Towards low cost disposable high throughput screening devices

Microarrays have become one of the most convenient tools for high throughput screening, supporting major advances in genomics and proteomics. Other important applications can be found in medical diagnostics, detection of biothreats, drug discovery, etc. Integration of microarrays with microfluidic devices can be highly advantageous in terms of portability, shorter analysis time and lower consumption of expensive biological analytes. Since fabrication of microfluidic devices using traditional materials such as glass is rather expensive, there is a high interest in employing polymeric materials as a low cost alternative that is suitable for mass production. A number of commercially available plastic materials were reviewed for this purpose and poly(methylmethacrylate) and Zeonor\u2122 1060R were identified as promising candidates, for which methods for surface modification and covalent immobilization of DNA oligonucleotide were developed. In addition, we present proof-of-concept plastic-based microarrays with and without integration with microfluidics.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye