A lab-on-chip for malaria diagnosis and surveillance.

Background: Access to timely and accurate diagnostic tests has a significant impact in the management of diseases of global concern such as malaria. While molecular diagnostics satisfy this need effectively in developed countries, barriers in technology, reagent storage, cost and expertise have hampered the introduction of these methods in developing countries. In this study a simple, lab-on-chip PCR diagnostic was created for malaria that overcomes these challenges.

An inexpensive and portable microchip-based platform for integrated RT-PCR and capillary electrophoresis.

We present an inexpensive, portable and integrated microfluidic instrument that is optimized to perform genetic amplification and analysis on a single sample. Biochemical reactions and analytical separations for genetic analysis are performed within tri-layered glass-PDMS microchips. The microchip itself consists of integrated pneumatically-actuated valves and pumps for fluid handling, a thin-film resistive element that acts simultaneously as a heater and a temperature sensor, and channels for capillary electrophoresis (CE).

Microfluidic platform for single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping of the thiopurine S-methyltransferase gene to evaluate risk for adverse drug events.

Prospective clinical pharmacogenetic testing of the thiopurine S-methyltransferase gene remains to be realized despite the large body of evidence demonstrating clinical benefit for the patient and cost effectiveness for health care systems. We describe an entirely microchip-based method to genotype for common single nucleotide polymorphisms in the thiopurine S-methyltransferase gene that lead to serious adverse drug reactions for patients undergoing thiopurine therapy. Restriction fragment length polymorphism and allele-specific polymerase chain reaction have been adapted to a microfluidic chip-based polymerase chain reaction and capillary electrophoresis platform to genotype the common *2, *3A, and *3C functional alleles.