Microfluidic Tools for High-Throughput Screening

Dear Colleagues,

There has been tremendous progress over the last several years in the development and commercialization of microfluidic technologies for high-throughput screening (HTS) and library generation. Across a wide range of applications, microfluidic HTS has numerous advantages over conventional tools, including reduced sample and reagent volumes, improved measurement sensitivity, higher density of assays and reagent/sample storage, and implementation of multi-step assays in simple multifunctional microfluidic devices.

HTS has been implemented in diverse types of microfluidic devices including (1) analogs of microplates in which assays are performed in an array of tiny wells or chambers, (2) array-based systems in which samples/reagents are flowed over an array of immobilized or trapped reagents/samples to perform assays, or (3) droplet-in-oil based systems in which assays are performed in a series of isolated droplets separated by an oil stream. Depending on the assay, the devices may manipulate single cells, 2D or 3D cell cultures, tissues, spheroids, small organisms, or biomolecules (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids, peptides), etc. In order to identify “hits”, readout may rely on fluorescence, luminescence, nanoparticle binding, electrical impedance, radioactivity, microscopy (e.g., cell morphology, crystal formation), size, PCR amplification and a multitude of other outputs.

For this Special Issue, we invite original research or review papers that focus on the many current and emerging microfluidic platforms for high-throughput screening, as well as their diverse applications.

Prof. R. Michael van Dam
Guest Editor

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