Lab-on-chip: principle, design, technology and diagnostic targets

Abstract

Lab-on-Chip (LoC) integrates various analyses such as biochemical operations, chemical synthesis, DNA sequencing onto a single chip which otherwise would have been performed in laboratory taking sufficient amount of time. Due to the miniaturization of these biochemical operations, better diagnostic speed, cost efficiency, ergonomy, sensitivity and so on can be achieved. This paper gives the detailed description of Lab-on Chip technology includingits system components. Ongoing worldwide research projects based on LoC technology have been investigated andvarious constraints that need to be fulfilled for designing a LoC system are presented. The biomedical applicationsof LoC in different fields like in diagnostics, cellomics, in environmental studies to control the effect of pathogens,to check the food quality have also been discussed. The current open research issues of this technology along withthe possible future research scope in the biomedical area have been presented.