LioniX BV, a private company with based in Enschede, The Netherlands, is a leading provider in development and production of leveraging products based on Micro/Nano Technology for its OEM customers in Telecom, Life sciences, Industrial Process Control and Space. Key application areas are optical signal processing for datacom applications and Lab-on-a-Chip and (bio)sensor systems. It employs about 25 people and its management has experience in this area for decades. LioniX distinguishes itself on an international scale in projects for well-known companies and organizations, as well as for innovative niche market and VC companies. In order to provide the customer with complete solutions LioniX is partnering with foundries for high volume production and suppliers of complementary services and technologies. LioniX is being oriented towards the emerging product-market combinations components and (sub)systems in datacom, and on instruments and equipment for (bio)sensor and “Lab-on-a-chip” systems (LOC). The combination of microfluidics and integrated optics competeces gives LioniX an unrivalled competence in the area of LOC.
Lab-on-a-Chip for diagnosticsA key factor for the successful breakthrough of Lab-on-a-Chip technology in products such as medical and food diagnostics will be the ability to combine all the required functions in a miniaturized, automated system. This is being exploited in the Life Marker Chip instrument (LMC), being one of the key instruments to detect signs of past and/or present life, i.e. ‘biosignature’ molecules on Mars. It is, however, a Lab-on-a-Chip based platform for many other applications as well. LioniX is responsible for both the microfluidics based system (and the miniaturized array reaction chamber with planar waveguides for evanescent field excitation of the fluorescent dyes in the antibody spots (see figure 1 and 2).
Microreactor TechnologyIn pharmacy and genomics, for example, experiments can be performed by thousands in parallel, resulting in more efficient discovery of new drugs and the accelerated unraveling of the human genome. In fine chemistry, the optimization of process parameters and production of small quantities is performed in the very same micro reactor system, bypassing the expensive up scaling stages (see figure 3).
Surface functionalization and immobilizationThe key technology for many future applications will be the rational design and realization of functional surfaces, i.e. for immobilization of receptors in diagnostics and catalysts in microreactor technology, supported by innovative mesoscale modelling techniques. Especially, the combination with the proprietary planar waveguide technology gives a unique potential for both the development (characterization) and the application (optical detection) of these functional layers (see figure 4). Therefore LioniX is investing in this technology in a number of nationally and EU funded projects and will add this area as a third competence, next to microfluidics and integrated optics. |
