Microchip-based cellular biochemical systems for practical applications and fundamental research: from microfluidics to nanofluidics

By combining cell technology and microchip technology, innovative cellular biochemical tools can be created from the microscale to the nanoscale for both practical applications and fundamental research. On the microscale level, novel practical applications taking advantage of the unique capabilities of microfluidics have been accelerated in clinical diagnosis, food safety, environmental monitoring, and drug discovery. On the other hand, one important trend of this field is further downscaling of feature size to the 10¹–10³ nm scale, which we call extended-nano space. Extended-nano space technology is leading to the creation of innovative nanofluidic cellular and biochemical tools for analysis of single cells at the single-molecule level. As a pioneering group in this field, we focus not only on the development of practical applications of cellular microchip devices but also on fundamental research to initiate new possibilities in the field. In this paper, we review our recent progress on tissue reconstruction, routine cell-based assays on microchip systems, and preliminary fundamental method for single-cell analysis at the single-molecule level with integration of the burgeoning technologies of extended-nano space.