An integrated hybrid microfluidic system for online bioprocesses monitoring: Combining electrical lysis and EWOD sample preparation

We present a work aiming at analyzing intra/extra cellular compounds of yeast cells by an integrated monitoring system. Study of yeast cells metabolism is important for sustainable production of fuels, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. This work presents an original device allowing high throughput electrical lysis of yeast cells and its coupling to a sample preparation unit using a single plate Electro-Wetting on Dielectric (EWOD) platform. The advantage of electrical lysis is to avoid sample contamination with chemical reagents and protein denaturation due to high temperature. The advantage of digital preconditioning is to allow precise control of multiple reagents without the need of a complex network of microvalves.