Microfluidic technology for diagnostics and therapeutics in space

1. First manned space flight to Mars is scheduled as early as 2033 (Aurora's Programme).


2. Astronauts take medications in flight to treat motion sickness, sleep decrements, pain, infections, gastro-intestinal problems, etc.


3. Unfortunately, the medications are not always as effective as on Earth. Therefore, therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is essential to guarantee the success of such a great challenge.


4. Existing methods for TDM require special technical expertise, significant blood samples, a lot of room and too much power consumption.


5. An integrated microfluidic platform would be ideal for this application due to miniaturized components, low power consumption, the ability to integrate multiple processes, it minimizes space requirements, sample volume, storage, reagents and waste generation.

• Clean room orders


• Microchip electrophoresis videos


• Francisco's blog


• Database access

Maintained by fl5x@virginia.edu
Last Modified: 11/03/2010