Review Article: Recent advancements in optofluidic flow cytometer

There is an increasing need to develop optofluidic flow cytometers. Optofluidics, where optics and microfluidics work together to create novel functionalities on a small chip, holds great promise for lab-on-a-chip flow cytometry. The development of a low-cost, compact, handheld flow cytometer and microfluorescence-activated cell sorter system could have a significant impact on the field of point-of-care diagnostics, improving health care in, for example, underserved areas of Africa and Asia, that struggle with epidemics such as HIV/AIDS. In this paper, we review recent advancements in microfluidics, on-chip optics, novel detection architectures, and integrated sorting mechanisms. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3511706]