Texas A&M researchers develop tools to quickly evaluate algal strains

In Texas, researchers at Texas A&M are developing microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems that can be used as high-throughput screening tools to quickly evaluate the growth and oil production characteristics of numerous algal strains under various growth conditions. Their paper describes how the team demonstrated the development of 10s or 100s of pico-liter sized photobioreactors on a business card sized chip. The developed microsystem utilizes microfluidic technologies to individually control light conditions (intensity and day-night cycle) for each of the 10s or 100s of photobioreactors, and was used to understand how microalgae grow and produce oil under different environment.