Droplet Microfluidic Technologies for the Real World

摘要

We shall present a series of technologies allowing robust, high throughput applications of water droplets transported in an oil flow, acting as independent microreactors. These technologies address yet unsolved problems such as the world-to-chip interface, high yield single cell encapsulation, or the control of drop-to-drop contamination for demanding applications such as PCR. In particular, we present a fully automated system for performing continuous sampling, reagent mixing and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in microdroplets. Reproducible amplification, negligible cross contamination and low detection limits were demonstrated in continuous operation for several months at a yield of 3000 reactions per day. The system, which opens the route to strong reagents and labor savings in high throughput applications, was validated on the clinically relevant quantificatioti of progesterone receptor gene expression in human breast cancer cell lines. Other applications relevant to cell biology will also be presented in the conference.