Lab-on-a-Chip Research Comparisons

Over the past decade, the McDevitt group has sustained efforts to combine and adapt nanotechnology tools for the practical implementation of miniaturized sensors that are suitable for a variety of important application areas, including salivary diagnostics. Created with many of the same microfabrication methods popularized by the electronics industry, such flexible sensor systems can be described as "chemical processing units."

The performance metrics of these miniaturized sensor systems have been shown to correlate nicely with established macroscopic gold standard methods, making them suitable for use as subcomponents of highly integrated detection systems for the analysis of complex fluid samples. These efforts remain unique worldwide in terms of functional lab-on-a-chip methods having a demonstrated capacity to meet or exceed the analytical characteristics (sensitivity, selectivity, precision, limit of detection) of mature macroscopic instrumentation for a large variety of analyte systems. The scope and breadth of this effort is summarized in the table below.