January 6, 2005
One of biology's great technological needs is to have at hand miniaturized devices that rapidly isolate cells and bioparticles for further analysis in the laboratory. To answer this need, scientists have begun designing increasingly sophisticated automated bioprocessors that employ electrokinetic forces to gather cells and biomolecules. In the December 1, 2004 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry, NIDCR grantees and colleagues describe their preliminary work on a microfluidic bioprocessor that integrates three different types of electrokinetic force to convey and concentrate biomolecules of various sizes. As the authors noted, by optimizing their operating parameters, the bioprocessor could concentrate fragments of single stranded DNA as small as 20 bases and with a radius of only three nanometers.