Efficient design of labs-on-a-chip: Design automation and simulation for microfluidics

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it obvious to everyone: medical analyses conducted in fully-fledged laboratories require substantial amounts of time. First, the sample has to be obtained from the patient. Then, it needs to be transported to a medical lab. And finally, the actual tests and analyses have to be conducted by corresponding experts—possibly using bulky and expensive lab equipment. At the same time, technology already exists, which, in principle, avoids all this hassle and allows to run entire assays much more efficiently on so-called microfluidic biochips or labs-on-a-chip.