Current research in microfluidics is focused on developing point-of-care diagnostics and cell sorting techniques (see lab-on-a-chip), and understanding cell behavior (e.g. cell growth, cell aging). In the field of diagnostics, the lateral flow test is a common microfluidic device platform that utilizes capillary forces to drive fluid transport through a porous membrane. The most famous lateral flow test is the take home pregnancy test, in which bodily fluid initially wets and then flows through the porous membrane, often cellulose or glass fiber, upon reaching a capture line to indicate a positive or negative signal. An advantage to this design, and several other microfluidic devices, is its simplicity (for example, its lack of human intervention during operation) and low cost. However, a disadvantage to these tests is that capillary action cannot be controlled after it has started, so the test time cannot be sped up or slowed down (which could pose an issue if certain time-dependent processes are to take place during the fluid flow).
Another example of point-of-care work involving a capillary pressure-related design component is the separation of plasma from whole blood by filtration through porous membrane. Efficient and high-volume separation of plasma from whole blood is often necessary for infectious disease diagnostics, like the HIV viral load test. However, this task is often performed through centrifugation, which is limited to clinical laboratory settings. An example of this point-of-care filtration device is a packed-bed filter, which has demonstrated the ability to separate plasma and whole blood by utilizing asymmetric capillary forces within the membrane pores.