Introduction to lab-on-a-chip: review, history and future

Lab-on-a-chip is a miniaturized device that integrates onto a single chip one or several analyses, which are usually done in a laboratory; analyses such as DNA sequencing or biochemical detection. Research on lab-on- a-chip mainly focuses on human diagnostics and DNA analysis. Less often, lab-on-a-chip research focuses on the synthesis of chemicals. Miniaturization of biochemical operations normally handled in a laboratory has numerous advantages, such as cost efficiency, parallelization, ergonomy, diagnostic speed and sensitivity. The emergence of the lab-on-a-chip field mainly relies on two core technologies: microfluidics and molecular biology.