Lab on a Chip - Future Technology for Characterizing Biotechnology Products

© 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of lab-on-a-chip research and to discuss the role that Lab on a Chip technology may play in the future of analytical chemistry for the characterization of biotechnology products. With increasing demands from regulatory organizations to provide quantitative data both for the product and for the production process of the biotechnological products, the demand for fast and parallel analysis systems has increased to a level that existing analytical instrumentation cannot meet demand. Additionally, research to elucidate biochemical pathways in life sciences has pushed the current analytical technology to its limits. Combination of the need for increased throughput and analysis speed in combination with increasing demands on the resolution indicate a need for a new generation of analytical tools. Lab-on-a-chip technology may provide a solution, as it offers fast, parallel, and automated analysis of minute sample amounts with equivalent or higher resolution than conventional-scale counterparts. An overview of the technology and techniques developed for Lab-on-a-chip applications is given. Microfabrication and fluid manipulation techniques are discussed together with an overview of methods developed as separate elements for on-chip analysis. The significance of these developments for the analysis of biotechnological products is illustrated using three examples of product assays conducted on currently commercially available lab on a chip instrumentation.