Preface

Chapter 7 **Microfluidic Multiple Chamber Chip Reactor Filled with Enzyme-Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles 157** Ferenc Ender, Diána Weiser and László Poppe

Arcari, Ivo Rendina and Annalisa Lamberti

**Cancer Cells 179**

**VI** Contents

Chapter 8 **Bioengineered Surfaces for Real-Time Label-Free Detection of**

Nicola Massimiliano Martucci, Nunzia Migliaccio, Immacolata Ruggiero, Ilaria Rea, Monica Terracciano, Luca De Stefano, Paolo

> The necessity of on-site, fast, sensitive, and cheap complex laboratory analysis, associated with the advances in the microfabrication technologies and the microfluidics, made it possi‐ ble for the creation of the innovative device lab-on-a-chip (LOC), by which we would be able to scale a single or multiple laboratory processes down to a chip format. The present book is dedicated to the LOC devices from two points of view: LOC fabrication and LOC application.

> The first section, "LOC Fabrication," addresses the photolithography-based technologies for mass production of three-dimensional microstructures; the currently used complementary metal oxide semiconductor technologies allowing the functional integration of sensors, sig‐ nal conditioning, and processing circuits to develop a lab-on-a-chip; the magnetic field– based technologies for the possible non-contact manipulation of biological and chemical samples; and the application of lumped element modeling for the rapid design and simula‐ tion of a new generation of centrifugal microfluidic systems.

> The second section, "LOC Application," includes comprehensive reviews, which comment on the advances and potential application of cell- and organ-on-chip devices, as well as on the digital nucleic acid detection by means of microfluidic LOC systems for pathogen analy‐ sis, food safety, and clinical diagnosis purposes. Experimental works, demonstrating the ap‐ plication of a multiple chamber chip reactor filled with enzyme-coated magnetic nanoparticles for the investigation of the biotransformation of l-phenylalanine and of a highperformance silicon-based functional devices for biomedical applications, namely for the la‐ bel-free detection of different types of tumor cells, are presented, too.

> The book offers a professional multidisciplinary look and up-to-date information on the var‐ ious aspects of the lab-on-a-chip device development and application.

> All the contributing authors are gratefully acknowledged for their time and efforts and for their commitment with the present project.

> > **DSc. Eng. Margarita Stoytcheva, DSc. Eng. Ph.D. Eng. Roumen Zlatev, PhD, Eng.** Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexicali, Mexico

**Lab-on-a-Chip Fabrication**
