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Microfluidics & Lab-on-a-Chip: What Changes at Small Scales

Hosted by Jacques Fattaccioli

Wed, Oct 7, 2026

4:00 PM UTC (45 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

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Microfluidics: From Fabrication to Single-Cell Analysis
Jacques Fattaccioli
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What you'll learn

Why small scales change everything

At sub-millimeter scales, surface forces dominate, flows are laminar, and mixing requires diffusion.

From silicon to PDMS: how microfluidics became accessible

The shift to soft lithography turned a specialist cleanroom process into a 24-hour benchtop workflow

Valves, mixers, droplets: the core toolkit

Three classes of components solve the key challenges on-chip: flow control, mixing, and compartmentalization

What you can actually do with a chip

From PCR to antibiograms to single-cell assays, working at picoliter volumes changes what is experimentally possible

Full course program

I will shortly walk you through the full syllabus of the Maven course.

Why this topic matters

Microfluidics is behind the COVID test, genome sequencers, and single-cell assays reshaping biology; but also fuel cells, battery electrolytes, and microreactors driving the next generation of energy technologies. Yet for most researchers and engineers, it remains a black box. Understanding the fundamentals changes how you design experiments, choose tools, and see what is possible at small scales

You'll learn from

Jacques Fattaccioli

Associate Professor at Sorbonne University - Microfluidics Expert

I build microfluidic systems for a living — and I teach others to do the same.

Associate Professor at ENS Paris and Sorbonne Université, I have spent 20 years designing lab-on-chip platforms, functional droplets, and microfabrication workflows for applications ranging from immune cell biology to environmental monitoring.

I direct the Microfluidics Master at PSL and Sorbonne Université and regularly train R&D engineers and researchers from academia and industry.

My courses are built around physical intuition, quantitative reasoning, and direct experimental relevance — not slides full of equations.

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