Microfluidic bioreactors offer several advantages over flasks or multiwell plates, such as precise control of conditions and manipulation of nano- or picoliter volumes of reagents, capacity to integrate real-time imaging apparatus, ease of automation, ability to perform a large number of experiments simultaneously, and single-cell level resolution.

Microfluidic droplets provide the advantage of better controlling over the concentration of reagents and avoiding the contamination of channel walls in continuous flow based microfluidic devices where nanoparticles are likely to deposit onto channel walls. Droplet microfluidics enables single cell compartmentalization, millions of independent picoliter reactions, and is capable of processing hundreds of samples at a high-throughput rate. Although cell labeling by fluorescence is commonly used for detecting cell of interest, this technique requires genetic engineered cells and may not work for certain environmental microbes. Impedance spectroscopy is a label-free method to detect cells in droplets and it has high capability of integration.

Microporous annealed particle hydrogels (MAP) is attractive building blocks for constructing 3D scaffold for musculoskeletal tissue regeneration.

Point-of-care testing offers low-cost and rapid monitoring of health.