Background What We Can Offer? Workflow Why Choose Us? Published Data FAQs Featured Services Feature Products
Accelerate Your Research and Development!
Are you currently facing long drug development cycles, the challenge of high-throughput analysis of rare cells, or the need to handle minute sample volumes with precision? Our Microfluidic Cell DNA Screening Chip Development Service helps you accelerate drug discovery, perform sensitive individual cell genetic analysis, and streamline your research processes through advanced microfabrication and on-chip liquid handling technology.
Contact our team to get an inquiry now!
Background
Microfluidics, or "lab-on-a-chip" technology, involves manipulating fluids at the micro-scale to perform complex biological assays with unprecedented precision, which is transformative for cellular and genetic analysis. By exploiting unique fluid dynamics, these chips precisely handle liquids and reagents.
For DNA screening, they integrate multiple steps like cell lysis, DNA extraction, and PCR into a single device, addressing key limitations of conventional methods such as high cost, large sample volumes, and contamination risks. Microfluidic DNA analysis has been validated in numerous research fields, from individual cell genomics to rapid pathogen detection. This is a significant improvement over previous approaches, like FACS sorting in multi-well plates, which were laborious, slow, and required excessive reagent consumption. Researchers are increasingly adopting microfluidic systems for cell DNA screening due to their significant advantages in speed, cost, and suitability for high-throughput applications. Droplet-based microfluidics, in particular, offers straightforward scalability for improved throughput and sensitivity. By generating sequence-ready libraries quickly with minimal picoliter-volume reagent consumption, this technology has lowered the barriers for individual cell DNA screening.
Fig.1 Workflow for individual cell genomic DNA amplification and barcoding.1,3
Applications
The versatility of microfluidic technology extends across a wide range of scientific and clinical applications, including:
Individual Cell Genomics and Transcriptomics
Isolating and preparing individual cells for downstream genetic analysis, providing a deeper understanding of cellular heterogeneity.
Cancer Diagnostics
Isolating rare cells, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), from blood for early detection, prognosis, and personalized medicine.
Rapid Pathogen Detection
Performing on-chip DNA extraction and amplification from patient samples for fast and accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases.
Prenatal Screening
Non-invasive prenatal testing by isolating and analyzing fetal DNA from maternal blood.
Drug Discovery and Screening
High-throughput screening of drug candidates using cell-based assays on a microfluidic platform.
What We Can Offer
Creative Biolabs is your comprehensive partner in microfluidic technology. We provide a range of products and services designed to meet your specific research needs.
We design and fabricate bespoke microfluidic chips from various materials (e.g., PDMS, glass, COC) tailored to your specific application, whether for cell-based assays or DNA analysis.
If you have a design ready, our state-of-the-art fabrication facility can produce high-quality chips with rapid turnaround times.
We offer a complete, end-to-end service, from initial project consultation and chip design to fabrication, validation, and ongoing technical support.
We offer a catalogue of pre-designed, ready-to-use microfluidic chips for common applications such as cell sorting, PCR, and droplet generation, providing a fast and cost-effective solution for standard workflows.
We supply a variety of microfluidic consumables, including specialized tubing, connectors, and reagents optimized for on-chip applications.
Leverage our specialized benefits—Request a quotation today
Workflow
Why Choose Us?
Choosing Creative Biolabs means partnering with a leader in microfluidics technology. Our commitment to innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction is what sets us apart. Our platforms offer superior advantages over conventional methods, enabling you to achieve results that are faster, more reliable, and more cost-effective.
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Precision and Miniaturization: Our chips are engineered to handle nanoliter to picoliter fluid volumes with unparalleled precision, drastically reducing reagent consumption and experimental costs.
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High-Throughput Capabilities: Our designs enable the parallel processing of thousands of individual cells or DNA samples on a single chip, significantly accelerating screening and analysis.
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Reduced Contamination Risk: The enclosed and sterile nature of our microfluidic devices minimizes the risk of cross-contamination, ensuring the integrity and reliability of your data.
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Customization and Flexibility: We offer a fully customizable service, allowing you to create a chip that perfectly matches your unique research requirements, from channel geometry to surface chemistry.
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Accelerated Research: By integrating multiple steps—such as cell lysis, DNA extraction, and PCR—onto a single chip, we eliminate manual, multi-step processes and shorten your overall research timeline.
