Microfluidics for Molecular Measurements and Quantitative Distributable Diagnostics

A major challenge in global health care is a lack of portable and affordable quantitative diagnostic devices. This is because classic quantification of biomolecules is typically performed using kinetic assays that require strict control only found in controlled laboratory environments. By using the power of microfluidics, quantitative assays can be performed robustly in a "digital" format that is decoupled from precise kinetics through highly parallelized qualitative reactions. The benefits of performing quantitative assays in a digital format extend beyond just assay robustness to reduction of instrumental complexity, increase in quantitative precision, and an increase in the amount of information that can be gained from a single experiment. These microfluidic architectures, however, are not limited to usage in scenarios of quantification of biomolecules. These architectures can also potentially be extended to answering complex biological questions in single cells, such as determining the 3-dimensional organization of nuclear DNA and RNA