Piezoelectric Pipetting Technology for DNA Analysis

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究遵循两条不同但互补的路径。其中一种途径涉及开发和测试新型压电移液、分配、传感和外壳技术，并将其集成到全自动压电移液系统中。基于创新的压电技术可以移取亚纳升体积的液体并连续监测以检测堵塞的吸头和其他操作状态。另一条途径涉及与 Fred Hutchinson 癌症研究中心 (F.H.C.R.C.) 合作进行癌症相关基因组学研究，以使用拟议的压电移液系统 1) 开发更强大的寡核苷酸或基于 cDNA 的微阵列平台用于基因表达分析，2) 完成基于 cDNA 微阵列的平台的开发，用于同步基因分型和基因表达监测，3) 开发新颖的、基于高通量 DNA 微阵列的细胞功能测定法，这将使得可以在基因组规模上测定沉默特定基因的表型效应。一方面，分子生物学研究提供了实际应用，有助于集中设计压电移液系统并验证其性能。另一方面，该系统在可靠性、速度、实验设计灵活性、斑点再现性和密度方面提供了使能技术，使癌症基因组学和功能基因组学相关研究变得可行。拟议研究的最终目标是将这两条路径结合在一起，形成一个功能齐全且经过测试的通用、自动化、压电流体移液系统，其可靠性和性能可增强癌症相关、基因组和功能基因组学研究的可靠性和性能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research follows two distinct yet complementary paths. One path involves developing and testing novel piezoelectric pipetting, dispensing, sensing and housing technology and integrating this into a fully automated piezoelectric pipetting system. Innovative piezoelectric-based technology enables pipetting of sub-nanoliter volumes of fluid and continuous monitoring to detect clogged tips and other operational states. The other path involves doing cancer-related genomics research in collaborative studies with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (F.H.C.R.C.) to use the proposed piezoelectric pipetting system to 1) develop more robust oligonucleotide or cDNA-based microarray platforms for gene expression analyses, 2) complete the development of a cDNA microarray-based platform for simultaneous genotyping and gene expression monitoring and 3) develop novel, high-throughput DNA microarray-based assays of cellular function that will make it possible to assay phenotypic effects of silencing specific genes on a genomic scale. On the one hand, the molecular-biology research provides a real-world application to help focus the design of the piezoelectric pipetting system and validate its performance. On the other hand, the system provides the enabling technology in terms of reliability, speed, experiment design flexibility, spot reproducibility and density to make the cancer genomics and functional genomics related research feasible. The ultimate goal of the proposed research is to have the two paths come together, resulting in a fully functional and tested general-purpose, automated, piezoelectric, fluid pipetting system with the reliability and performance to empower cancer related, genomic and functional genomics research.