Microchip-Based Assay Systems

This volume explores recent progress in the microelectronics arena, theresultant miniaturization of component device features to nanometersize particles, and the ensuing growth in the development and use ofmicrochip-based techniques in leading laboratories around the world.While the area of microelectronics is faced with daunting challenges,it promises fascinating new advances that may translate into productssuch as sensors and devices that use nanometer-sized building blocksfor real-world applications. The contributors to this volume are partof growing interdisciplinary efforts among pioneers inmicroelectronics, nanoscience, and health that will continue to createexciting new microchip-based applications across a variety of sectors.In the 16 chapters of this volume, leading scientists presenttechnically precise microchip-based assays for a variety ofapplications.Highlights include: methods for microchip electrophoresis for DNAseparation; fabrication of porous polymer monoliths in microfluidicchips for selective nucleic acid concentration and purification; rapidelectrical lysis of bacterial cells in a microfluidic device; anon-chip bioassay that uses immobilized sensing bacteria in athree-dimensional microfluidic network; and impedimetric detection forDNA hybridization within microfluidic biochips. Molecular diagnosticand immunologic protocols include microchip-based enumeration of humanwhite blood cells; microchip diagnosis of cervical cancer; protocolsfor DNA microchips toward molecular signatures in cervical cancer; amicrochip based assay for Interleukin-6; and methods formicrochip-based electrochemical enzyme immunoassays. Several chaptersare devoted to topics in microarray technology, including: applicationsof functional protein microarrays; allergen microarrays for thediagnosis of specific IgE in a multiplex biochip-based immunoassay;protein-array based multiplexed cytokine assays; and lectin microarraysfor glycoprotein assays.