ABSTRACT
From the miniaturization of laboratory instrumentation for bedside rapid diagnosis of diseases to bioanalytical instrumentation for study of individual cells or molecules in new ways using micromachined structures, microfluidics is well established as an exciting new area of research with great promise and an ever-growing application base. Microfluidic systems are often composed of a number of devices that perform different functions, such as reagent mixers, sample separation devices, and sensors for analyte detection. These devices must be interconnected together to perform complex functions and must be connected to off-chip devices for sample and reagent introduction and waste removal. For most biomedical and biological lab-on-a-chip applications, the pressures in the overall system are usually fairly low, with the flow rate being the variable of interest, especially in many cell research applications.
