Microfluidic Innovations

Microfluidic Innovations was a technology company established in 2009 by co-founders Mark Hobaugh, Mithuna Thottethodi, and Ahmed Amin. The firm was based in West Lafayette, Indiana, and focused on providing solutions to the scientific research community and commercial life science companies. The company went out of business in December 2017.

Ahmed Amin, who served as CEO, was the architect of the company's patented Software Programmable Lab-on-a-Chip (SPLoC) system. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2011 and had prior experience at IBM, Mentor Graphics, Intel, and NVIDIA. Mark Hobaugh brought over 30 years of experience in engineering, product development, and operations from his time at several high-tech startups that were later acquired by industry leaders.

The company's core offering was a multi-purpose, software-programmable microfluidic platform. This technology was designed to automate assay development, allowing a user to employ a single chip for various experiments by simply writing or downloading a program. The system would then automatically translate the program into the necessary microfluidic steps to run the assay. This aimed to accelerate the migration of both existing and new assays for complex research in genomics, proteomics, and cell-based studies to a Lab-on-a-Chip format. The primary clients were scientists and researchers in fields such as drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, biochemistry, and cell biology.

The business model centered on the design, development, and production of these programmable lab-on-a-chip systems. The technology intended to increase the productivity of life scientists by enabling them to perform assays at a sub-millimeter scale with high precision. Over its active years, the company secured grant funding, including $174,000 in December 2010 and $125,000 in December 2011. Dr. Amin was instrumental in securing over $450,000 through business plan competitions, SBIR grants, and matching funds.

Keywords: microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, assay automation, life sciences, programmable microfluidics, SPLoC, genomics research, proteomics research, cell-based assays, scientific research tools, drug discovery platform, clinical diagnostics technology, Purdue University startup, Ahmed Amin, Mark Hobaugh, biotech hardware, out of business