Cutting edge: A prefilled, ready-to-use electrophoresis based lab-on-a-chip device for monitoring lithium in blood.
Cutting edge: A prefilled, ready-to-use electrophoresis based lab-on-a-chip device for monitoring lithium in blood.
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DOI：
10.1039/c005361a
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发表时间：
2010-06
期刊：
影响因子：
6.1
通讯作者：
P. Yager
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
P. Yager
在早期，有许多理由证明为什么微流体系统将彻底改变分析化学和医学诊断。基于iStat在商业上的生存，我们中的一些人认为微流体最重要的应用将是即时诊断。然而，iStat在该领域保持了多年的孤立，第一个商业化的真正的微流控系统用于研究，主要用于DNA测序和高通量筛选；事实证明，医学诊断被认为是一个“成熟的领域”，因此不允许进行技术创新。在实际的毛细管电泳芯片上取得的进展是实质性的，并且出现了优秀的商业产品，尽管是由训练有素的人员在受控的实验室条件下使用的。现在，经过15年的微流控技术培训，微流控技术在医疗点设备上的独特优势得到了更广泛的认可，诊断的商业环境也得到了改善。Floris等人的这份手稿代表了我们所知道的第一次尝试生产一次性一次性CE-on-a-chip设备，并且可以以低成本销售。有几个技术挑战，从“仅仅”经济的一个使玻璃芯片对最终用户来说足够便宜，到提供一种简单的方法来装载样品，也许最具挑战性的是，运输一个完全湿润的设备，将有一个体面的货架寿命。Medimate团队采用的方法一开始让人吃惊，因为他们选择为ce创建一个封闭的系统，只有一个端口向外部世界引入样本。标准的假设是，CE系统必须在电极处保持打开状态，以排出设备中的气体，但相反，他们选择包含在短时间使用期间产生的任何气泡。几个非常聪明的功能已经被纳入其中，允许它工作，并且在最终用户绝对最小的“摆弄”下可靠地工作。此外，他们还选择了Li+，这是一种具有重要医学意义的第一种分析物，迄今为止还没有出现在iStat的分析物清单上。这家公司是否可行主要取决于市场的变幻莫测，但这里展示的技术表明，通过足够聪明的工程设计，即使是像CE这样的“实验室”技术也可以被制成可行的商业护理点产品。
In the early days there were many justifications for why microfluidic systems would revolutionize analytical chemistry and medical diagnosis. On the basis of the commercial survival of the iStat, some of us thought that the most important applications for microfluidics would be in point-of-care diagnosis. However, the iStat remained alone in its field for many years, and the first commercialized true microfluidic systems were for research, mostly for DNA sequencing and highthroughput screening; it turned out that medical diagnostics was thought to be a ‘‘mature field’’, and therefore not open to technical innovation. The advances that were made in practical capillary electrophoresis on a chip were substantial, and excellent commercial products emerged, albeit to be used by trained personnel under controlled laboratory conditions. Now, after 15 years of people being trained in microfluidics, the unique advantages of microfluidics for point-ofcare devices are more widely recognized, and the business climate for diagnostics has improved as well. This manuscript by Floris et al. 1 represents the first attempt of which we are aware to produce a single-use disposable CE-on-a-chip device, and one that can be sold at a low cost. There are several technological challenges presented, ranging from the ‘‘merely’’economic one of making a glass chip inexpensive enough for the end-user, to providing a simple method for loading of the sample, and, perhaps most challenging, to shipping a fully wetted device that would have a decent shelf life. The approach taken by the Medimate team is, at first, startling, in that they chose to create a closed system for CE—with only one port to the outside world for introduction of sample. The standard assumption has been that CE systems had to stay open at the electrodes to vent gases from the device, but instead they have chosen to contain any bubbles generated during a short period of use. Several very clever features have been incorporated that allow this to work, and work reliably with absolutely minimal ‘‘fiddling’’by the enduser. Also, they have chosen in Li+, a first analyte that is both medically important and one that has remained off iStat’s analyte list to date. Whether this company proves viable will mostly be up to the vagaries of the marketplace, but the technology demonstrated here shows that, with sufficient clever engineering, even ‘‘laboratory’’technologies like CE can be made into a viable commercial point-of-care product.