June 21, 2022 - June 24, 2022
MUNICH, GERMANY
Analytica is one of the world’s most influential trade shows and conferences for laboratory technology and future-oriented biotechnology, and it is therefore an event that the MIH could not miss. Additionally, we are always pleased to coincide with our partners, and it was a pleasure to see our friends from BiFlow Systems and Ibidi thriving in their respective fields. The scope of the conference is truly huge encompassing developments in traditional chemical and biochemical analytical techniques as well as cutting-edge and breakthrough technologies, and importantly, how these are being employed to tackle global challenges in industry and healthcare.
The purpose of the MIH visit to the conference was multifaceted. On one hand, we were there to spread the word of our mission, funding opportunities, and services to promising start-ups looking to scale-up their microfluidic technologies. We are pleased to see interest from a few companies and discussions are currently in place with them.
Analytica was also a chance for the MIH to take a step back and learn about the state of the market of microfluidic platforms, from academic research all the way up to industry leaders. We were pleased to see that microfluidic technologies are now well established in certain enabling technologies, such as droplet PCR for single-molecule DNA amplification, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technologies for the study of molecular interactions, and platforms for single-cell analysis, solidifying confidence in this emerging and enabling technology. We learnt that numerous ventures now exist aimed at bringing the laboratory out into real world through point-of-need devices, taking advantage of the latest microfluidics, microfabrication, biochemical, and data science developments to tackle trending global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and water quality monitoring.
We left the trade show with our mission to get microfluidics rolling truly reinforced. The democratisation of the analytical laboratory through miniaturisation in microfluidic devices now seems like an inevitable step in the near future of biotechnology, and we are keen to play our part in realising it.