PNNL

Abstract

Droplet-based microfluidics has developed substantially as a technology will likely assume a higher profile role in biological analyses moving forward. Not only are much smaller amount of reagents and samples consumed, but also thousands of reactions and screening experiments can be performed within droplets simultaneously. Perhaps more importantly, droplet-based microfluidics is a promising tool to help us understand some fundamental biological questions such as enzymatic reactions in a confined and crowding environment, protein-protein or protein-ligand interactions, interfacial functions in biological systems, and single-cell proteomics and metabolomics. A number of operational units have been well developed for droplet-based microfluidics, including droplet generation, fusion and incubation. Others, such as droplet extraction for subsequent analysis of the contents have been developed recently and promise to add versatility to the platform. Robust integration of multiple functions to create a true "lab-on-a-chip" continues to be a challenge, but the unique advantages of droplets for sample-limited biological analyses will undoubtedly spawn further development and we anticipate significant growth in the number of applications that rely on this technology in coming years.