Research Summary

Microfluidic Paper-based Analytical Devices (µ-PADs)

Biosensors as biomedical diagnostic devices have gained steep momentum recently both in research as well as in commercial market due to their wide ranging applications such as in healthcare, environment, chemical & pharmaceutical industry, food & agriculture, etc. Such miniaturized diagnostic devices not only facilitate point-of-care (POC) and point-of-need (PON) diagnosis or treatment but enable real-time and continuous monitoring facility as well to curb the ever growing life-threatening pathogens, toxic substances and acute or chronic health issues. The conventional biosensors have certain limitations such as affordability, sensitivity, and reproducibility of the devices. Cellulose-based such as paper substrate are used to develop simple, affordable, sensitive POC and PON devices because of the abundant raw material availability along with the inherent physical and chemical properties of the substrate. However, due to non-specific adsorption and binding on the substrate surface, the sensitivity of paper-based biosensors cannot be compared with other biosensors. In addition to this, rigorous improvement to enhance the robustness of the devices is required to operate even under the harsher environmental conditions.

Hybrid Lab-on-Chip (LoC) Devices

Micro-Total Analysis System (µ-TAS) is achieved due to the incorporation of various fields such as micro- & nano-technology, materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, and software development in a singular miniaturized platform i.e. lab-on-chip (LoC). The potentiality of the LoC is immense and huge both in the scientific research as well as in the product commercialization; and the application of the devices is ranging across various fields such as biomedical diagnostics/healthcare, environment, consumer products etc. However, in spite of all the advantageous properties being offered by LoC devices, there are certain challenges and limitation as well associating with the predominant materials such as poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). The high-end technology or next-generation technology could be achieved by integrating with other materials of interest on the existing LoC platforms to develop hybrid LoC devices to enhance functionality, reduce cost, improve sensitivity with multiplexing assay.