Lab-on-a-Chip Can Carry Out Over 1,000 Chemical Reactions at Once

Wednesday, August 5, 2009 - 10:28 in Physics & Chemistry

Labs-on-a-chip are generally so specialized and specific in what they do, it's futile to try and explain what makes them particularly special. But in the case of this LoC from UCLA faculty, here's what you need to know: it can carry out upwards of a 1,000 different reactions simultaneously, when most others can barely do two or three. Labs-on-a-chip are often a scientist's best friend: plug it in to a computer, and complex experiments that used to take days (or longer) are automated in significantly less time. Most LOCs can perform a handful of simultaneous reactions, but UCLA's new lab can perform 1,024 reactions at a time, making drug development faster, easier and cheaper. In the tests, the research team sought to find which drugs were most effective inside certain types of proteins. This specific lab-on-a-chip uses microfluidic technology to route trace amounts of liquids...

Read the whole article on PopSci

More from PopSci

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net