A perspective of active microfluidic platforms as an enabling tool for applications in other fields

Microfluidics has progressed tremendously as a field over the last two decades. Various areas of microfluidics developed in fully-fledged domains of their own such as organ-on-a-chip, digital and paper microfluidics. Nevertheless, the technological advancement of microfluidics as a field has not yet reached end-users for independent use. This is the key objective that is kept as a lens throughout this review. The ultimate goal is for microfluidics to be simply considered as a tool for application-focused research. A modular automated platform is envisioned to provide the stacking and modularity required to lower the knowledge barrier for end-users. The literature considered in this review is limited to active microfluidics and the analysis focuses on the potential for end-users to independently leverage the platforms for research in various fields such as cell assays, biochemistry, materials, and environmental factors monitoring.