A microfluidic device is disclosed which comprises a main flow channel and a partition chamber connected to a portion of same by a chamber inlet and chamber outlet. The device utilizes select cross sections to advantage capillary effects during filling and partitioning steps to isolate biological or other samples in the partition chamber for analysis and can be employed in a digital array.

A method for aliquoting a sample liquid using a sealing liquid in a microfluidic device includes combining the sample liquid and the sealing liquid, which have different wetting behaviors, to form a two-phase system separated by a boundary surface. The microfluidic device includes a chamber with at least one inlet channel for introducing the liquids and a plurality of cavities configured to be filled via the inlet channel. The inlet channel and the cavities have a geometry that is defined in dependence on the respective wetting behaviors of the sample liquid and the sealing liquid. The method first includes introducing the sample liquid to form a first meniscus configured by the defined geometry, e.g. concave, to fill the cavities. The method further includes introducing the sealing liquid to form a second meniscus configured by the existing, greater contact angle and the defined geometry, e.g. convex, to cover the filled cavities.

This relates to acoustic microfluidic systems that can generate emulsions/droplets or encapsulate particles of interest (including mammalian cells, bacteria cells, or other cells) into droplets upon detection of the particles of interest flowing in a stream of particles. The systems operate on the detect/decide/deflect principle wherein the deflection step, in a single operation, not only deflects particles of interest from a stream of particles but also encapsulates the particles of interest in an emulsion droplet. The microfluidic systems have an abrupt transition in the channel geometry from a shorter channel to a taller channel (i.e., in the shape of a ‘step’) to break the stream of the dispersed phase into a droplet upon acoustic actuation. When there is no acoustic wave present, no droplets/emulsions are generated and the stream of particles proceeds uninterrupted. The rapid actuation and post-actuation recovery employed by the microfluidic systems taught herein ensure that the vast majority of selected particles are properly deflected, that few or no empty droplets are produced, and that total throughput remains high.

A receiving unit for receiving a fluid has a receiving element with a receiving face and at least one micro-cavity that is arranged and formed in the receiving element on the receiving face in order to receive the fluid. The receiving face further has a hydrophilic surface characteristic in at least one subregion adjoining the at least one micro-cavity.

A microfluidic valve may include a first portion of a liquid conduit to contain a gas, a second portion of a liquid conduit to contain a liquid, and a constriction between the first portion and the second portion and across which a capillary meniscus is to form between the gas and the liquid. The microfluidic valve may further include a drop jetting device within the second portion to open the valve by breaking the capillary meniscus across the constriction.

The present invention relates to microfluidic fluidic systems and methods for the in vitro modeling diseases of the lung and small airway. In one embodiment, the invention relates to a system for testing responses of a microfluidic Small Airway-on-Chip infected with one or more infectious agents (e.g. respiratory viruses) as a model of respiratory disease exacerbation (e.g. asthma exacerbation). In one embodiment, this disease model on a microfluidic chip allows for a) the testing of anti-inflammatory and/or anti-viral compounds introduced into the system, as well as b) the monitoring of the participation, recruitment and/or movement of immune cells, including the transmigration of cells. In particular, this system provides, in one embodiment, an in-vitro platform for modeling severe asthma as “Severe Asthma-on-Chip.” In some embodiments, this invention provides a model of viral-induced asthma in humans for use in identifying potentially effective treatments.

A reaction processor includes: a reaction processing vessel including a channel in which a sample moves and a pair of air communication ports, a first air communication port and a second air communication port, provided at respective ends of the channel; a temperature control system that provides a medium temperature region and a high temperature region between the first air communication port and the second air communication port in the channel; and a liquid feeding system that discharges and sucks air in order to move and stop the sample inside the channel. One of the pair of air communication ports of the reaction processing vessel that is farther away from the high temperature region communicates with the liquid feeding system via a tube. One of the pair of air communication ports of the reaction processing vessel that is closer to the high temperature region is opened to atmospheric pressure.

The objective of the present invention is to provide a particle detection device and a particle detection method that can individually and continuously detect a wide range of particles. The objective is achieved by a particle detection device including: a particle separation channel through which particles are separated according to particle sizes in a perpendicular direction to the flow of fluid; and two or more particle recovery channels that are connected to and branched from the particle separation channel, in which each of the particle recovery channels includes a particle detection unit that includes an aperture and an electric detector.

This invention relates to compositions of matter, methods, modules and automated, end-to-end closed instruments for automated mammalian cell growth, reagent bundle creation and mammalian cell transfection followed by nucleic acid-guided nuclease editing in live mammalian cells. The disclosed compositions and method entail making “reagent bundles” comprising many (hundreds of thousands to millions) clonal copies of an editing cassette and delivering or co-localizing the reagent bundles with live mammalian cells such that the editing cassettes edit the cells and the edited cells continue to grow.

The object of the present invention is to provide a novel flow analysis method and a novel flow analyzer each of which makes it possible to improve accuracy of an analysis. A flow analysis method in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention attains the above object by including: a sample introducing step of introducing a sample into a tube (100); a reagent adding step of adding a reagent to the sample which is transferred through the tube (100); and an analyzing step of quantitatively or qualitatively analyzing the sample to which the reagent has been added and further including, after the reagent adding step and before the analyzing step, a gas-liquid separating step of sequentially removing gas which is present in the tube (100).