Personalized On-Chip Sample Evaluation Devices for Biomedical Applications: Advantages, Challenges, and Opportunities

The personalized monitoring of biomedical parameters using portable devices is spreading rapidly within the population, not only for the early detection of certain pathologies but also to monitor the health status of individuals. In this sense, on-chip diagnostic and research tools using microelectronics, fluidics, and biology are under development in a multidisciplinary manner. On-chip devices are typically referred to as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, or BioMEMS when they are intended for biological applications. Initially, on-chip devices were developed to produce miniaturized devices to make them fully portable tools. These biomedical tools enable biological sample analysis outside of the laboratory, leading to point-of-care testing (POCT) devices that can be used even by patients. This concept means that the results obtained can be easily read by non-expert users, allowing patients to monitor their health status. Nowadays, on-chip devices can perform a qualitative analysis of an analyte present in a sample or even monitor different samples in real time. For this purpose, microfluidic systems and biosensors are often used for assay development and results are then analyzed and displayed using specifically designed software or simulation tools. Thus, on-chip devices provide systems that have great advantages over the gold-standard techniques used in laboratories, although they also present important drawbacks that limit their use. This chapter will be a review of the most interesting on-chip devices, including the large group of lab-on-chip systems and the organ-on-chip subgroup. In addition to discussing its rationale, we will provide an analysis of its constraints, challenges, strengths, opportunities, and future perspectives.