The Next Wave of Devices are Liquids: Microfluidics

Over the course of history, our interest in the fundamentals of biology, especially proteomics — the study of all the proteins in the human body — has been completely reliant on expensive testing. Despite this, we’ve been able to make considerable advances in the fields of drug development to cellular microbiology.

As our development of biological products become increasingly prolific, we’re seeing that our previous environmental and in-vivo testing mechanisms are much too expensive and impractical, and even oftentimes inaccurate.

Think about it like this: would you want your barber to treat your lice? Would you have a veterinarian give you surgery or prescribe medication to you? No. These roles are similar but they’re flip flopped in a way that doesn’t make sense. They just don’t fit, and won’t work.

Currently, we’re using similar environments and organs to see cellular behaviors and drug interactions, but they’re not correct. This is why so many drugs are failing, and we can’t seem to understand cells.

What if we could design exactly what we needed, except using less resources, less money, and get more use and practicality?

Well we can, and it’s thanks to a technology called microfluidics.