A multilevel Lab on chip platform for DNA analysis

Abstract

Lab-on-chips (LOCs) are critical systems that have been introduced to speed up and reduce the cost of traditional, laborious and extensive analyses in biological and biomedical fields. These ambitious and challenging issues ask for multi-disciplinary competences that range from engineering to biology. Starting from the aim to integrate microarray technology and microfluidic devices, a complex multilevel analysis platform has been designed, fabricated and tested (All rights reserved-IT Patent number TO2009A000915). This LOC successfully manages to interface microfluidic channels with standard DNA microarray glass slides, in order to implement a complete biological protocol. Typical Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) materials and process technologies were employed. A silicon/glass microfluidic chip and a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) reaction chamber were fabricated and interfaced with a standard microarray glass slide. In order to have a high disposable system all micro-elements were passive and an external apparatus provided fluidic driving and thermal control. The major microfluidic and handling problems were investigated and innovative solutions were found. Finally, an entirely automated DNA hybridization protocol was successfully tested with a significant reduction in analysis time and reagent consumption with respect to a conventional protocol.

Microfluidic Mixing: A Review

“…Due to the inherently laminar characteristics of micro-scaled flows, mixing in passive micromixers relies predominantly on chaotic advection effects realized by manipulating the laminar flow within the microchannels or by enhancing molecular diffusion by increasing the contact area and contact time between the different mixing species. Figure 9 summarizes the major forms of passive microfluidic mixing schemes [13–25,58–90]. …”

Infectious Disease Management through Point-of-Care Personalized Medicine Molecular Diagnostic Technologies

“…The requirements for future miniaturized lab-on-a-chip platforms operating at near POC impose the integration of many technical steps typically performed in clinical laboratories, such that a diagnostic result is provided hopefully within 1 hour after sampling [ 45 , 82 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 ]. This task will not be trivial, as there are numerous ways to combine microfluidic components and strategies to address the requirements for near POC testing: 1° rapid prototyping and (mass) microfabrication [ 92 , 93 ], 2° microfluidic circuitry, pumping, and valving [ 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 ], 3° sample preparation and cellular lysis schemes leading to extraction, concentration and/or purification of nucleic acids [ 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 ], and 4° molecular (isothermal) amplification and/or molecular hybridization [ 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 ]. Especially for the management of infectious syndromes at near POC, technology developers must deal with the challenging engineering tasks of (1) handling biochemically complex samples with relatively large volume (1–30 mL), (2) reducing the sample volume by analyte concentration or purification, and (3) integrating mechanical, thermal, and optical detection processes, to ensure an adequate analytical sensitivity, clinical validity, and user-friendliness of the test.…”

Performance Evaluation of Free-Space Fibre Optic Detection in a Lab-on-Chip for Microorganism

“…In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in labs-on-a-chip (LOC) due to their versatility, ease of fabrication, and a multitude of applications in biosensing and analysis [1]. LOC have emerged as powerful platforms for detection of protein [2], nucleic acids [3], drugs [4,5], and hormones [6,7]. LOC devices are very promising for health monitoring, detection of pollutants, environmental studies, and point-of-care (POC) clinical.…”