Electronic-Geek.com

"Microfluidics" (Wikipedia) is kind of a blanket term that covers manipulation of liquids on a very small scale. An inkjet printer head is an everyday example of a microfluidic system, but many of the more exciting applications are in biochemistry and/or medical diagnostics, where mass-produced "lab-on-a-chip" systems incorporating complex networks of tiny fluid channels could one day bring complex analytical procedures, that once were practical only in the laboratory, out into the field. Many of the same technologies that are used in the production of semiconductors can be applied to the manufacture of microfluidic systems.

As in semiconductors, however, the costs of prototyping labs-on-chips can be quite high. Many of you may recall the buzz surrounding UC-Irvine professor Michelle Khine's recent discovery that inkjet-printable shrinky-dink plastic could be used to rapidly prototype microfluidic systems.

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