1. Microfluidics and BioMEMS Personal essay Deadline: March 30th, 23.55 o’clock

2. Topics to choose from: mark your preferences 1,2,3. Essay selection return box A. Microfabricated gas chromatography columns B. Multiphase microfluidics (water-oil droplets in channels) C.Microfluidic cell lysis Droplet microfluidics (droplets electrically actuated on surfaces) E.Coli bacterial growth on chips

3. Assignment A personal study element: an essay Worth 30 points (25% of the whole course) Deadline March 30, 23.55 o’clock 2000-3000 words as a basic guideline

4. Topics, general 5 topics available  on average 4 students share the same topic Please indicate your first, second and third choice. We will try to respect your preferences, but due to teacher load, uniform distribution will be used The essay is strictly personal, but you can give a friend a hint of a good article, however, any shared text will nullify the essay

5. Grading (1) Focus, 5 points: -How well does the essay stick to the topic? -Does the essay really tell essentials about the topic? -Out-of-topic: discusses at length topics that are irrelevant for the whole -Overly narrow focusing on just one or two papers is usually a bad thing (but does depend on the topic). However, it is equally bad to write superficially about multitude of topics. Choice of material, 5 points -How relevant is the material presented? Does it cover all the key concepts? -Are these the key articles on the topic, or just something found by googling? -Majority should be 2010-2016 articles, some old ones can be included

6. Grading (2) Correctness: weight 5 points -Conceptual mistakes are the worst: some major ideas misunderstood -Factual mistakes: details wrong -Sins of omission: it is a mistake to leave an important but difficult topic out Analysis, insight, context, framing, 5 points -The essay is a re-telling of existing information. Great essay should contain writers own insight or analysis, interesting framing of the research or putting the research into an interesting context. -We are not expecting the students to have deep original scientific insights beyond that which the authors of the studies (who are experts) offer. The analysis, insight, etc. can be of general nature. -Can the student make connections between different concepts, technologies, applications?

7. Grading (3) Length, weight 5 points: -2000 words is sufficient, 3000 is a lot (not including references) -<1500 words is most likely too short. -If the essay is extremely long and does not stay on topic, points will also be reduced for length Format and scientific style, weight 5 points: -Abstract, introduction, etc. sections clearly show the structure of the essay -The presentation of the text and the figures is clear. Figures should be cited. -Normal scientific citation style, e.g. Smith et al: Zebrafish embryochips, Lab Chip 2015, p. 3345 -Mark the most relevant cited article you found with **, and a few major ones with * -3-4 citations too few; but we do not believe that you read 20 articles either -Citations should not focus too much on work of a single research group or a single review article

8. Benchmarks 30 points: Independent, original fusion of the topic that is scientifically interesting to read. 25 points: Well researched and well written, mostly just a summary of a well-chosen articles but does include a smidgeon of own analysis. 20 points: Results that are presented are reasonably chosen, the length and the formalities are correct, but the essay lacks direction and perspective. 10 points: Deficiencies in either research, choices of topics and lack of any critical analysis.

9. Microfabricated gas chromatography columns What are the material choices for microfabricated columns ? What coatings are used ? Bonding of channels ? Benefits over traditional columns? etc

10. Multiphase microfluidics This topic is about digital microfluidics where you have discrete water droplets surrounded by oil in microfluidics channels. See picture below. What are some advantages compared to single phase, flow based microfluidics? What are the main principles? What are some typical applications?

11. Microfluidic cell lysis Cell lysis techniques which are suitable for miniaturization ? Microdevices: what kind of structures are used? Lysis integrated with other microfluidic operations? Monitoring cell lysis etc…

12. Droplet microfluidics (electrowetting-on-dielectric) http://microfluidics.utoronto.ca/research.php This topic is about digital microfluidics based on electrowetting, where fluid manipulation is carried out by changing the wetting properties of a dielectric material (hydrophobic surface) by applying electric field on an array of electrodes underneath. How will the below properties affect the performance (e.g. droplet actuation speed)? -the materials (dielectric) properties -thickness of the dielectric -liquid (droplet) properties -applied voltage and frequency What are the main advantages/disadvantages compared to water-in-oil digital microfluidics and/or continuous flow systems?

13. E.Coli growth on chip What does it take to keep E.Coli live and proliferating on a chip ? Chip materials ? Where do nutrients come from and where do the metabolites go ? Etc.