BioMEMS

This paper reports a reconfigurable microfluidic dilution device for high-throughput quantitative assays,
which can easily produce discrete logarithmic/binary concentration profiles ranging from 1 to 100-fold
dilution in parallel from a fixed sample volume (e.g., 10 μL) without any assistance of continuous fluidic
pump or robotic automation. The integrated dilution generation chip consists of switchable distribution
and collection channels, metering reservoirs, reaction chambers, and pressure-activatable Laplace valves.
Following the sequential loading of a sample, a diluent, and a detection reagent into their individual
metering chambers, the top microfluidic layer can be reconfigured to collect the metered chemicals into
the reaction chambers in parallel, where detection will be conducted. To facilitate mixing and reaction in
the microchambers, two acoustic microstreaming actuation mechanisms have been investigated for easy
integrability and accessibility. Furthermore, the microfluidic dilution generator has been characterized by
both colorimetric and fluorescent means. A further demonstration of the generic usage of the quantitative
dilution chip has utilized the commonly available bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay to analyse the protein concentrations
of human tissue extracts. In brief, the microfluidic dilution generator offers a high-throughput
high-efficiency quantitative analytical alternative to conventional quantitative assay platforms, by simple
manipulation of a minute amount of chemicals in a compact microfluidic device with minimal equipment
requirement, which can serve as a facile tool for biochemical and biological analyses in regular laboratories,
point-of-care settings and low-resource environments.

An intelligent recovery evaluation system is presented for objective assessment and performance monitoring of anterior cruciate ligament reconstructed (ACL-R) subjects. The system acquires 3-D kinematics of tibiofemoral joint and electromyography (EMG) data from surrounding muscles during various ambulatory and balance testing activities through wireless body-mounted inertial and EMG sensors, respectively. An integrated feature set is generated based on different features extracted from data collected for each activity. The fuzzy clustering and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference techniques are applied to these integrated feature sets in order to provide different recovery progress assessment indicators (e.g. current stage of recovery, percentage of recovery progress as compared to healthy group etc.) for ACL-R subjects. The system was trained and tested on data collected from a group of healthy and ACL-R subjects. For recovery stage identification, the average testing accuracy of the system was found above 95% (95-99%) for ambulatory activities and above 80% (80-84%) for balance testing activities. The overall recovery evaluation performed by the proposed system was found consistent with the assessment made by the physiotherapists using standard subjective/objective scores. The validated system can potentially be used as a decision supporting tool by physiatrists, physiotherapists and clinicians for quantitative rehabilitation analysis of ACL-R subjects in conjunction with the existing recovery monitoring systems.

The biotechnology industry is changing every day to improve the purity, yield and throughput of products, besides becoming more ecient while using fewer resources. In this sense, this short review aims to present a general overview of the trends in bioseparations that will be met in the bioprocessing area of biotechnology in order to continue overcoming these challenges. It is identified that these tendencies will impact the following stages of the bioseparation train: product sources, primary recovery and purification. New approaches involving process integration, intensification and automation, microscaling and greener practices are addressed. Biotechnological processes will continue to evolve becoming the spearhead of process development, targeting products that will benefit lifestyle and improve quality of life. Nonetheless, the aspects that are covered in this work are up to day the state of the art in this constant change and will undeniably have important repercussions in the future of this area.