Impact of microfluidic systems for molecular and genomic analysis: technological and socio-economic perspectives. (8th February 2011)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Petroni, Silvia; Accoto, Dino; Labella, Barbara; Turchetti, Giuseppe; Guglielmelli, Eugenio
• Is Part Of: International journal of biomedical engineering and technology. Volume 5:Number 1(2011)
• Page Start: 29
• Page End: 43
• Publication Date: 2011-02-08
• Subjects: microfluidics -- genomics -- microdevice -- LOC -- lab-on-a-chip; Biomedical engineering -- Periodicals; 610.28
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1752-6418

Abstract

The last few years witnessed a remarkable development of microsystems for the life sciences. In particular, molecular and genomic analysis techniques underwent a tremendous development. After a focused review on these fields, it will be shown that most of the solutions proposed primarily aim at a higher level of automation for saving costs and time, while reducing the errors that may occur with manual methods. Some socio-economic considerations are also provided to sketch the potential market of such novel devices and a patent overview is presented. A future scenario, enabled by microtechnologies, is eventually provided.