Emerging microfluidic chips on medical application

Abstract

In recent years, with the rapid development of the social economy, new science and technology emerge endlessly.Microfluidic chips have become a research hotspot integrating biochemistry, medicine, electronics, materials and their interdisciplinary aspects because of their unique advantages such as low reagent consumption, low energy consumption, high reaction speed, high throughput, and liquid self-driving.Microfluidics is developed based on microelectro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology, which is a kind of technology that accurately manipulates the microfluid in microtubules.With the continuous development of flexible materials (paper, photonic crystal film) and complex machining processes (femtosecond laser, two-photon 3D printing, etc.), microfluidic chips have moved towards a multifunctional innovation route with highly integrated technologies.Therefore, its development is changing rapidly.There are numerous review reports on microfluidic chips, but there is still a lack of reports on microfluidic chips' latest applications, especially in the medical field.Therefore, we summarize the recent progress of medical microfluidics research comprehensively so that readers can fully understand the field.In this paper, the frontier methods of microfluidic chip preparation, detection techniques and related applications in the medical field are mainly reviewed.Besides, the main challenges and future development of microfluidic chips are summarized and prospected.