No abstract

The design and fabrication of a continuous flow μPCR device with very short amplification time and low power consumption is presented. Commercially available, 4-layer printed circuit board (PCB) substrates are employed, with inhouse designed yet industrially manufactured embedded Cu micro-resistive heaters lying at very close distance from the microfluidic network, where DNA amplification takes place. The 1.9 m-long microchannel in combination with desirably high flow velocities (for fast amplification) challenged the robustness of the sealing, that was overcome with the development of a novel bonding method rendering the microdevice robust even at extreme pressure drops (12 bars). The proposed fabrication methods are PCB compatible, allowing for mass and reliable production of the μPCR device in the established PCB industry. The μPCR chip was successfully validated during the amplification of two different DNA fragments (and with different target DNA copies) corresponding to the exon 20 of the BRCA1 gene, and to the plasmid pBR322, a commonly used cloning vector in E. coli. Successful DNA amplification was demonstrated at total reaction

No abstract

Microfluidics is an emerging technology enabling the development of Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems for clinical diagnostics, drug discovery and screening, food safety and environmental analysis. Currently, available nucleic acid diagnostic tests take advantage of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) that allows exponential amplification of portions of nucleic acid sequences that can be used as indicators for the identification of various diseases. At the same time, isothermal methods for DNA amplification are being developed and are preferred for their simplified protocols and the elimination of thermocycling. Here, we present a low-cost and fast DNA amplification device for isothermal Helicase Dependent Amplification (HDA) implemented in the detection of mutations related to breast cancer as well as the detection of Salmonella pathogens. The device is fabricated by mass production amenable technologies on printed circuit board (PCB) substrates, where copper facilitates the incorporation of on-chip microheaters, defining the thermal zone necessary for isothermal amplification methods.

microscopy, while it is further validated for enzymatic digestion of DNA. The latter is achieved even within 30 s of sufficient mixing of DNA and enzyme solutions through the SAM. Despite the numerous works on micromixers, the labyrinth-SAM is a novel design of an efficient passive micromixer. The efficiency together with its simplicity, which is manifested by (a) the planar (and not complex three-dimensional) geometry, (b) the two-inlet, instead of multiple-inlet, configuration, (c) the small number of fabrication steps, and (d) the compatibility with mass production, makes the proposed micromixer a good candidate for integration in bioanalytical miniaturized platforms.