Microfluidic technology refers to distinct behavior, precise control and manipulation of small amount of fluid down to sub-millimeter scale (10^-9 to 10^-18 liters). Over the last 10 years, microfluidics offers a great platform that has speeded up the development in multi-disciplinary areas such as chemical biology and biochemistry. There are four parental fields in microfluidics - molecular analysis, biodefence, molecular biology and microelectronics. First came analysis. The distant origins of microfluidics lie in microanalytical methods. Capillary electrophoresis provides high resolution and high sensitivity in chemical analysis using very small amount of samples. However, a high throughput system is required to shorten the analysis time and parallel processing especially in biological...[ Read more ]

Microfluidic technology refers to distinct behavior, precise control and manipulation of small amount of fluid down to sub-millimeter scale (10^-9 to 10^-18 liters). Over the last 10 years, microfluidics offers a great platform that has speeded up the development in multi-disciplinary areas such as chemical biology and biochemistry. There are four parental fields in microfluidics - molecular analysis, biodefence, molecular biology and microelectronics. First came analysis. The distant origins of microfluidics lie in microanalytical methods. Capillary electrophoresis provides high resolution and high sensitivity in chemical analysis using very small amount of samples. However, a high throughput system is required to shorten the analysis time and parallel processing especially in biological investigation and drug discovery.

In this study, we have focused on fabrication of parallel electrophoresis chip and its application in detection of microbial in a high throughput way. In the first part, I have compared the performance of the chip with conventional T-cross chip by separation of three FITC-labeled amino acids. Then, we further apply the chip to detect two microorganisms stained by fluorescent dye – Nile blue. The chip provides a good platform for high throughput analysis in clinical assay, food safety control, and environmental monitoring.