project PRIME

Microfluidic devices manipulate tiny amounts of fluid enabling cost-effective, fast, accurate and high throughput analytical assays. Progress in Microfluidics has huge impact in environmental pollution monitoring, biohazard detection and biomedicine, contributing to the development of new tools for drug screening, biological studies, point-of-care diagnostics and personalized medicine. Despite this huge potential, Microfluidics market growth is heavily constrained by the complexity and high prices of the required large-scale off-chip equipment and its operational cost. PRIME will implement and integrate through additive manufacturing technologies smart valves and pumps in a microfluidic chip. Besides inkjet printing will be used to produce new ultra sensitive and selective sensors embedded in the chip and readable with light. The final device will be remotely addressed and read using simple photonic elements that can be integrated in compact, portable and cheap operation&read de...