Lab-on-a-CD: A Fully Integrated Molecular Diagnostic System.

The field of centrifugal microfluidics has experienced tremendous growth during the past 15 years, especially in applications such as lab-on-a-disc (LoD) diagnostics. The strength of LoD systems lies in its potential for development into fully integrated sample-to-answer analysis systems. This review highlights the technologies necessary to develop the next generation of these systems.

Push pull microfluidics on a multi-level 3D CD.

A technique known as thermo-pneumatic (TP) pumping is used to pump fluids on a microfluidic compact disc (CD) back towards the CD center against the centrifugal force that pushes liquids from the center to the perimeter of the disc. Trapped air expands in a TP air chamber during heating, and this creates positive pressure on liquids located in chambers connected to that chamber. While the TP air chamber and connecting channels are easy to fabricate in a one-level CD manufacturing technique, this approach provides only one way pumping between two chambers, is real-estate hungry and leads to unnecessary heating of liquids in close proximity to the TP chamber.

Vacuum/compression valving (VCV) using parrafin-wax on a centrifugal microfluidic CD platform.

This paper introduces novel vacuum/compression valves (VCVs) utilizing paraffin wax. A VCV is implemented by sealing the venting channel/hole with wax plugs (for normally-closed valve), or to be sealed by wax (for normally-open valve), and is activated by localized heating on the CD surface. We demonstrate that the VCV provides the advantages of avoiding unnecessary heating of the sample/reagents in the diagnostic process, allowing for vacuum sealing of the CD, and clear separation of the paraffin wax from the sample/reagents in the microfluidic process.