Title: Digital microfluidics as a tool for drug delivery and formulation screening

Biography:

Romain Delamare has completed his PhD on nanostructured materials in 2003 from Orleans University and Postdoctoral Studies from Institute of nanosciences (IM2NP) , Marseille University, France. He was the Director of Winfab (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) , a micro-nano fabrication platform for 8 years. He is now the head scientist of  the research department of Medincell. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an conference organiser  of repute in the field of nanofabrication .

Abstract

Microfluidic devices present many advantages for the development of efficient drugs as they offer  rapid techniques for direct drug screening. They not only optimize resource management, but also enable massive parallelization for tests with significant economies of scale. The precise control of experimental conditions and the very low volumes involved in microfluidics solutions match the requirements of 2D and 3D cell cultures as well as organs on a chip, which is key to narrowing the bridge between in vitro and in vivo environments. Existing preclinical models are still inefficient for predicting clinical outcomes and microfluidic devices offer a more rapid and cost-effective alternative. In this review, we will highlight microfluidics microfabrication methods and knowhow exploited in the field of drug delivery. And then, we will discuss the interest of microfluidic devices for use at point of care as well as organ on a chip models as smart, sensitive, and reproducible platforms for the drug testing under bio like conditions.