Advances in Reagents Storage and Release in Self-Contained Point-of-Care Devices

Microfluidics has emerged as a useful material for point-of-care testing. However, conventional microfluidic devices rely on multiple steps to complete the detection process, which may not be acceptable for untrained users. The emerging "self-contained" point-of-care devices, with all necessary reagents prestored in, address this limitation. This paper summarizes the recent advances of self-contained point-of-care devices, with emphasis on the approaches for reagents integration and manipulation. Due to the intrinsic similarity and relevance of these approaches in pharmaceutical applications, several examples about drug delivery in vivo are presented. Different approaches are compared and future trends for the development of self-contained point-of-care devices are outlined.