The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on every aspect of our lives. Almost every single person has been affected in some way – be it their health, their profession or their entire life. But there are also some rays of hope worth mentioning, among them the rapid development of vaccines, testing kits and, in the future, medications, all of which have contributed considerably to managing this crisis. “The pandemic has shown us the importance of cutting-edge, high-end technologies, as these enable us to pursue rapid and effective research and development activities, for example in the fields of medication, vaccines and diagnostic devices,” confirms Dr Thomas R. Dietrich, CEO of the IVAM Microtechnology Network. Microfluidic components are particularly well suited to significantly accelerate the pace of development, something that was impressively demonstrated at the COMPAMED Innovation Forum. Held in digital format on June 16, 2021, the forum and its expert keynotes revolved around the leading topic “Microfluidics in mobile diagnostics and the development and manufacture of pharmaceuticals and vaccines”.

The forum has been organized by Messe Düsseldorf in close cooperation with IVAM for many years and consistently provides an outlook on current topics a few months ahead of COMPAMED, the internationally leading trade fair for suppliers in the medical-technology industry, held in Düsseldorf, Germany (next date: November 15 – 18, 2021, concurrently with MEDICA 2021).

A large number of tests over an extremely short period of time
Microfluidic components allow us to quickly conduct a multitude of experiments using what is known as a high-throughput screening method. This enables users to realize a large number of tests over extremely short periods of time, for example to test the effectiveness of medications or vaccines on living cells. The speed and accuracy of the tests is achieved through microstructures, which give researchers far better control over physical and chemical parameters (e.g. temperature, pressure, response times). These tiny structures have an additional benefit, as they require a lower number of samples and ensure the economic use of reagents. In the last months, new products and medications have been developed over a very short period of time, something that would not have been possible without microfluidic elements. Devices and components such as lab-on-a-chip and mobile diagnostic devices and chemical microreactors already play an active part in the battle against the pandemic.

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