Published Data
Fig.2 The acoustophoretic device and SELEX on microfluidic chip.2,3
In a key study, a microfluidic Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX) method based on acoustophoresis was successfully demonstrated for the rapid screening of a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) binding aptamer. The experiment utilized a microfluidic chip to continuously separate target-bound DNA fragments from unbound ones, eliminating the need for traditional washing steps. This innovation, coupled with next-generation sequencing (NGS), accelerated the identification of aptamer candidates. The results showed that after only eight rounds of SELEX, a high-affinity PSA-binding aptamer was isolated with a dissociation constant (Kd) of 0.7 nM, validating the efficiency and power of the microfluidic SELEX platform for generating highly specific aptamers.
FAQs
Q: What are the key scientific advantages of using microfluidic chips for DNA screening?
A: Microfluidics enables miniaturization, reducing sample and reagent volumes to the nanoliter or picoliter scale. This conserves precious samples and lowers costs. The micro-scale environment also allows for rapid heat transfer, significantly shortening reaction times for processes like PCR. Furthermore, the enclosed nature of the chip minimizes the risk of cross-contamination, ensuring high data integrity.
Q: How can microfluidic chip design be adapted for specific biological samples or DNA targets?
A: Chip design is highly flexible. The channel geometry, material selection, and surface chemistry can all be modified to optimize performance for a particular application. For instance, channels can be precisely patterned to sort specific cell types, and surfaces can be functionalized with specific antibodies or probes to capture and analyze the target DNA with high specificity.
Q: What operational considerations are important when using microfluidic devices for DNA screening?
A: While the internal processes are complex, the user interface of many microfluidic systems is designed to be straightforward. The primary considerations involve preparing the sample to be compatible with the chip's inlet, ensuring proper fluid flow rates, and understanding the output signals. The multi-step nature of DNA screening is consolidated on-chip, simplifying the overall workflow.
Q: What is the basis for the superior sensitivity of microfluidic screening compared to conventional assays?
A: Microfluidic platforms achieve higher sensitivity by confining reactions to extremely small volumes, often in isolated droplets. This confinement increases the local concentration of the target molecule relative to the detection volume, which amplifies the signal and lowers the limit of detection. This is particularly advantageous for analyzing rare cells or low-abundance DNA.
Q: How do researchers iterate on microfluidic chip designs to optimize performance?
A: The development of a microfluidic chip is an iterative process of design, fabrication, and testing. Researchers can use simulation software to model fluid dynamics before physical fabrication. After initial prototypes are tested, the data from those experiments informs refinements to the design, such as adjusting channel widths or changing material properties, to improve efficiency or address specific performance challenges.
Featured Services
Feature Products
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CAT No
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Material
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Product Name
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Application
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MFCH-001
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Glass
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Herringbone Microfluidic Chip
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Processing samples and reagents in nucleic acid analysis, blood analysis, immunoassays and point-of-care diagnostics.
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MFMM-0723-JS12
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Glass
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Double Emulsion Droplet Chip
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Our double emulsion microfluidic chip, incorporating localized modifications and a classic flow-focusing structure, is specifically designed to generate stable and uniform double emulsion droplets.
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MFCH-005
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PDMS
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3D Cell Culture Chip-Neuron
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Neuron cell culture and study of axon transport, axon protein synthesis, axon damage/regeneration, signal transduction of axon to somatic signal.
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MFCH-009
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PDMS
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Synvivo-Idealized Co-Culture Network Chips (IMN2 radial)
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SynBBB 3D Blood Brain Barrier Model/SynRAM 3D Inflammation Model/SynTumor 3D Cancer Model/SynTox 3D Toxicology Model
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MFMM1-GJS4
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COC
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BE-Doubleflow Standard
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Studying circulating particles, cell interactions and simple organ on chip system construction.
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MFMM1-GJS6
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COC
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BE-Transflow Custom
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Used to construct cell interface or Air-Liquid interface (ALI) to study more complex culture systems.
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Click here to explore our complete product catalog.
For detailed inquiries regarding our offerings, reach out to our specialists.
References
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Pellegrino, Maurizio et al. "High-throughput individual cell DNA sequencing of acute myeloid leukemia tumors with droplet microfluidics." Genome research vol. 28,9 (2018): 1345-1352. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.232272.117
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Park, Jee-Woong et al. "Acousto-microfluidics for screening of ssDNA aptamer." Scientific reports vol. 6 27121. 8 Jun. 2016, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep27121
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Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.
