BELLINGHAM, Wash., April 12 -- The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) has announced a call for abstracts for its new Lab-On-A-Chip conference, to be held during Optics East, Oct. 25-28 in Philadelphia. The deadline for abstract submission is April 25. The conference will focus on device technologies, micro/nano-fabrication platforms, and enabled life science applications that combine on-chip lab functions including sample preparation, transport, separation and detection. "The inherently interdisciplinary nature of next-generation lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices and application development requires a high level of collaboration between scientists and engineers across areas of physics, optics, chemistry, biochemistry and the biological sciences," SPIE said. SPIE Executive Director Eugene Arthurs said, "We see the broad LOC concept as a potential path to the widespread use of many of the exciting cross-disciplinary advances of recent years. Miniaturization and mass manufacturing based on the expansive silicon technology infrastructure offers huge cost and practicality advantages over benchtop instruments." Papers are being solicited for the following topics: microfluidics; optical and chemical biosensors; device fabrication and packaging; and applications including genomics, proteomics and drug discovery, in-vitro molecular and point-of-care medical diagnostics, quality control and remote sensing. For more information and to submit an abstract, visit: spie.org/Conferences/Calls/04/oe/submitAbstract/index.cfm?fuseaction=OE101