For this reason, there has been much interest in technologies that could enable replacement of the bulky instruments used at present with point-of-care testing devices. Linus Tzu-Hsiang Kao and co-workers at the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics and the Genome Institute of Singapore have now developed a silicon-based microfluidic system that is able to sense and differentiate the H1N1 virus from other seasonal influenza strains in ultrasmall specimens (“Multiplexed detection and differentiation of the DNA strains for influenza A (H1N1 2009) using a silicon-based microfluidic system”).