• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Friday, August 29, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Bioengineering

Building a Biochemistry Lab on a Chip

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
November 27, 2013
in Bioengineering
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Miniaturized laboratory-on-chip systems promise rapid, sensitive, and multiplexed detection of biological samples for medical diagnostics, drug discovery, and high-throughput screening.

Cross-section of device with a droplet. The left side shows an unheated droplet with the DNA FRET construct in the double-stranded form. The right side shows a heated droplet where the FRET construct has denatured, resulting in an increase in fluorescence. Image: University of Illinois
Cross-section of device with a droplet. The left side shows an unheated droplet with the DNA FRET construct in the double-stranded form. The right side shows a heated droplet where the FRET construct has denatured, resulting in an increase in fluorescence. Image: University of Illinois

Using micro-fabrication techniques and incorporating a unique design of transistor-based heating, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are further advancing the use of silicon transistor and electronics into chemistry and biology for point-of-care diagnostics.

Lab-on-a-chip technologies are attractive as they require fewer reagents, have lower detection limits, allow for parallel analyses, and can have a smaller footprint.

“Integration of various laboratory functions onto microchips has been intensely studied for many years,” explained Rashid Bashir, an Abel Bliss Professor of electrical and computer engineering and of bioengineering at Illinois. “Further advances of these technologies require the ability to integrate additional elements, such as the miniaturized heating element, and the ability to integrate heating elements in a massively parallel format compatible with silicon technology.

“In this work, we demonstrated that we can heat nanolitre volume droplets, individually and in an array, using VLSI silicon based devices, up to temperatures that make it interesting to do various biochemical reactions within these droplets.”

“Our method positions droplets on an array of individual silicon microwave heaters on chip to precisely control the temperature of droplets-in-air, allowing us to perform biochemical reactions, including DNA melting and detection of single base mismatches,” said Eric Salm, first author of the paper, “Ultralocalized thermal reactions in subnanoliter droplets-in-air,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) on February 12.

According to Salm, approaches to perform localized heating of these individual subnanolitre droplets can allow for new applications that require parallel, time-, and space multiplex reactions on a single integrated circuit. Within miniaturized laboratory-on-chips, static and dynamic droplets of fluids in different immiscible media have been used as individual vessels to perform biochemical reactions and confine the products.

“This technology makes it possible to do cell lysing and nucleic acid amplification reactions within these individual droplets – the droplets are the reaction vessels or cuvettes that can be individually heated,” Salm added.

“We also demonstrate that ssDNA probe molecules can be placed on heaters in solution, dried, and then rehydrated by ssDNA target molecules in droplets for hybridization and detection,” said Bashir, who is director of the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory at Illinois. “This platform enables many applications in droplets including hybridization of low copy number DNA molecules, lysing of single cells, interrogation of ligand–receptor interactions, and rapid temperature cycling for amplification of DNA molecules.

“Notably,” Bashir added, “our miniaturized heater could also function as dual heater/sensor elements, as these silicon-on-insulator nanowire or nanoribbon structures have been used to detect DNA, proteins, pH, and pyrophosphates.

By using microfabrication techniques and incorporating the unique design of transistor-based heating with individual reaction volumes, ‘laboratory-on-a-chip’ technologies can be scaled down to ‘laboratory-on-a-transistor’ technologies as sensor/heater hybrids that could be used for point-of-care diagnostics.”

In addition to Salm and Bashir, co-authors of the study included Carlos Duarte Guevara, Piyush Dak, Brian Ross Dorvel, and Bobby Reddy, Jr. at the University of Illinois; and Muhammad Ashraf Alam, Birck Nanotechnology Center and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Illinois, Rick Kubetz.

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Why is the first Turkish bioengineering promotion website, Biyomuhendislik.com, so important?

February 4, 2023

Robo-fish

September 19, 2016

Mice born from ‘tricked’ eggs

September 17, 2016

UCLA researchers use stem cells to grow 3-D lung-in-a-dish

September 16, 2016
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    151 shares
    Share 60 Tweet 38
  • Molecules in Focus: Capturing the Timeless Dance of Particles

    142 shares
    Share 57 Tweet 36
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    116 shares
    Share 46 Tweet 29
  • Neuropsychiatric Risks Linked to COVID-19 Revealed

    82 shares
    Share 33 Tweet 21

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Measuring Friction in Athletic Track Testing

Boosting Pichia kudriavzevii Efficiency with Wheatstraw Biomass

Enhanced Neural Network Optimizes Railway Shunting Routes

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.