Recent developments in microfluidic devices for in vitro cell culture for cell-biology research

Microfluidics has developed as a powerful tool for cell-biology research due to its intrinsic advantages. Recently, considerable progress was made in microfluidic technology for cell culture and manipulation, and subsequent treatment and analysis. We summarize microfluidic technologies that improve the efficiency of biological research at the microscale level. From a decade of research, we find that the full integration of microfluidics with cell biology and the development of a microscale cell-culture system show great promise for point-of-care diagnostics and high-throughput drug screening. We discuss recent advances in technologies and methodologies in microfluidic cell culture and their cell-biology applications. We give some insights and directions for researchers interested in developing novel, robust microfluidic platforms for cell-biology research. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.