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Opportunities and limits of cell-based assay miniaturization in drug discovery
Cornelia Carstens1, Rudi Elbracht, Claudia Gärtner
1Microfluidic ChipShop, Carl-Zeiss-Promenade 10, 07745 Jena, Germany hb@microfluidic-chipshop.com.
Importance Of The Field:
Miniaturization is a significant driver for many life-science applications and a key technology for personalized medicine. Innovations in microfluidics will make ex vivo testing in in vivo-like environment possible, thus, allowing novel pathways for drug discovery.
Areas Covered In This Review:
This review covers the application of miniaturization technologies, namely microfluidics for cell-based assay development. We highlight the use of microfluidics in sample preparation and clinical trials, review the progress towards in vivo-like test environments and point out practical challenges in the work with microfluidic systems.
What The Reader Will Gain:
The reader will gain an overview of the different application areas of miniaturized systems for cell-based assay-methods and the technologies involved in how they can be applied in the drug discovery process is given. Examples of clinical applications are pointed out.
Take Home Message:
Miniaturization is a key technology driver for methodological progress in drug discovery. The enabling nature of this technology is reflected in the multitude of applications covering all aspects of the drug discovery process.
