Main Applications, Development Directions, and Future Challenges of Microfluidic Chips

In recent years, with the rapid development of social economy,  new scientific technologies have emerged endlessly. Microfluidic chips, with their unique advantages of low reagent consumption, low energy consumption, fast reaction speed, high throughput, and self-driven liquids, have developed into a research hotspot in the cross-disciplines of biochemistry, medicine, electronics, and materials.

Main applications of microfluidic chips

PCR: Microfluidic chip technology combined with PCR can complete the amplification in a short time. It can not only effectively reduce the reaction system and greatly improve detection sensitivity, but also shorten the reaction time and be lightweight and portable. It has become a highly regarded technology in the field of medical testing.

Pathogens: Pathogen detection based on microfluidic technology has shown high accuracy and short time consumption in clinical medicine, the food industry, and environmental monitoring.

Skin: The skin, as the largest organ of the human body, is also the first line of defense in the human immune system,  maintaining the stability of the body's internal environment and resisting external bacterial infections. Sweat, as the most common biomarker, can also be used to detect multiple vital signs. With the development of complex materials, flexible wearable devices can attach to the skin to analyze biological fluids and monitor various indicators of the human body in real-time.

Tumor and cancer exosomes: Exosomes from tumors (exosomes) play a special role in the intercellular communication in the tumor microenvironment. They are stably present in body fluids and can sensitively reflect the actual state of the tumor, considered highly promising tumor markers in "liquid biopsy" technology.

The primary difficulty in exosome research is how to isolate these small vesicles from complex biological samples. Ultracentrifugation is a classic method for exosome concentration, but it is cumbersome, expensive,  and has a low recovery rate.

Assembling various nanoparticles in microfluidic channels for in vivo magnetic resonance imaging of solid tumors can achieve effective imaging of solid tumors within 0.5 h and maintain it for at least 16h, allowing patients to be measured at multiple time points for treatment. This negates the need for repeated clinical MRIs to observe the entire tumor, making it more convenient and the imaging very clear, helping surgeons determine the tumor size and make accurate decisions.

Tissue engineering  (organ chips): The development of materials science and microfluidic technology has accelerated the construction of in vitro cellular tissue and organs, thereby speeding up the progress of efficient diagnostic and therapeutic technologies.

Drug analysis: Microfluidic chip technology provides new possibilities in drug delivery and drug screening methods,  such as achieving painless controlled transdermal drug delivery combined with microneedles.

Blood analysis: Microfluidic blood analysis is a medical research detection method used in the fields of biology, basic medicine, preventive medicine, and public health. This method can detect moderate to severe anemia,  and cancer cells, etc., using only a small amount of blood.

Nerve ( implantable): Currently, various microfluidic devices related to neuroscience are applied in the medical field for their real-time monitoring, spatial grasping ability, human microenvironment simulation authenticity, and high integration and simplicity. Research on the nervous system often uses pharmacological and optogenetic techniques for controlled neural function. However, neural tissues are very fragile, and traditional techniques can cause serious damage to neural tissues.

Development direction of microfluidic chips

With the improvement of people's living standards, higher levels of personal customization requirements have emerged in the medical field. Medical devices based on microfluidic chips are constantly developing. Many other instances also reflect the applications of microfluidic chips in medical research:

(1) POCT for immediate detection and analysis, enabling on-site testing, diagnosis, and treatment in one go;

(2) Microfluidic reaction chips for high-throughput drug screening, single-cell sequencing, and microchemical reactions;

(3) To establish cell/tissue/organ models for drug pharmacology and toxicology research.

Future challenges of microfluidic chips

Microfluidic technology, as an industrial technology, has many advantages, and its application in various industries for large-scale production is the trend. However, the development and operational costs of microfluidic chips have been high, preventing the technology from benefiting the public. At present, key microfluidic technologies are still held by some developed countries. The future goal of modern high-tech enterprises in our country is to reduce costs and increase efficiency, mastering higher resolution and lower cost preparation technologies as soon as possible to capture market share and make microfluidic chip technology available to the masses.

Microfluidic chip technology has developed into an indispensable technology in the path of modern scientific progress, with cross-field application value, especially in the medical field. It is hoped that more researchers from different fields will discuss and solve existing problems together, pushing microfluidic chip technology towards widespread reliability and true industrialization. It is believed that in the future microfluidic chip technology will achieve more valuable achievements in the medical field.