Versatile lab on a chip

US researchers have designed a lab on a chip capable of being programmed to perform a variety of jobs, a step toward more widespread use of the miniature analytical tools used to measure everything from blood glucose to viruses, and bacteria to genes.

Current lab-on-a-chip technology is expensive and time consuming to develop because each chip must be specifically designed to perform certain assays or chemical analyses.

Researchers at Purdue University have developed both the hardware and software to create a more versatile chip. It is capable of being programmed for any number of tasks, according to Steven T Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering.

Doctoral students Han-Sheng Chuang and Ahmed Amin worked with Wereley to create the prototype, in research at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.

Lab-on-a-chip technology is currently used for various applications in medicine and research. The systems are used for measuring specific types of cells and molecules in a patient's blood, monitoring micro-organisms such as bacteria and fungi in the environment and separating biological molecules for laboratory analyses.