Hansen Carl, Quake Stephen R
Department of Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology, MS 128-95, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2003 Oct;13(5):538-44. doi: 10.1016/j.sbi.2003.09.010.
Microfluidic technologies promise unprecedented savings in cost and time through the integration of complex chemical and biological assays on a microfabricated chip. Recent advances are making elements of this vision a reality, facilitating the first large-scale integration of microfluidic plumbing with biological assays. The power of miniaturization lies not only in achieving an economy of scale, but also in exploiting the unusual physics of fluid flow and mass transport on small length scales to realize precise and efficient assays that are not accessible with macroscopic tools. Diverse applications ranging from time-resolved studies of protein folding to highly efficient protein crystal growth suggest that microfluidics may become an indispensable tool in biology.
微流控技术有望通过在微制造芯片上集成复杂的化学和生物分析方法，实现前所未有的成本和时间节省。最近的进展正在使这一愿景的要素成为现实，推动了微流控管道与生物分析的首次大规模集成。小型化的优势不仅在于实现规模经济，还在于利用小长度尺度下流体流动和质量传输的特殊物理性质，以实现宏观工具无法实现的精确高效分析。从蛋白质折叠的时间分辨研究到高效蛋白质晶体生长等各种应用表明，微流控技术可能成为生物学中不可或缺的工具。
