplets with size variation below 5% and at high frequencies exceeding 10,000 droplets per second using techniques such as flow focusing, this approach facilitates high-throughput experimentation with minimal reagent consumption. These features make droplet microfluidics invaluable for single-cell analysis, drug screening, and disease diagnostics. Recent advancements in integrating droplet microfluidics with biological and clinical workflows have expanded possibilities for personalized medicine, early disease detection, and high-resolution cellular assays. This review provides an overview of recent progress in droplet microfluidics, focusing on key techniques for droplet generation, manipulation, and detection. It explores their applications in cutting-edge biomedical research, including single-cell analysis, 3-dimensional cell culture, drug development, and cancer research. Additionally, we discuss current challenges, such as improving reproducibility, scalability, and system integration, and outline promising future directions to fully realize the potential of droplet microfluidics in biomedicine.