“The findings outlined in the review article now enable researchers to progress further towards bringing microfluidic devices or lab on a chip devices to the market place.”

The paper is a review, summarizing the wide variety of applications of magnetism within microfluidic devices. Researchers are increasingly taking up this type of work and hence the review has been cited extensively. The review brings together the many applications of magnetic forces for microfluidics research.

Magnets can be used to manipulate fluids inside microfluidic devices. Such devices feature networks of microscopically small channels and are now being investigated and commercialized for clinical diagnostics, forensic applications, and environmental analysis. The driving force for this research field is the fact that many chemical processes can be undertaken much faster and much more efficiently in the small microchannels.

Furthermore, only small volumes of liquids are needed to do chemistry or bioanalysis and only a small amount of waste is produced. Microfluidic devices can be portable for point-of-care applications, such as testing blood parameters at the patient’s bed site.

Of course, there have been quite a number of technical challenges and the use of magnetism has proven to be a valuable tool for manipulating and controlling liquid flows. For example, small magnetic objects can be moved inside a microchannel with an external magnet. Such magnetic objects can be used as valves, for pumping, or even to enhance mixing, to name a few applications.

The findings outlined in the review article now enable researchers to progress further towards bringing microfluidic devices or lab-on-a-chip devices to the market place.

I first started using magnetic forces to manipulate small magnetic particles during my Ph.D. project. We have since found many exciting applications to use magnetic forces for bioanalytical devices.

Microfluidics research is slowly moving to more integrated devices, i.e., devices in which the entire analysis of a sample can be performed at the site of interest, including sample pre-treatment, concentration, reactions, separations, and detection. Such devices are now being realized for forensic DNA analysis at the scene of a crime, or for environmental water analysis at the site of pollution, or for clinical screening in the hospital. I hope to make a contribution to these developments.

The development of useful microfluidic devices could have quite an impact on our daily lives. Analytical tests could be performed quickly with very small amounts of sample, bringing forward biomedical research and also leading to portable devices for environmental or medical analysis.