Sweat offers a minimally intrusive, data-dense biological medium capable of delivering dynamic insight into a person's physiological state. At Creative Biolabs, our Microfluidic Chip Development Service helps you accelerate your research and development in non-invasive diagnostics. Are you currently facing challenges with inefficient sweat collection, low sample volumes, or complex biomarker analysis? Our end-to-end service helps you accelerate drug discovery, obtain high-quality data, and streamline clinical trial processes through advanced microfluidic design and fabrication techniques.
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Background
Microfluidic chips are a core technology in the rapidly expanding field of non-invasive diagnostics. These miniaturized "lab-on-a-chip" devices utilize tiny channels to precisely manipulate and analyze minute volumes of fluids, such as sweat. Sweat, secreted from eccrine glands, contains a wealth of physiological information, including metabolites like glucose and lactate, electrolytes, hormones, and proteins. Sweat represents an appealing medium for physiological tracking since it can be stimulated locally without intrusion and contains a wide array of biomarkers—from compact electrolytes and metabolites to hormones and bigger proteins that permeate from internal tissues. This accessible sampling and molecular richness enable sweat to serve as an effective tool for molecular evaluation of bodily health.
Fig.1 Microfluidic sweat analysis.1,3
Traditional blood-based diagnostics, while accurate, are invasive and not suitable for continuous monitoring. Microfluidic chips overcome these limitations by enabling the continuous, non-invasive collection and analysis of sweat, providing a powerful alternative for real-time health tracking. The field has seen significant advancements in integrating flexible materials, sophisticated sensors, and wireless communication to create wearable, comfortable, and highly effective monitoring devices. The development of such integrated systems addresses challenges like sweat evaporation, sample contamination, and the need for accurate correlation between sweat and blood biomarkers.
Applications
The versatility of microfluidic sweat analysis chips has led to a wide range of applications across several key industries:
Continuous Health Monitoring
Non-invasive monitoring of biomarkers for chronic disease management, such as continuous glucose monitoring for diabetic patients.
Sports Performance and Fitness
Real-time tracking of biomarkers like lactate, electrolytes, and sweat rate to optimize training, prevent dehydration, and assess muscle fatigue.
Drug Monitoring and Pharmacokinetics
Using sweat to monitor drug metabolite concentrations, offering a convenient, continuous way to track medication adherence and efficacy.
Clinical Diagnostics
Providing a non-invasive tool for diagnosing conditions like cystic fibrosis through chloride concentration analysis.
Stress and Wellness Tracking
Monitoring cortisol levels and other stress-related biomarkers to provide a more holistic view of an individual's psychological state.
What We Can Offer
Creative Biolabs is a full-service provider dedicated to supporting your entire microfluidic project lifecycle. Our offerings include:
We design bespoke microfluidic platforms from the ground up, tailored to your specific biomarker panel and application.
Utilizing a variety of materials and cutting-edge fabrication techniques, we produce high-quality, reproducible microfluidic devices.
We offer a comprehensive suite of services that cover the entire microfluidic chip development lifecycle, from initial concept and design to fabrication, sensor integration, and validation. This streamlines your project and reduces the need to coordinate with multiple vendors.
We can provide pre-fabricated, ready-to-use microfluidic chips based on our standard designs, offering a fast-track option for clients with common use cases.
Leverage our specialized benefits—Request a quotation today
Workflow
Why Choose Us
Choosing Creative Biolabs means partnering with a team that combines deep scientific expertise with a commitment to rapid innovation and tailored solutions. Our streamlined process and advanced technology platforms ensure that your project moves from concept to reality efficiently.
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Advanced Fabrication Technologies: We utilize cutting-edge techniques like 3D printing and soft lithography, enabling us to create flexible, conformable chips with intricate channel designs that optimize sweat flow and sample handling.
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Integrated Sensing Modalities: We offer seamless integration of multiple sensing modalities, including electrochemical, optical, and colorimetric sensors, into a single device for comprehensive, multi-analyte monitoring.
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End-to-End Solution: From initial design and material selection to final validation and manufacturing support, we provide a complete, one-stop solution that reduces complexity and accelerates your time to market.
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Proven Reliability: Our devices are designed to minimize common issues like sweat evaporation, contamination, and signal interference, ensuring robust and accurate data even with low sweat rates.
Published Data
Fig.2 Dynamic sweat sampling and analysis performances of the microfluidic sweat SERS sensor.2,3
A recently published study demonstrated the integration of a flexible microfluidic platform with a plasmonic metasurface to create a wearable sensor for real-time sweat analysis. The experiment focused on addressing a key challenge in wearable biosensing: the risk of contamination from old sweat mixing with new samples. By designing a microfluidic system that allows for controlled and high-temporal-resolution administration of sweat over the sensing area, the researchers were able to achieve "refreshable" surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis. The results showed that this approach successfully provided dynamic and portable recognition of key biomarkers such as urea, lactate, and pH. The study concluded that this system represents a significant step forward in personalized medicine by combining epidermal microfluidics with portable molecular recognition, offering a controllable and dynamic biofluid sensing system. This published data reinforces the power of microfluidic engineering to solve complex, real-world problems in diagnostics and health monitoring.
FAQs
Q: How can microfluidic devices ensure a strong correlation between sweat and blood biomarkers?
A: Achieving a strong correlation requires meticulous control over sweat collection and analysis. This involves designing microchannels that minimize evaporation and contamination, selecting sensor materials with high specificity and sensitivity, and applying robust calibration algorithms. The correlation is further strengthened through a comprehensive validation process against established gold-standard methods, accounting for physiological variables like sweat rate and on-body temperature.
Q: Is it technically feasible to create a chip for a novel or unconventional biomarker?
A: Yes, the fundamental principles of microfluidics and biosensing are highly adaptable. The technical feasibility of a novel biomarker chip depends on the existence of a proven sensing mechanism for that analyte and its presence in sweat. Specialized sensing elements, such as those based on aptamers or molecularly imprinted polymers, can be designed and integrated into the microfluidic architecture to target a wide range of unique molecules.
Q: What fluidic mechanisms are used to manage low sweat volumes?
A: Microfluidic chips are engineered to operate effectively even with very low sweat volumes. This is achieved through the use of passive fluidic principles, such as capillary action and surface tension, which draw and transport sweat through the microchannels without external pumps. Additionally, incorporating hydrophilic materials and optimized channel geometry ensures efficient sample collection and prevents evaporation, maintaining sample integrity during analysis.
Q: How are environmental factors, such as humidity and temperature, addressed to maintain measurement accuracy?
A: Measurement accuracy is maintained through a multi-faceted approach. On-chip temperature sensors are integrated to allow for real-time data normalization, as both sensor response and biomarker concentration can be temperature-dependent. Additionally, the device is designed with materials and packaging that act as a barrier to external environmental influences, such as humidity and contaminants, ensuring the integrity of the sample and the reliability of the measurements.
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-a-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 a 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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Liu, Dong et al. "Wearable Microfluidic Sweat Chip for Detection of Sweat Glucose and pH in Long-Distance Running Exercise." Biosensor vol. 13,2 157. 19 Jan. 2023, https://doi.org/10.3390/bios13020157
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He, Xuecheng, et al. "Flexible microfluidic nanoplasmonic sensors for refreshable and portable recognition of sweat biochemical fingerprint." npj Flexible Electronics 6.1 (2022): 60. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41528-022-00192-6
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Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.
