MMI attended Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics Europe 2025
Last week, MMI team represented by Dr. Joel Christian attended SelectBio Lab-on-a-Chip & Microfluidics Europe 2025 in Montpellier, France.
The program focuses on technological innovations like 3D‑printing, biofabrication, droplet microfluidics, point‑of‑care diagnostics, single‑cell analysis, and global health applications. During the conference, MMI had the chance to present poster with the title "Enhancing Lab-on-a-Chip Functionality with Integrated Optical Tweezers System"
Here is the abstract:
Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technology has transformed the landscape of biomedical research by miniaturizing and integrating complex laboratory processes into compact and portable microfluidic devices. However, a persistent challenge in these systems is the lack of flexible, precise, and contact-free methods to manipulate microscopic samples, especially in single-cell applications.
We present a perspective harnessing the powerful synergy between LOC systems and optical tweezers (OT), a non-contact manipulation technique that uses focused laser beams to trap and control microscopic objects with nanometric precision. By integrating OT into LOC devices, researchers can gain real-time, programmable control over cells or particles. OT offers versatility such as sorting and isolating targeted cells. Ideal for an application such time-resolved single-cell phenotyping followed by genotyping. Furthermore, it opens possibilities for studying cell-cell interactions and measuring mechanical properties. Ideal for applications in single-cell biophysics and mechanobiology. OT can help overcome current limitations in LOC platforms, paving the way for more versatile, scalable, and high-resolution LOC applications in single-cell analysis.
CellManipulator, is a customized optical tweezers system. The system can be equipped with the quantitative force measurement system, allowing researchers to perform micro-rheology and biophysical measurements down to sub-piconewtons force resolution.