30 Current Trends in Clinical Embryology 2016; 3 (1): 30-35 Daniele Gazzola 1 * Niccolò Ciprianetti 2 * Simone Pasqua 1 Lodovico Parmegiani 3 1 CellDynamics srl, Bologna, Italy 2 Trustech srl, Turin, Italy 3 GynePro Medical Centers, Reproductive Medicine Unit, Bologna, Italy Address for correspondence: Daniele Gazzola CellDynamics srl c/o CNR Via Gobetti 101 40129 Bologna, Italy E-mail: daniele.gazzola@celldynamics.it *the Authors Gazzola and Ciprianetti con- tributed equally and should be considered co- first Authors. Summary Innovations in embryology become reality when technology development and scientific advancement merge together. Metaphorically thinking, in a certain way, this mechanism is similar to the one that allows male gametes and female gametes to form a zygote and later on its development, the embryo. Continuing with this metaphor, our opinion is that technology development and scientific advancement in embryology need to share their nuclear genetic information in order to create diploid off- spring: innovations. For this reason, a shared effort from both sides is crucial. This review describes the basic principles, current role and potential of microfluidics technologies for the biosciences and medicine with emphasis on a specific example of a new technology applied to embryology: the CellViewer. KEY WORDS: microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, em- bryology, single cell analysis, in vitro fertiliza- tion, time lapse microscopy. Introduction Microfluidics is the technology that concerns the behavior and the control of fluids at the mi- croscale level. It is a multidisciplinary field that embraces physics, micro/nanotechnology, engi- neering, chemistry, biochemistry, and biotech- nology. Typical length scales of microfluidics technology range from 1 to 1,000 micrometers, with volumes that vary from picoliters to micro- liters. At the mentioned scales, the laws of clas- sical physics are still valid, but the behavior of fluids is very different from what we are used to at the human scale (1): volume forces are negli- gible with respect to surface forces. At small scales, some new interesting phenome- na dominate the system. Energy dissipation and fluidic resistance have a strong influence. More- over, surface tension and capillary forces be- come stronger than gravity and influence the be- havior of water-based fluids. The transition from classical to microfluidic regimes is deter- mined by the ratio between inertial and viscous forces in the fluidic system, numerically de- scribed by the dimensionless Reynolds number (Re), which depends on the type of fluid, mi- crochannel dimensions and flow velocity. When this number is low (< 2100), the fluids move in a predictable manner (laminar flows) and turbu- lences are not present in the channels. The laminar flow does not allow mixing of flu- ids; in fact, molecular transport transversal to the flow direction can happen only by diffusion, or due to the development of microchannel geometries which needs to be specifically de- signed to allow mixing. However, laminar flow has some advantages: it is much easier to model with respect to the turbulent flow, and it facilitates precise fluidic control. Mi- crofluidics technologists learn the microscale be- Mini-review Innovation in embryology: microfluidics for the biosciences and medicine @ CIC Edizioni Internazionali