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Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability

The majority of commercially oriented microfluidic technologies provide novel point-of-use solutions for laboratory automation with important areas in the context of the life sciences such as health care, biopharma, veterinary medicine and agrifood as well as for monitoring of the environment, infra...

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Autor principal: Ducrée, Jens
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6953106/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31861126
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi10120886
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author Ducrée, Jens
author_facet Ducrée, Jens
author_sort Ducrée, Jens
collection PubMed
description The majority of commercially oriented microfluidic technologies provide novel point-of-use solutions for laboratory automation with important areas in the context of the life sciences such as health care, biopharma, veterinary medicine and agrifood as well as for monitoring of the environment, infrastructures and industrial processes. Such systems are often composed of a modular setup exhibiting an instrument accommodating rather conventional actuation, detection and control units which interfaces with a fluidically integrated “Lab-on-a-Chip” device handling (bio-)sample(s) and reagents. As the complex network of tiny channels, chambers and surface-functionalised zones can typically not be properly cleaned and regenerated, these microfluidic chips are mostly devised as single-use disposables. The availability of cost-efficient materials and associated structuring, functionalisation and assembly schemes thus represents a key ingredient along the commercialisation pipeline and will be a first focus of this work. Furthermore, and owing to their innate variability, investigations on biosamples mostly require the acquisition of statistically relevant datasets. Consequently, intermediate numbers of consistently performing chips are already needed during application development; to mitigate the potential pitfalls of technology migration and to facilitate regulatory compliance of the end products, manufacture of such pilot series should widely follow larger-scale production schemes. To expedite and de-risk the development of commercially relevant microfluidic systems towards high Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), we illustrate a streamlined, manufacturing-centric platform approach employing the paradigms of tolerance-forgiving Design-for-Manufacture (DfM) and Readiness for Scale-up (RfS) from prototyping to intermediate pilot series and eventual mass fabrication. Learning from mature industries, we further propose pursuing a platform approach incorporating aspects of standardisation in terms of specification, design rules and testing methods for materials, components, interfaces, and operational procedures; this coherent strategy will foster the emergence of dedicated commercial supply chains and also improve the economic viability of Lab-on-a-Chip systems often targeting smaller niche markets by synergistically bundling technology development.
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spelling pubmed-69531062020-01-23 Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability Ducrée, Jens Micromachines (Basel) Concept Paper The majority of commercially oriented microfluidic technologies provide novel point-of-use solutions for laboratory automation with important areas in the context of the life sciences such as health care, biopharma, veterinary medicine and agrifood as well as for monitoring of the environment, infrastructures and industrial processes. Such systems are often composed of a modular setup exhibiting an instrument accommodating rather conventional actuation, detection and control units which interfaces with a fluidically integrated “Lab-on-a-Chip” device handling (bio-)sample(s) and reagents. As the complex network of tiny channels, chambers and surface-functionalised zones can typically not be properly cleaned and regenerated, these microfluidic chips are mostly devised as single-use disposables. The availability of cost-efficient materials and associated structuring, functionalisation and assembly schemes thus represents a key ingredient along the commercialisation pipeline and will be a first focus of this work. Furthermore, and owing to their innate variability, investigations on biosamples mostly require the acquisition of statistically relevant datasets. Consequently, intermediate numbers of consistently performing chips are already needed during application development; to mitigate the potential pitfalls of technology migration and to facilitate regulatory compliance of the end products, manufacture of such pilot series should widely follow larger-scale production schemes. To expedite and de-risk the development of commercially relevant microfluidic systems towards high Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), we illustrate a streamlined, manufacturing-centric platform approach employing the paradigms of tolerance-forgiving Design-for-Manufacture (DfM) and Readiness for Scale-up (RfS) from prototyping to intermediate pilot series and eventual mass fabrication. Learning from mature industries, we further propose pursuing a platform approach incorporating aspects of standardisation in terms of specification, design rules and testing methods for materials, components, interfaces, and operational procedures; this coherent strategy will foster the emergence of dedicated commercial supply chains and also improve the economic viability of Lab-on-a-Chip systems often targeting smaller niche markets by synergistically bundling technology development. MDPI 2019-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6953106/ /pubmed/31861126 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi10120886 Text en © 2019 by the author. 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 Concept Paper
Ducrée, Jens
Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability
title Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability
title_full Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability
title_fullStr Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability
title_full_unstemmed Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability
title_short Efficient Development of Integrated Lab-On-A-Chip Systems Featuring Operational Robustness and Manufacturability
title_sort efficient development of integrated lab-on-a-chip systems featuring operational robustness and manufacturability
topic Concept Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6953106/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31861126
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi10120886
work_keys_str_mv AT ducreejens efficientdevelopmentofintegratedlabonachipsystemsfeaturingoperationalrobustnessandmanufacturability