Application of microreactors in medicine and biomedicine

Microreactor technology is an interdisciplinary field that combines science and engineering. This new conceptin production, analysis and research is finding increasing application in many different fields. Benefits of thisnew technology pose a vital influence on chemical industry, biotechnology, the pharmaceutical industry andmedicine, life science, clinical and environmental diagnostic. In the last few years, together with microplantdevelopment, a great part of research investigation is focused on integrated micro-systems, the so calledmicro-total-analysis-systems (μ-TAS) or lab-on-chip (LOC). They are devices that perform sampling, samplepreparation, detection and date processing in integrated model. Cell sorting, cell lysis, single cell analysis andnon-destructive single cell experiments on just one microreactor, makes the LOC platform possible. Clinicaldiagnostic devices are also leaning towards completely integrated, multiple sophisticated biochemicalanalyses (PCR amplification, cell lysis, separation and detection) all on a single platform and in real time.Special attention is also paid to the usage of microdevices in tissue. Tissue engineering is one of the mostpromising fields that can lead to in vitro tissue and organ reconstruction ready for implantation andmicrodevices can be used to promote the migration, proliferation and the differentiation of cells in controlledsituations.