Microfluidic whole-blood immunoassays

Immunoassay is one of the most widely used biomedical diagnostic methods due to its sensitivity and specificity. Microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technology has the advantages of portability, integration, and automation. The combination of these two technologies leads to a pathway for point-of-care diagnostics using the unprocessed samples such as the whole blood. This article reviews the recent advancement and the major development in the microfluidic-based whole-blood immunoassays. After a survey of the recent studies on microfluidic whole-blood immunoassays, an in-depth review about the detection methods that can be miniaturized and integrated in the immunoassay chips is provided. Point-of-care diagnostics applications require developing a fully integrated, disposable, low-cost, and handheld microfluidic device for the whole-blood immunoassay. In this regard, some comments and suggestions for future research are given.