Microsystems

Within the CDP Center, new approaches to biological experimentation have focused on the development of microfabricated "labs on a chip." While commercial labs on a chip exist for simple procedures in the analysis of DNA and RNA, none have the ability to derive protein activity information from cells. The construction of devices in which cells can be grown, stimulated with ligand, sorted, lysed and analyzed for specific changes in protein concentration or modification represents a major challenge. Fundamentally new technologies for concentrating biomolecules and for detecting them label-free must be developed, and methods to link dissimilar devices together must be developed. The potential of microdevices to facilitate biological detection was demonstrated several years ago based on the bending of microcantilevers. However, when these cantilevers were immersed in liquid to sense biomolecules their resonant qualities deteriorated substantially, and this limited their ability to measure mass. Scott Manalis had the clever idea of limiting the liquid environment to the inside of a hollow cantilever and then suspending the entire device in vacuum. These hollow cantilevers have been shown to work well and the Manalis lab is currently in the process of linking them to upstream processing and separation devices.