1. Lab on a Chip
EDITORIAL
Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/c5lc90049b
DOI: 10.1039/c5lc90049b
www.rsc.org/loc
The art in science of MicroTAS: the 2014 issue†
Darwin R. Reyes
For the 7th year in a row the Art in
Science award competition, sponsored
by Lab on a Chip (LOC) and the
National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), took place at the
18th International Conference of Minia-
turized Systems for Chemistry and Life
Sciences held in San Antonio, Texas
(USA) in October 2014. Out of 25 sub-
missions the award was presented to
David Castro from King Abdullah Uni-
versity of Science and Technology
(KAUST), Saudi Arabia (Fig. 1) for the
image titled “The Sphere”, which is fea-
tured on the cover of this issue (Fig. 2).
The image is a micrograph of an aque-
ous droplet hanging between two fluids
in a square cuvette.1
This 40 μL droplet
was formed between a layer of
perfluorohexane and mineral oil, and it
is comprised of agglutinated functional-
ized latex beads mixed with human
C-reactive proteins. This extraordinary
image, although of a very small droplet,
could give the impression of a celestial
body as seen through the window of a
futuristic space ship.
Since the establishment of the Art
in Science Award 7 years ago, the Lab on
a Chip journal has portrayed on its
cover some of the most impressive
images from the MicroTAS conference.
The images shown on the cover and
in the editorials that announce the
winners are considered by many to
Lab ChipThis journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA.
E-mail: darwin.reyes@nist.gov
† Any opinions or views expressed in the following
article are entirely those of the author and do not
represent the views of the journal, Lab on a Chip, or
The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Fig. 1 Shilpa Sivashankar (representing David Castro) of KAUST (center left) receives the 7th
Annual MicroTAS Art in Science Award presented by Darwin Reyes of NIST (left), Harpal Minhas
of LOC/Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) (center right) and Albert Folch of the University of
Washington (right).
Fig. 2 MicroTAS Art in Science 2014 award winner “The Sphere”, submitted by David Castro of
the Department of Electrical Engineering, KAUST (Saudi Arabia).
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have great artistic value. It seems as
though in the same way that micro-
fluidics have found a scientific niche at
a dimensional scale where different
than the usual laws dominate, the art
that is found at the microfluidic “scale”
can produce artistic features that are
exclusively seen at this scale. One com-
mon example of a microfluidic feature
is the common laminar flow. This
type of flow can be tweaked in many dif-
ferent ways so that many images of
great artistic value can be generated
with a single device. This, and the con-
stant pursuit of new types of devices by
the scientific community makes the
microTAS Art in Science award competi-
tion more challenging each year and
at the same time an invaluable source
of art.
The selection committee for the
2014 Art in Science award included
representatives from industry, acade-
mia, government and scientific pub-
lishers. This year's committee was com-
posed of Omar Jina from Dolomite,
Prof. Albert Folch from the University
of Washington, Darwin Reyes from
NIST and Harpal Minhas from LOC/
Royal Society of Chemistry. Several
criteria were taken into account when
considering each of the submissions.
Specifically, the submissions were
judged for their originality, scientific
merit, visual appeal, and suitability for
a Lab on a Chip front cover. As in pre-
vious years, the selection committee
had a difficult task when scrutinizing
the images to select the finalists and
the winner of the award. The judges
first agreed on the top four submis-
sions, followed by deliberations and a
final vote that ultimately decided the
selection of the winner. The top 3
runners-up for the 2014 Art in Science
award are as follows:
1st runner up - “Wicking glass chan-
nels” by Manuel Ochoa of Purdue Uni-
versity (Fig. 3).
2nd runner up - “Acoustic Streaming
Effects” by Po-Hsun Huang of Pennsyl-
vania State University (Fig. 4).
3rd runner up - “Scanning electron
micrograph of a highly porous polymer”
by Florian Lapierre of Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology (RMIT) (Fig. 5).
Lab on a ChipEditorial
Fig. 3 Award 1st runner up - “Wicking glass channels”, submitted by Manuel Ochoa of Purdue Univer-
sity. This image shows two streams of dyes on cracked glass overlapping at the junction of a central
channel on soda-lime glass. The cracked glass structure allows for rapid wicking and mixing of liquids.
Fig. 4 Award 2nd runner up - “Acoustic Streaming Effects”, submitted by Po-Hsun Huang of
Pennsylvania State University. The image depicts acoustic streaming patterns produced when a
piezoelectric transducer is used to generate acoustic oscillations around the tips of the triangular,
solid sharp-edges inside a microfluidic channel.
Fig. 5 Award 3rd runner up – “SEM of a highly porous polymer”, submitted by Florian Lapierre
of RMIT. This electron micrograph portrays a highly porous polymeric bead produced from what
is called high internal phase emulsion or HIPE. The process occurs inside a droplet-based micro-
fluidic device and the bead is cross-linked using UV irradiation.
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Acknowledgements
The Art in Science award is sponsored
and supported by MicroTAS, the Chemi-
cal and Biological Microsystems Society
(CBMS), the Lab on a Chip journal, and
NIST. The award consists of a monetary
prize ($2,500), an award certificate, and
the coveted front cover of the Lab on a
Chip journal. Please check the MicroTAS
2015 conference website for further
details regarding the submission of
images for the next MicroTAS Confer-
ence in Gyeongju, Korea.
Reference
1 S. Sivashankar, D. Castro, U. Buttner
and I. G. Foulds, Real-Time Agglutina-
tion within a Microdroplet in a Three
Phase Fluidic Well for Detection of Bio-
markers, MicroTAS, 2014, 2097–2100.
Lab on a Chip Editorial
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