MODULAR INTEGRATED MICROARRAY ANALYSIS CELL

在过去的几年里，精细排列的生物样本被加速用于基因表达、SNP分析、药物发现和其他大规模筛选研究。薄膜网格和玻璃载玻片微阵列技术都已被使用，其中玻璃载玻片微阵列技术发展最为迅速。已经使用了几种生成阵列的技术，但也许最简单和最广泛使用的是基于针的阵列，其中样品通过毛细管作用从带有细点针阵列的微孔板中提取，并以非常精细的阵列“打印”到玻璃载玻片上。目前可用的仪器能够以100至200微米的间隔生产10,000至20,000个样品的阵列载玻片。尽管用于制造和分析阵列的新仪器和软件帮助研究人员取得了重大发现，但这些步骤仍然相对漫长、繁琐、人工密集且容易出错。拟议项目中最雄心勃勃的部分是重新排列仪器。这个重组器将能够随机访问库中的单个样本，并将一个子集组装成一个新的库。这是在排序和阵列之前从较大的库中选择样本的重要步骤。第二期项目将包括设计、建造和测试功能齐全的原型仪器。建议的商业应用：这项工作将导致性能先进的商业重排机器人。这将使研究人员能够使用高通量筛选分析更快地做出重要发现。此外，拟议的重新排列机器人将在微阵列分析之外的生物和化学实验室的其他应用中具有商业用途，包括DNA测序，药物发现和组合化学。

Over just the past few years, there has been an accelerated use of finely arrayed biological samples for gene expression, SNP analysis, drug discovery and other large-scale screening studies. Both membrane gridding and glass-slide microarraying methods have been used, with glass-slide microarraying techniques advancing most rapidly. Several techniques for generating arrays have been used, but perhaps the simplest and most widely utilized is pin-based arraying, wherein samples are extracted through capillary action from a microwell plate with an array of fine-point pins and "printed" onto glass slides in a very fine array. Currently available instruments are capable of producing arrayed slides with 10,000 to 20,000 samples at 100 to 200 micron spacing. Although new instrumentation and software for making and analyzing arrays have helped researchers make significant discoveries, the steps are still relatively lengthy, cumbersome, manually intensive and prone to error. The most ambitious portion of the proposed project is a rearraying instrument. This rearrayer will be able to randomly access individual samples from a library and assemble a subset into a new library. This is an important step in sub-selecting samples from a larger library prior to PCRing and arraying. The Phase II project will involve the design, construction and testing of fully functional prototype instruments. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: This work will result in advanced-performance commercial rearraying robots. These will allow researchers to more rapidly make important discoveries using high-throughput screening assays. In addition, the proposed rearraying robot will be commercially useful for other applications in biology and chemistry laboratories outside of microarray analysis including DNA sequencing, drug discovery and combinatorial chemistry.