US scientists create micro-lab on chip

Physicists at Texas A&M University said Friday they have successfully created a tiny chemical laboratory in a chip by using magnets.

This achievement, recently published in Applied Physics Letter and featured in several science journals, could lead to new advances in medicine, chemistry, chemical engineering and other related fields, they said.

By using small magnets on a postage-stamp sized chip, physicists Don Naugle and Igor Lyuksyutov have managed to move and merge tiny levitating droplets and crystals and to control the orientation of the levitating crystals.

The droplets used were as small as bacteria or 100 times smaller than a human hair, and up to one billion times smaller in volume than has been demonstrated by conventional methods.

Scientists called the method "a lab on a chip" and said it might be possible to do the same thing with a large number of fluids, chemicals or even a virus.

The team managed to move and levitate several substances, including alcohol solutions, oils, some types of powders and even red blood cells and bacteria.

"The lab-on-a-chip device levitates and manipulates diamagnetic objects, which are very weakly repelled by magnets," researcher Naugle noted in a press release.

The team has planned to see if they can make progress with manipulating DNA, nanotubes and other things using both magnetic and electric fields.

"It would be exciting to see if we could precisely transport levitating nanotubes into predefined positions on a silicon chip. It could open up even more doors for future research," Naugle said.