14 Apr 2011

Lab-on-a-Chip Device

From Our Changing World, 9:06 pm on 14 April 2011

Bryon Wright, Donald Wlodkowic and Jin Akagi

From left to right: Bryon Wright, Donald Wlodkowic and Jin Akagi (images: University of Auckland)

Using techniques developed for the semiconductor industry, lab-on-a-chip devices incorporate one or several laboratory functions on a chip no bigger than the size of a credit card. Tiny amounts of liquid can be passed through these devices, and when directed through channels in the circuit-like chip, the microfluidics can be manipulated to create pumps, valves, or even traps.

At the University of Auckland, the Microscale Research Group and the BioMEMS Research Group are making these lab-on-a-chip devices, with researchers like Donald Wlodkowic using trapping techniques to study single cells, such as cancer cells, and analyse the impact of anti-cancer drugs.

Ruth Beran visits David Williams and Jin Akagi in the Department of Chemistry, and they take her down to the basement, to meet Bryon Wright who shows her where these devices are made using lithography in the clean room of the Microfabrication Facility.

A lab-on-a-chip device, and the clean room

A lab-on-a-chip device, and the yellow light in the clean room (images: University of Auckland)

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