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Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings

Microfluidics are expected to revolutionize the healthcare industry especially in developing countries since it would bring portable, easy-to-use, self-contained diagnostic devices to places with limited access to healthcare. To date, however, microfluidics has not yet been able to live up to these...

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Autores principales: Nguyen, Hoang-Tuan, Thach, Ha, Roy, Emmanuel, Huynh, Khon, Perrault, Cecile Mong-Tu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187812/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30424394
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi9090461
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author Nguyen, Hoang-Tuan
Thach, Ha
Roy, Emmanuel
Huynh, Khon
Perrault, Cecile Mong-Tu
author_facet Nguyen, Hoang-Tuan
Thach, Ha
Roy, Emmanuel
Huynh, Khon
Perrault, Cecile Mong-Tu
author_sort Nguyen, Hoang-Tuan
collection PubMed
description Microfluidics are expected to revolutionize the healthcare industry especially in developing countries since it would bring portable, easy-to-use, self-contained diagnostic devices to places with limited access to healthcare. To date, however, microfluidics has not yet been able to live up to these expectations. One non-negligible factor can be attributed to inaccessible prototyping methods for researchers in low-resource settings who are unable to afford expensive equipment and/or obtain critical reagents and, therefore, unable to engage and contribute to microfluidics research. In this paper, we present methods to create microfluidic devices that reduce initial costs from hundreds of thousands of dollars to about $6000 by using readily accessible consumables and inexpensive equipment. By including the scientific community most embedded and aware of the requirements of healthcare in developing countries, microfluidics will be able to increase its reach in the research community and be better informed to provide relevant solutions to global healthcare challenges.
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spelling pubmed-61878122018-11-01 Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings Nguyen, Hoang-Tuan Thach, Ha Roy, Emmanuel Huynh, Khon Perrault, Cecile Mong-Tu Micromachines (Basel) Article Microfluidics are expected to revolutionize the healthcare industry especially in developing countries since it would bring portable, easy-to-use, self-contained diagnostic devices to places with limited access to healthcare. To date, however, microfluidics has not yet been able to live up to these expectations. One non-negligible factor can be attributed to inaccessible prototyping methods for researchers in low-resource settings who are unable to afford expensive equipment and/or obtain critical reagents and, therefore, unable to engage and contribute to microfluidics research. In this paper, we present methods to create microfluidic devices that reduce initial costs from hundreds of thousands of dollars to about $6000 by using readily accessible consumables and inexpensive equipment. By including the scientific community most embedded and aware of the requirements of healthcare in developing countries, microfluidics will be able to increase its reach in the research community and be better informed to provide relevant solutions to global healthcare challenges. MDPI 2018-09-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6187812/ /pubmed/30424394 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi9090461 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Nguyen, Hoang-Tuan
Thach, Ha
Roy, Emmanuel
Huynh, Khon
Perrault, Cecile Mong-Tu
Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
title Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
title_full Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
title_fullStr Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
title_full_unstemmed Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
title_short Low-Cost, Accessible Fabrication Methods for Microfluidics Research in Low-Resource Settings
title_sort low-cost, accessible fabrication methods for microfluidics research in low-resource settings
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187812/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30424394
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi9090461
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