Microfluidic assembly for biosensing

Harnessing the ability to precisely and reproducibly manipulate bioparticles such as DNA, cells, and molecules at the microscale, microfluidic is a technology using soft lithography, additive manufacturing and other advanced methods to process or manipulate small (10 –9 to 10 –18 l) amounts of fluids, using channels with dimensions of tens to hundreds of micrometers. Because of intensive developments in the past decades, microfluidic system has replaced laboratory bench-top technology on a miniature chip-scale device for biological analysis in many fields. Application of microfluidic tools is particularly favored in biosensing that requires rapid analysis with low cost and high specificity. In this article, we classify the biosensing target into four parts, including nucleic acid, protein, small molecules, and cell. The achievements associated with these technological advances and their respective applications to date are reviewed from a broad perspective, and future directions that may emerge from the current state of the art are discussed.