Customisable LOC construction kit attracts interest

Up to now the technological and economic risks involved with the development of such devices has proved too high for most companies. In an attempt to lower price on LOCs, cost cutting initiatives have been developed. Disposable chips, cards or discs form a large part of the commercial manufacturing process, produced inexpensively by injection moulding. As a result the LOCs are easier to manufacture and facilitate the development of lower priced and flexible electronic devices.

The microfluidic construction kit is based on typical laboratory standards with the design allowing up to four modules, e.g. for pumping, micromixing, chromatography, or with electrodes, to be combined with each other on the platform. Fluid connectors allow the flexibly to interconnect modules or link them to outside apparatuses.

"These interfaces were of great importance to us since previous market solutions are far from satisfactory,"​ said Holger Bruning, project manager for ThinXXS. "The connectors may be removed at any time so that the microfluidic system can be easily reconfigured."​

Microstructures such as channels, mixers and reservoirs can also be made to order facilitating the required manipulation of a biological sample.

ThinXXS' LOC is unique in that the chip's manifold shape and dimension is made out of plastic. In order to achieve market success, a process technology was needed which ensures the reliable replication of structures of approx 10 microns in size along with the required accuracy all at competitive unit costs. This can only be achieved when turning to the microinjection moulding of plastics.

A chip with features of a few microns requires a metal mould insert with even higher precision. As a consequence, only a handful of companies worldwide have got the know how to make a plastic LOC.

One of the first systems on the market was Agilent's 2100 Bioanalyzer for DNA, RNA and protein analysis, which utilises Caliper's LabChip technology. The chips are made from glass by lithography and etching.

Bruning added: "Several customers already work with the plastic modules of the construction kit and are very interested in a joint biochip development."​

The concept of a LOC intends to make standard laboratory processes such as polymerase chain reaction, capilliary electrophoresis and antibody tests available at the point of use.

Primarily aimed at researchers performing applications in the drug discovery, diagnostics, liquid handling, or biosensors industry, the microfluidics kit intends to meet the market need that requires the reduction of high development costs; the tendency to integrate an increasing number of functions onto a chip and the advantages of microfluidic systems compatible with existing lab equipment.

Miniaturised platform technologies are no longer new concepts, with chips and microarrays becoming standard tools for the high-throughput analysis of gene expression. The power of microarray analysis lies in the ability to compare large sets of genes in different tissues or conditions to identify pathways and regulatory networks.

ThinXXS​ intend to exhibit this LOC development kit at the ComPaMED trade show in Düsseldorf on the 24-26 November.