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OPEN ACCESS PLUS
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Contents
3(2): Pp. 137 - 160
Godfrey Pasirayi, Vincent Auger, Simon M. Scott, Pattanathu K.S.M. Rahman, Meez Islam, Liam O'Hare and Zulfiqur Ali
[Open Access Plus] |
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The use of microfluidic bioreactor platforms for cell culturing holds considerable promise for a range of fields which include drug discovery, tissue engineering, bioprocessing optimisation and cell based screening studies. Microfluidic bioreactor systems have length scales that are well matched to the physical dimensions of most cells and microorganisms. In view of this, microfluidic bioreactors have attractive features which make them ideal to study the behaviour of cells and their internal organisation in their native microenvironment. Due to their small footprint microbioreactor platforms offer a number of advantages over conventional macroscale systems including improved biological function, higher quality cell-based data, reduced volume of reagents, ease of integration and lower cost. This review highlights the basic concepts, designs and operational requirements of microbioreactors for cell based studies. An illustrative outline of different applications of microbioreactors and some indication of new trends and progress in recent years are provided. Specific examples of applications of microbioreactors are drawn for cytotoxicity assays, tissue engineering, stem cells, microbial fermentations, single cell analysis and in vitro fertilisation.
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3(2): Pp. 131 - 136
Bin Xu, Nam-Trung Nguyen and Teck Neng Wong
[Open Access Plus] |
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Droplet coalescence is one of the most attractive manipulation schemes in droplet-based microfluidic systems, which enables droplet-based functions such as mixing and microreactor to be achieved in lab-on-a-chip applications. This paper systematically presents an overview on techniques used for droplet coalescence in microfluidic systems. In this paper, techniques employed for droplet coalescence are categorized as passive and active types. The basic theory and mechanism behind these techniques are also presented.
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1(3): Pp. 193 - 204
Masaya Miyazaki, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Takeshi Honda, Maria Portia P. Briones-Nagat, Kenichi Yamashita and Hideaki Maeda
[Open Access Plus] |
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Polymer synthesis requires strict control of reaction conditions such as temperature, reaction time, and mixing of reagents. Microfluidic reaction systems enable efficient mixing and rapid heat exchange. Moreover, laminar stream in a microfluidic channel enables control of the resulting shape of a molecule. This article reviews the use of microfluidic technology in the field of polymer chemistry. First, conformational aspects of polymers in microfluid are summarized. Next, the techniques for linear and branched polymer synthesis are described. We also describe the potential use of microreaction system for polymer particle and membrane synthesis. A description of how it would be possible to use this technology to prepare larger quantities of polymer compounds is also given.
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