The microfluidic milieu

摘要

Microfluidics (the liquid subset of MEMS, ornmicroelectromechanical systems) is beingnapplied to a variety of steps on thendrug discovery pathway. Thencoming microfluidic wavenmay be thought of not as a form of nanotech-nnology, but rather as the first wave of micro-nlaboratories, sometimes referred to as µTASn(micro total analysis systems) (1, 2). Miniaturizedninstruments on microchips can perform the gamut ofnstandard analytical and synthetic processes while usingnminuscule volumes that take a fraction of the time of conven-ntional instrumentation and in a way that is easily automated andnthat can be made massively parallel. The ultimate goals, as with other,nmore standard pharmaceutical technologies, are to capture new drugncandidates for clinical trial and lock down potential drug targets—na large task for these smallest of players