Development of molecular separation / analysis device based on electrokinetic effects

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The purpose of this investigation is to develop dielectrophoretic chromatography, where high-frequency high- intensity field is created in aqueous solution using microfabricated electrodes, which is utilized for dielectrophoretic separation and assay of biological molecules. An emphasis is laid on the development of prototypes for practical application, so the team consists of researchers from both university and industry. The results obtained can be summarized as below :1) Fabrication process of the electrodes and PDMS-based fluid channels, as well as quantitative on-chip measurement method of molecular concentration based on fluorescence, are developed.2) With the DEP chromatography with a constant-velocity sample flow, B/F (Bound/Free) separation of avidin-biotin binding, DNA hybridization and antigen-antibody binding are experimentally demonstrated. For the DEP chromatography with pulse-wise injection, pressure-driven on-chip cross-injector is used, and the system is shown to be a very fast separation method for DNA larger than several kilo base-pairs. Its applicability to protein separation is also demonstrated.3) A method to integrate dialysis membrane onto the DEP chromatography chip is also developed. The method uses an opening with sharp edge fabricated by anisotropic etching, on which dialyzing polymer membrane is formed by surface tension. The performance of the dialysis membrane is shown to meet the requirement or the sample pre-treatment for the DEP chromatography.