Inexpensive, universal serial bus-powered and fully portable lab-on-a-chip-based capillary electrophoresis instrument

Capillary electrophoresis is a cornerstone of lab-on-a-chip (LOC) implementations for medical diagnostics. However, the infrastructure needed to operate electrophoretic LOC implementations tends to be large and expensive, hindering the development of portable or low-cost systems. A custom-designed and highly integrated microelectronic chip for high-voltage generation switching and interfacing is recently developed. Here, the authors integrate the microelectronic chip with a microfluidic chip, a solid-state laser, filter, lens and several dollars worth of electronic components to form an inexpensive and portable platform, which is the size of a mobile telephone. This compact system has such reduced power requirements that the complete platform can be operated using a universal serial bus link to a computer. It is believed that this system represents a significant advancement in practical LOC implementations for point-of-care medical diagnostics.