A network for the promotion of research and education in microfluidics was recently launched at a conference at SciLifeLab. Microfluidics is a research area that deals with fluids on the micrometer scale, the scale of human cells. Microfluidics is a key enabling technology for genomics and point-of-care (POC) diagnostics and is finding uses throughout the life sciences from single cell analysis to tissue engineering.
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– Microfluidics is finding its way into many niches in the life sciences and beyond. Our meeting showed the breadth of the field in Sweden with talks ranging from organs-on-chip and diagnostics, to fundamental biology and DNA mapping, says Håkan Jönsson, Assistant professor at KTH and host of the first Swedish Microfluidics in Life Science meeting which was held at SciLifeLab on April 28th.
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Scientists from KTH, Chalmers, Karolinska Institutet, Uppsala, Lund, Gothenburg and Umeå Universities came together at SciLifeLab to found the network which will promote microfluidics, arrange national meetings, coordinate teaching activities and leverage the strengths of the individual research groups. The network has already formed an active Swedish Microfluidics Network LinkedIn community open to scientists in academia and industry with an interest in microfluidics.
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– The interest in the meeting shows that there is a large microfluidics community in Sweden and we want to help connect and strengthen it, says Fredrik Westerlund, Associate Professor at Chalmers, who co-organized the meeting. He is already planning to host a second Swedish Microfluidics meeting at Chalmers in Gothenburg in May 2019.